How to manage Pepper seedlings in warm Winter Climate

In recent years, with the global warming, the winter temperature is getting higher and higher, Yongzhou City last winter and this spring appeared several higher temperatures than the same period, such a continuous high temperature caused the excessive growth of pepper seedlings, brought great difficulties to the cultivation of strong seedlings, especially continuous high temperature, sudden low temperature, and suddenly sunny, will cause pepper new leaves to lose water, wilt, and lead to the epidemic of Botrytis cinerea. In this case, the incidence of botrytis cinerea in the pepper seedlings of the garden department of our hospital reached 10%, and some serious plots reached more than 50%, which seriously affected the strong seedling rate of pepper. We can take the following measures to prevent this situation:

I. early low temperature seedling refining

In general, the conventional seedling raising method does not cool down the seedlings in the early stage, but does not begin to cool and refine the seedlings until 10-15 days before planting, and the shed is no longer closed at night. However, in order to prevent the influence of warm winter, it is required to consider refining seedlings after they are unearthed, so as to enhance the cold resistance of seedlings and prevent sudden changes in the weather. But at this time, the low temperature refining seedlings should not be excessive, otherwise, it is easy to become rigid seedlings, generally adopt the method of closing the shed late (closing the shed only after dark) and opening the shed early (that is, opening the shed in the morning) to make the seedlings get low temperature training. After low temperature training, the color of the seedlings became darker, the leaves thickened, and the ability to resist abrupt weather changes was significantly enhanced.

Second, less watering, squatting seedlings properly

Generally warm winter weather, sunny days, the bed soil is easy to dry, watering opportunities are naturally more, but this can easily lead to seedling growth, too tender. In order to prevent the seedlings from growing, it is required that the bed soil should not be dry and not watered. Even if the bed soil is dry, the watering should be delayed, and the interval of watering should be enlarged. Even if it is a continuous sunny day, it only needs to be watered once, and the leaves will wilt slightly. Spray water can be used in the evening. As long as it is not severe wilting, do not spray water at high temperature at noon, which will make the seedlings more tender and less resistant to stress. Through several years of observation and practice, I found that this method is very beneficial to the cultivation of strong seedlings.

III. Appropriate spraying of paclobutrazol

When it is found that there is a slight trend of overgrowth of seedlings, timely spraying paclobutrazol can effectively prevent overgrowth and water loss and scorching of new leaves. It was observed that only 1% of the seedlings sprayed with paclobutrazol had the phenomenon of water loss and scorching of new leaves. And the time to restore growth after water loss is generally 1 day, no more than 2 days at the latest, the seedlings grow healthily after recovery, rarely infected with Botrytis cinerea. On the other hand, the rate of water loss and scorch of the seedlings without paclobutrazol reached 40%, 50%, or even higher, and it took 3-5 days for the seedlings to resume growth. After resuming growth, the growth potential was weak, and they were extremely vulnerable to Botrytis cinerea. It is worth noting that the concentration of paclobutrazol should not be too high, and it is better to spray paclobutrazol 2000 times, otherwise, the growth point will be inhibited and a large number of lateral branches will occur, affecting yield and prematurity.

The above three measures played a good preventive role in the growth of pepper seedlings, scorched new leaves and loss of water. Once this situation occurs, necessary measures should be taken in time to reduce the loss to a minimum, such as opening the shed early on the morning when the symptoms appear, so as to prevent excessive temperature difference in the shed and aggravate water loss; secondly, spray water with a sprayer, which can be sprayed several times to prevent blade water loss. Near noon, you can also consider covering the sunshade net on the greenhouse to shade and cool down, and then lift the sunshade net in the afternoon. When the situation is serious, it can be covered for several days until the seedlings resume growth.