【976-978】要想吃大而可口的水果，一定要做好果树&越南未来是否禁止摩托车？&巴黎圣母院火后重修
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AS IT IS
For Big, Tasty Fruit, Be Sure to Prune Fruit Trees
April 16, 2019
This undated photo shows part of an apple branch being pruned in New Paltz, N.Y. Apple trees must be pruned eventually to encourage new spurs and avoid overcrowding.
If there is one group of plants that needs continuous care, it is fruit trees.
Fruit trees require a lot of pruning – the careful removal of dead, damaged or unproductive parts to make the tree grow better.
And, with the right pruning, all of the remaining branches get a good amount of sunshine.
Pruning helps fruit trees find a balance between shoot growth and fruit production. That is important for making sure the trees grow large, tasty pieces of fruit every year.
Without this balance, there may not be enough places for tree leaves to grow and fruits to hang.
The young tree
The first years are important to a fruit tree. These early years help trees develop a permanent base of branches to support a lot of fruit and get plenty of sunlight.
Centuries of fruit growing have led to many different kinds of trees, but there are three main ones: the central-leader, the open-center and the modified-central-leader.
That is a lot simpler than it sounds.
The central-leader tree has a large trunk in the center, with shorter and shorter side branches moving up the tree. It is shaped much like a Christmas tree.
The open-center tree looks almost like the opposite of a Christmas tree. It has three or four main parts growing outward and upward.
And, the modified-central-leader tree is a mix of the two: It starts as a central-leader then becomes an open-center.
These three forms let trees get enough sunlight. The ideal form for a tree depends partly on the way it grows naturally.
Get your tree in shape
Here are some ways to keep your fruit tree healthy:
Begin pruning any new tree by cutting broken stems and removing dead or diseased wood. If your new tree has just one stem, shorten it by one-third to support branch growth. If the tree already has many branches, save well-placed stems and cut away all others.
The ideal branch placement starts about six-tenths of a meter above the ground and continues up the trunk, with about 20 centimeters between branches. For open-center trees, cut off the central stem just above the third branch.
For central-leader and modified-central-leader trees, you will need to force the main stem to continue making new branches. This can be done by cutting off about one-third of last season’s growth each year.
The top bud will grow to become an upright shoot and part of the trunk or lead branch. The lower buds will become side branches. Choose new side branches that are well-spaced along the lead branch or trunk.
The mature tree
Once a fruit tree is fully developed, the act of pruning helps create a balance between shoot growth and fruit production. How to get this balance depends on where a tree grows, its flowers and how big its fruits are.
Especially with large fruits, such as apples, individual pieces of fruit are usually too small and less sweet when the tree produces a large crop. Pruning removes some possible fruits so the plant can put more energy into those that remain.
When a tree is old enough to start growing fruit, each year prune some stems and remove others completely. Shorten stems where you want regrowth and more branches. Completely remove stems where you do not want this regrowth, such as where stems are crowded.
The amount of pruning required depends on the kind of tree you are pruning. The younger the stems on which fruits grow, the more stems must be shortened.
At one extreme are peach and nectarine trees. They produce fruit only on stems that grew during the last season. So they need a lot of pruning each year to launch new shoots for the next year’s crop.
Prune enough so that a bird could fly right through the branches.
Apple and pear trees, at the other extreme, grow fruit on long-lived, very short branches called “spurs,” so they need less work. Sometimes, however, even spurs need pruning.
Most other fruit trees require more work than apple trees, and less work than peach trees. Again, completely remove some stems and shorten others to get a good balance of fruiting wood and stem growth.
I’m Alice Bryant. And I’m Susan Shand.
Lee Reich wrote this story for the Associated Press. Alice Bryant adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
_______________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
shoot – n. a new branch and its leaves on an established plant
branch – n. a part of a tree that grows out from the trunk
trunk – n. the thick main part of a tree
stem – n. the main long and thin part of a plant that supports the leaves and flowers
bud – n. a small part that grows on a plant and develops into a flower, leaf, or new branch
AS IT IS
Is a Motorbike Ban in Vietnam's Future?
April 16, 2019
FILE - Motorbikes fill Vo Di Nguy Street in Ho Chi Minh City. (Hai Do)
Any traveler to Vietnam knows a trip to the country is not complete until the traveler tries to cross a road.
The streets are crowded with motorbikes moving at all different speeds, in both directions. It seems a major challenge for a walker. But one quickly learns that motorbike drivers will weave expertly around walkers. There is, in fact, some order to the seeming chaos of the streets.
Vietnam is the land of the motorbike. Last year, Google Maps even created a feature for two-wheel commuters in the country. It provides trip times and road costs just for motorbikes.
So can Vietnam's two biggest cities really ban the transport that its 100 million people depend on every day?
City officials have proposed a motorbike ban in parts of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It is not the first time such an idea has been suggested. Similar proposals have come up over the years. The idea has led to a debate about pollution, traffic problems, city planning, and the fairest way to get people where they need to go.
Supporters of motorbike restrictions argue that they are needed to cut pollution and traffic. But opponents say the public has no alternative. Cars, they say, are too costly and public transportation is limited.
Nguyen Ngoc Dong leads the country’s Ministry of Transport. Vietnam’s official newspaper reports he said, "Hanoi is just now in the process of developing the idea. There are still a lot of issues that need to be researched, assessed, and analyzedbefore making a final plan."
Traffic and pollution
The idea is to ban motorbikes during the busiest parts of the day, or in the busiest parts of the city. Ho Chi Minh City’s population has now grown to 13 million. Its air quality is worsening. Pollution levels sometimes go beyond those in China and India.
Supporters of a ban say if other countries can do it, so can Vietnam. Crowded cities from Beijing to Mexico City have in place restrictions on car use. Some cities, like Stockholm, have barred vehicles from pedestrian zones.
