How to grow safflower? Latest cultivation techniques and methods tutorial
Safflower belongs to the Asteraceae family and is an annual or biennial (autumn-sown) herbaceous plant with a long history of cultivation. It is a famous medicinal plant and has the effects of activating blood circulation and regulating menstruation, and removing blood stasis and relieving pain. Safflower oil is suitable for various types of atherosclerosis, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, stroke, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, heart failure and other conditions. Therefore, the consumption of safflower has increased sharply at home and abroad. However, in the process of safflower cultivation, because some production factors are neglected, safflower yields are relatively low.
Site selection and land preparation
1. Site selection Safflower has strong adaptability and can be planted below an altitude of 2100 m in our county. It prefers a warm, dry, and sunny climate, is drought-tolerant and cold-tolerant, and avoids high temperature and high humidity. Sandy soil with medium fertility and good drainage is suitable. It should not be planted on low-lying, waterlogged clay soil.
2. Land preparation Because safflower cultivation in our county all uses autumn planting, previous crops of soybean, peanut, flue-cured tobacco, and corn are all suitable. When preparing the land, it is only necessary to deep-plow the plot once, remove dead branches and weeds, and break up clods, so that the soil is fine and the ground is level; paddy fields can be planted using no-till cultivation.
Timely sowing and reasonable close planting
1. Adjust the sowing period. Safflower is a long-day plant, and yields differ with different sowing periods. Early sowing gives higher yields, and late sowing gives lower yields, so sowing should be early rather than late. Safflower seedlings are relatively cold-tolerant and can withstand a low temperature of -6.6°C, and some varieties can withstand a low temperature of -15°C. Therefore, safflower is generally sown in early October; in cool mountainous dryland areas, it can be sown in mid- and late September, that is, planting in the “corn feet” before the corn is harvested.
2. Seed treatment To ensure high and stable yields, ensuring uniform and strong seedlings is key. For this, the seeds need to be soaked in clean water for 6—8 hours to allow them to fully absorb water and ensure emergence. The sowing rate per mu is 1—2 kg.
3. Reasonable close planting
Plant spacing at 6 cun—7 cun, row spacing at 9 cun—1 chi, hole depth 2—3 cun, sowing 3—4 seeds per hole, ensuring 10000—13000 holes per mu, leaving 2 plants per hole to maintain 20000—26000 effective plants per mu, but appropriate adjustments should also be made according to the following conditions:
(1) Whether it is dryland or irrigated land. Dryland is suitable for sparse planting, especially in years of insufficient rain; too dense planting may reduce yield.
(2) Sowing period. Late sowing is suitable for close planting; early sowing is suitable for sparse planting.
(3) Every 4 rows, half a row must be left empty so that workers can enter the field to pick flowers.
When sowing, special attention must be paid to keeping the base fertilizer and seeds separate. For base fertilizer, 15 kg of compound fertilizer or 5 kg of urea can be used per mu (to ensure emergence, chemical fertilizer is generally not applied as base fertilizer, and is used as topdressing after the seedlings are uniform), and 1000 kg of farmyard manure per mu. The depth of the covering soil should not exceed 2 cun. In principle, when covering with soil, appropriate compaction is required, as this is more conducive to seedling emergence.
Cultivation management
1. Thinning: Plant according to the specifications of 6—7 cun plant spacing and 9 cun—1 chi row spacing. After the seedlings are uniform, keep only 2 plants per hole, remove diseased and weak seedlings or overly large and small plants, and retain the middle plants.
2. Reasonable irrigation
Safflower has a strong root system and can absorb water from deep in the soil. It can still produce some harvest without irrigation, but the highest safflower yield is obtained under irrigation. The average seed yields of safflower irrigated 1, 2, 3, and 4 times were 29%, 44%, 58%, and 76% higher than those without irrigation, respectively. Because both the aboveground and underground parts of safflower are very sensitive to water, irrigation technique is also key to successful safflower cultivation. If done improperly, even in arid areas with only 29.4 mm of precipitation, excessive irrigation can cause massive safflower death. Therefore, irrigation must be done with extreme caution, and the following points should be noted technically:
(1) Before irrigation, check the soil moisture status. If the subsoil reached by the safflower root system is still moist, do not irrigate.
