2024 Heavy Snow Agricultural Activities Guide

The Big Snow solar term marks a further drop in temperature. Most parts of China begin to enter a cold winter, and farmers should pay attention to agricultural production at this time. The temperature in the northern region has dropped below 0℃ or even lower, and although the southern region is relatively warm, there will also be a significant drop in temperature. Below, I will introduce the 2024 Heavy Snow Agricultural Activities Guide, let’s take a look.

1. Crop Management

1. Keep warm and protect against cold

For vegetable crops grown in greenhouses , measures should be taken to open the covers early and cover them late to expose them to more sunlight in order to increase the temperature and promote growth. Wintering vegetables in the open field, such as cabbage, cauliflower and onion, should be watered in time to prevent the cold. In the Jianghuai and southern regions, wheat and rapeseed are still growing slowly. We must pay attention to applying fertilizer to lay a good foundation for safe wintering and growth in the spring. At the same time, you can use straw or rice straw to cover the ground to prevent frost.

2. Cultivation management

For row-till crops, such as rapeseed, it is necessary to cultivate the land frequently and more often to achieve the effects of increasing temperature, conserving moisture, weeding, preventing diseases and pests, and loosening the soil. Crops such as tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers that are harvested in autumn and winter are in the flowering and fruiting period. It is necessary to strengthen management such as tillage and loosening the soil , tying up vines, pruning and trimming branches, assisted pollination, and thinning flowers and fruits to encourage more fruits with a high commercial rate.

3. Fertilizer and water management

It is the right time to plant cucumbers, zucchini and other melon crops that have overwintered. Fertilization and land preparation should be done well, sunny days should be chosen for planting, and sufficient water should be given. Control the amount of nitrogen fertilizer applied. Nitrogen fertilizer can easily reduce the cold resistance of seedlings in the stage of seedlings. The amount of nitrogen fertilizer should be appropriately reduced, and the use of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers should be increased. Increasing the amount of organic fertilizer applied and cultivating warm farmyard manure such as pig and cow manure or soil and miscellaneous fertilizer at the roots of vegetable plants can increase the ground temperature at the roots of vegetables.

2. Fruit Tree Management

1. Pruning

Most fruit trees enter a dormant period, but the inside of the trees are still active, so pruning management is still required in orchards during winter. Deciduous fruit trees such as peaches, pears, and grapes should be pruned in a timely manner, usually before the Spring Festival. The main measures taken are pruning, thinning branches and bud thinning. Young trees should also be pulled up, and through winter pruning, the crown can be cultivated into a reasonable and high-yielding tree shape.

2. Garden cleaning

After winter pruning of fruit trees, dead branches, diseased leaves, dead fruits, broken leaves, etc. in the orchard should be removed, and diseased spots on branches and trunks should be scraped off to reduce the base number of overwintering pests and diseases in the orchard.

3. Protect against cold weather

Add turf soil, pond mud, local fertilizer, etc. to thicken the soil layer and protect the roots from cold. For young trees, nurseries, etc., you can use straw mats, woven bags, and films to build frost-proof sheds, and set up windbreaks and other coverings to keep warm.

3. Tea Garden Management

1. Apply heavy basal fertilizer

If the fertilizer applied to the tea garden in autumn and winter is sufficient in quantity and complete in nutrition, the spring tea of ​​the following year will sprout early, have a high yield and good quality. The main organic fertilizers that can be used as base fertilizers include vegetable cake, livestock and poultry manure, compost and various soil and miscellaneous fertilizers. At the same time, appropriate amounts of quick-acting commercial nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers should also be applied.

2. Garden cleaning management

Bury the weeds and pruned branches and leaves of the tea trees deep in the soil, and plow the soil with a hoe. Plow shallowly inside the crown and deeply outside the crown, and beat the soil into small pieces and rake it flat. Diseased trees with tea sooty disease, leaf blight and tea cake disease should be dug out with their roots and burned in time. Check the old leaves and branches of the tea trees and remove any branches and leaves with insect eggs, insect bags or insect cocoons in a timely manner and burn them in a centralized location.

3. Tea garden closure

After cleaning the garden, use lime sulfur mixture (no more than 0.5 degrees Baume) to spray the entire tea garden, including the edges of the tea fields, ridges and bank sides. Spray until the fields are wet. This can effectively reduce overwintering pests and pathogens.

The above is an introduction to the 2024 Big Snow Agricultural Activity Guide. The Big Snow solar term marks the beginning of the mid-winter season. Farmers must seize the farming time and take measures to keep crops, fruit trees, etc. warm and frost-proof.