Cultivation techniques of safflower

Carthamus tinctorius belongs to Compositae 1-year-old or 2-year-old herbs (autumn sowing). It has a long history of cultivation and is a famous medicinal plant with the effect of promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis and relieving pain. Safflower oil is suitable for all types of atherosclerosis, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, stroke, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, heart failure and other diseases. As a result, the consumption of safflower at home and abroad has increased sharply. However, in the process of safflower cultivation, the yield of safflower is on the low side because some production factors are ignored.

Land selection and preparation

1. Carthamus tinctorius has strong adaptability and can be planted below 2100 meters in our county. It likes warm, dry, sunny climate, drought and cold tolerance, avoid high temperature and humidity, and sandy soil with medium fertility and good drainage is suitable. It is not suitable to grow on clay with low-lying water.

2. Because the safflower is planted in autumn in our county, the previous crops are soybeans, peanuts, flue-cured tobacco and corn. When preparing the land, we only need to turn the plot over deeply, remove the dead branches and weeds, break the soil into small pieces, and make the soil even; the paddy field can be planted in the way of no-tillage.

Timely sowing and reasonable close planting

The main results are as follows: 1. Adjust the sowing date, the yield of safflower is different in different sowing date, the yield of early sower is high, the yield of late sower is low, so sowing should be early rather than late. Carthamus tinctorius seedlings are cold-tolerant, able to withstand-6.6 ℃ low temperature, and some varieties can withstand-15 ℃ low temperature, so safflower seedlings are usually sown in early October, and dryland in cold mountain areas can be sown in mid-and late September, that is, corn feet can be dug up before corn harvest.

2. Seed treatment is the key to ensure high and stable yield. Therefore, seeds should be soaked in clean water for 8 hours to fully absorb water to ensure seedling emergence. The amount of seed used per mu is 1ml and 2kg.

3. Reasonable close planting

The plant spacing is 6 inch to 7 inch, the row spacing is 9 inch to 1 foot, the pond depth is 2 mi 3 inch, and each pond is sown with 3 mi 4 seeds to ensure that there will be 10 000 trees per mu and 13 000 trees per mu, and that 2 plants per mu can effectively protect 26 000 plants per mu, but appropriate adjustments should also be made according to the following conditions:

(1) whether dry land or irrigated land should be sparsely planted, especially in years of lack of rain, too dense may reduce yield.

(2) the sowing time should be late, close planting, early sowing and sparse planting.

(3) half a row shall be vacated every 4 rows to enter the ground to pick flowers.

When sowing, special attention should be paid to the fact that the seeds of base fertilizer must be opened. Base fertilizer per mu can use 15 kg compound fertilizer or 5 kg urea (in order to ensure seedling emergence, generally do not use chemical fertilizer as base fertilizer, wait for seedlings to be used as topdressing), 1000 kg farm manure per mu. The depth of the covered soil layer is not more than 2 inches, which in principle requires proper vibration and pressure when covering the soil, which is more conducive to the emergence of seedlings.

Ploughing management

The main results are as follows: 1. Inter-seedling: plant according to the specification of plant spacing of 7 inches and row spacing of 9 inches-1 foot. After the seedlings are complete, only 2 plants are left in each pond, and the diseased and weak seedlings or too large and small plants are removed, and the intermediate plants are retained.

2. Rational irrigation

Carthamus tinctorius has strong roots, can absorb water from the depths of the soil, and can still be harvested without irrigation, but the highest yield of safflower is obtained under irrigation. The average seed yield of safflower irrigated for 1, 2, 3 and 4 times was 29%, 44%, 58% and 76% higher than that without irrigation. As the aboveground and underground parts of Carthamus tinctorius are very sensitive to water, irrigation technology is also the key to the success of safflower cultivation. If improper, even in arid areas with only 29.4mm precipitation, a large number of safflower can die due to excessive irrigation. Therefore, irrigation must be extremely cautious, and technical attention should be paid to the following points:

(1) check the moisture status of the soil before irrigation. If the subsoil where the safflower roots reach is still moist, do not irrigate.