(2) If the weather forecast predicts rain within 2-3 days, it is best to temporarily refrain from watering.
(3) Except when seedlings are relatively moisture-tolerant at low temperatures, safflower is very sensitive to water at other growth stages. Sprinkler irrigation easily causes rust and wilt, and flood irrigation easily causes root rot, all of which must be avoided. Furrow irrigation must be used, preferably alternate-row furrow irrigation, which both saves water and is safest.
(4) After irrigation is completed, the drainage system needs to be cleared in time to avoid water accumulation if it rains.
(5) The last watering should be carried out 5 days before 95% of the flower heads bloom.
3. Fertilizer management
Safflower is well known for being drought-tolerant, salt-alkali-tolerant, and barren-tolerant. Therefore, most growers in safflower planting areas plant safflower in low-fertility soil, and most growers mistakenly believe that safflower does not need additional fertilizer; on the contrary, another group of growers apply more fertilizer to obtain high safflower yields, also resulting in increased production without increased income.
The fertilizer demand of safflower generally depends on the natural soil fertility, moisture conditions, sowing period, and so on. When the soil is fertile, nitrogen fertilizer may not be applied or may be applied less. Generally, on low- to medium-fertility soil with irrigation conditions, after seedling establishment, combine intertillage and weeding and apply 5—8 kg of urea to promote seedling growth; by the bud stage, apply 10—15 kg of urea per mu. On dryland without irrigation conditions, nitrogen fertilizer may not be applied (or 5-10 kg of urea per mu may be applied before heavy rain, or urea may be applied with water); applying trace fertilizers to safflower has an obvious yield-increasing effect. Generally, starting from bud emergence, spray once every 7-10 days, and potassium dihydrogen phosphate, organic calcium fertilizer, liquid multi-element potassium fertilizer, potassium sulfate, boron sulfate, and other trace fertilizers may be selected, for a total of 3-4 sprays.
4. Disease control
① Rust: High humidity favors the occurrence of rust. Spores spread with the wind, and teliospores and telial pustules overwinter on diseased residues. In late spring and early summer, when the temperature is low or moderate and humidity is relatively high, it infects the leaf surface and causes leaves to wither and die. Control methods: seed treatment, mixing seeds with 15% triadimefon at 0.2%-0.4% of the seed amount; clean the field, collect and burn diseased residues, and implement crop rotation of more than 2-3 years; chemical control, spray fungicides promptly at the early stage of disease, once every 7-10 days, for 2-3 consecutive times, using 20% triadimefon emulsifiable concentrate 0.1% solution, 0.3° Baume lime sulfur mixture, and other agents applied alternately.
② Fusarium wilt: Fusarium wilt is also called root rot. The pathogen mainly damages the roots. At the early stage of disease, brown spots appear on the root crown, and a pink sticky substance appears on the surface of the stem base, ultimately causing the base cortex and fibrous roots to rot and leading to plant death. In mild cases, losses are 10%-20%; in severe cases, the entire field may be destroyed. Control methods: strictly implement crop rotation without continuous cropping, maintain good soil drainage; promptly pull out diseased plants and burn them, disinfect diseased holes with lime; remove dead branches, fallen leaves, and weeds in the field to eliminate overwintering pathogens; irrigate roots with 50% carbendazim, 50% dexon 0.17%-0.20% solution, and so on.
5. Earthing up: After safflower bolts, the upper part has many branches and is prone to lodging, so earthing up should be carried out in early March.
6. Topping: When safflower plants reach 20—30 cm in height, pinch off the terminal buds to promote more branching, increase the number of flower buds, and raise safflower yield.
Harvesting and processing
After safflower is sown, it generally flowers in 4—5 months. At first it is * and later turns orange*, at which point it can be picked. One flower bud can be picked 3-5 times. Picking at the right time is key to increasing safflower yield. After safflower is picked, dry it in a ventilated and dry place. After the flowers are picked, the seeds mature in 15-20 days, and can be harvested and threshed.