Unlike those places, however, Vietnamese cities do not have enough public transportation to replace motorbikes. Projects to build subway systems have been delayed repeatedly. Commuters do not want to take buses when motorbikes are faster and more convenient, and still low cost. Vespa maker Piaggio Vietnam said a motorbike ban could push people to use cars, which would not help solve the pollution and traffic problems.
"We believe that to meet those objectives, simply banning motorbikes is a radical and not effective solution," Enrico Bruni, the company's head of finance for Asia, said at a business conference last month.
He suggested it would be better to try to educate the public about traffic problems. He said the government should also place controls on vehicle pollution.
Others suggest that Vietnamese officials should try to experiment with ways to redirect traffic, including the use of sensors to measure traffic to permit the rerouting of drivers.
Restrictions would affect some more than others
Some Vietnamese are old enough to remember a time when they would have been lucky to own a bicycle. But today almost everyone has enough money for a motorbike, which costs as little as a few hundred dollars.
Vietnam is the fourth biggest market for motorbikes in the world. The top three, China, India, and Indonesia, each have populations at least double that of Vietnam.
An outright ban of motorbikes seems unlikely if not impossible. The vehicle is deeply embedded in Vietnamese urban life. It is hard to find a picture of a Vietnamese city that does not include a motorbike or two.
It is common to see a family of five riding together on the two-wheeled vehicles. People transport everything from giant pigs to dining tables on their motorbikes. War veterans turn their motorbikes into taxis. And visitors jump on the back of motorbikes for guided food tours of the cities.
Critics say a motorbike ban would hurt the poor, who depend on motorbikes, more than the wealthy, who favor cars.
That is not to say some restrictions do not work. Ho Chi Minh City started limiting motorbikes on the downtown street of Nguyen Hue several years ago. Its residents have since enjoyed walking the street, turning it into a popular public space.
I’m Caty Weaver.
And I'm Bryan Lynn.
Ha Nguyen reported this story for VOA News. Caty Weaver adapted the story for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.
_____________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
weave - v. to move from side to side while going forward especially in order to avoid the people or things that are in front of you
chaos - n. complete confusion and disorder : a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything
commuter - n. to travel regularly to and from a place and especially between where you live and where you work
alternative - n.something that can be chosen instead of something else : a choice or option
convenient - adj. allowing you to do something easily or without trouble
assess - v. to make a judgment about (something)
analyze - v. to study (something) closely and carefully : to learn the nature and relationship of the parts of (something) by a close and careful examination
pedestrian zone - n.an area in which people can walk safely and easily because cars are not permitted
AS IT IS
Notre Dame to Rebuild after the Fire
April 16, 2019
Experts prepare to remove a statue from the damaged Notre Dame cathedral after the fire in Paris, Tuesday, April 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
It took 15 hours for 400 French firefighters to put out the fire at the 850-year-old Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral.
The cathedral, one of Paris's most famous landmarks, lost its spire and roof, but still has its iconic bell towers.
The Crown of Thorns, one of the cathedral’s treasures, was rescued. The crown is believed to have been worn by Jesus Christ at the time of his crucifixion. Other religious statues were removed last week from the cathedral roof as part of the restoration of the church’s spire.
Officials said the world famous 18th century organ that has 8,000 pipes also appeared to have survived. But no one can tell whether it has been damaged by water or will need to be restored. There is also little information on the condition of the cathedral’s stained-glass windows and its many paintings.
A spokesman for Paris's firefighters said on Tuesday morning, "the entire fire is out." He added that workers were "surveying the movement" of the structure and the contents in it.
The Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit told RMC radio, “Notre-Dame was destroyed but the soul of France was not.”
Officials consider the fire to be an accident, possibly as a result of the restoration work at the cathedral. However, investigators will be interviewing people who worked on the cathedral's roof, where the flames first started.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the site on the River Seine Monday night. He pledged that Notre-Dame would be rebuilt. He called the structure "a part of us," referring to the country of France, and he asked for help repairing it.
Germany and Poland were among the countries that offered assistance.
“We are united in sorrow. Notre-Dame is part of the cultural heritage of mankind and a symbol for Europe,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas wrote on Twitter.
French businessmen have also pledged hundreds of millions of euros for reconstruction, including Bernard Arnault, France's richest businessman, and Francois-Henri Pinault and his billionaire father Francois Pinault.
Even so, repairing the cathedral — including the wooden beams that made up its roof — presents problems.
Bertrand de Feydeau is the vice president of preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine. In an interview with the Associated Press, he noted that the cathedral's roof cannot be rebuilt exactly as it was before the fire because “we don’t, at the moment, have trees on our territory of the size that were cut in the 13th century." He added that the roof restoration work would have to use new technologies.
For Olivier Lebib, who has lived in Paris for 40 years, it is necessary for the cathedral to be restored to its former glory.
“Notre-Dame is our sister, it is so sad, we are all mourning — Parisians, French people, tourists, the Chinese, the whole planet,” he said. “Thank God that the stone structure has withstood the fire.”
I'm John Russell.
This story was based on reports from the Associated Press and Reuters. John Russell adapted it for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.
_____________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
spire – n. a tall, narrow, pointed structure on the top of a building
iconic – adj. a widely known symbol
organ – n. a musical instrument that has a keyboard and pipes of different lengths and that makes sound by pushing air through the pipes
crucifixion -- n. an act of killing someone by nailing or tying his or her hands and feet to a cross : an act of crucifying someone
restoration – n. the act or process of returning something to its original condition by repairing it, cleaning it, etc.
preservation – n. the act of keeping something in its original state or in good condition — often + of
mourn – v. to feel or show great sadness or unhappiness about (something)
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