(2) if the weather is forecast to rain within 2-3 days, it is best not to water it for the time being.

(3) Carthamus tinctorius is sensitive to water in other growth stages except that it is more tolerant to moisture at low temperature. Sprinkler irrigation is easy to cause rust and Fusarium wilt, and flooding irrigation is easy to cause root rot, which should be avoided. Furrow irrigation must be used, preferably interlaced furrow irrigation, so as to save water and be the safest.

(4) after irrigation, the drainage system should be dredged in time to avoid rain and stagnant water.

(5) the last watering should be carried out 5 days before 95% of the bouquet blossoms.

3. Fertilizer management

The characteristics of drought tolerance, saline-alkali tolerance and barren tolerance of safflower are well known, so most growers in safflower planting areas plant safflower in low fertility soil, and most growers mistakenly think that safflower does not need to apply more fertilizer; on the contrary, another part of growers apply more fertilizer in order to obtain high yield of safflower, which also results in increasing production without increasing income.

Safflower's demand for fertilizer generally depends on soil natural fertility, water status, sowing date, etc., when the soil is fertile, there can be no or less application of nitrogen fertilizer, generally medium and low fertility soil with irrigation conditions, combined with mid-ploughing and weeding after seedling determination, topdressing urea 5m ~ 8kg to raise seedlings, and applying 1015kg urea per mu to the bud stage. In dry land without irrigation condition, nitrogen fertilizer can not be applied (urea 5~10kg can also be applied per mu before heavy rain, or urea can be irrigated with water), trace fertilizer can be applied to safflower, the effect of increasing yield is obvious, generally starting from budding, spraying once every 7-10 days, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, organic calcium fertilizer, liquid multi-potash fertilizer, potassium sulfate, boron sulfate and other micro-fertilizers can be selected for a total of 3 times.

4. Disease control

① rust: high humidity is conducive to the occurrence of rust, spores spread with the wind, overwintering with winter spores and winter spores on the diseased remains, infecting leaves at low temperature or moderate temperature and high humidity in late spring and early summer, causing leaf death. Prevention and control methods: seed treatment, seed dressing with 15% trimethoprim, dosage of 0.2%-0.4% of seed amount; cleaning the countryside, concentrated burning of disease and residue, rotation for more than 2-3 years; chemical control, spraying fungicides in time at the initial stage of the disease, spraying once in 7-10 days for 2-3 times in a row, and alternately spraying 0.1% solution of 20% triadimefon EC and 0.3 °stone-sulfur mixture of Baume.

② Fusarium wilt: Fusarium wilt, also known as root rot, mainly harms the root. In the initial stage, the root shows brown spots and pink sticky matter on the surface of the stem, which eventually leads to the rot of the basal cortex and fibrous root, resulting in plant death. The patients with mild disease lost 10-20%, and those with severe disease could be destroyed in the whole field. Prevention and control methods: to strictly ensure that rotation is not continuous cropping, to maintain good soil drainage; timely removal of diseased plants and burning, disinfection of disease holes with lime; removal of litter and weeds in the field to eliminate overwintering pathogens; irrigation with 50% carbendazim, 50% dimethazone 0.17% 0.20% solution and so on.

5. Soil cultivation: after safflower stems, there are many branches on the upper part, so it is easy to lodge, so soil cultivation is carried out in early March.

6. Topping: when the safflower plant is as high as 20mur30cm, pinch off the terminal bud, promote the increase of branches, increase the number of buds, and increase the yield of safflower.

Harvest and processing

After sowing, safflower usually blossoms in 5 months, initially for *, and then becomes orange *, which can be picked. A flower bud can be picked 3-5 times. Picking without losing no time is the key to increase the yield of safflower. After picking safflower, leave it in a ventilated and dry place to dry. 15-20 days after flower picking, the seeds are ripe and can be harvested and beaten.