How to manage strawberries in winter? Keep these measures in mind

Strengthen fertilizer and water management. After planting, water thoroughly to settle the roots, watering continuously 2-3 times to keep the soil moist and help the plants establish. When the rainy season arrives, pay attention to drainage. After the transplants have established, apply 5 kg of urea per mu to promote seedling growth. When the plants enter the vigorous growth period (the runner production stage), apply 1-2 topdressings of a three-element compound fertilizer, with each application controlled at 5-8 kg per mu, and strictly avoid high nitrogen.

Remove flower clusters, old leaves and diseased leaves. After the strawberry seedlings are planted, regularly remove the flower buds and flower clusters from the mother plants so that nutrients are concentrated, promoting the mother plants' vegetative growth and runner production. Also regularly remove old leaves and diseased leaves to help the plants get good ventilation and light, and to promote vigorous growth of both mother plants and daughter seedlings.

Tidy the runners. After the mother plants are planted, check the field regularly and keep the runners at a certain spacing. When runners are produced in large numbers, pull apart those that are close to each other so they are evenly distributed, preventing them from crossing or overlapping. At the same time, so that the adventitious roots produced at the runner nodes can penetrate the soil in time, press the runner node segments bearing adventitious roots firmly into the soil with soil.

Cultivation and weeding. Strawberries are fairly sensitive to herbicides, so use herbicides with caution. Under normal circumstances, manual weeding is safe. From the time the mother plants are planted until runners are produced, because of frequent irrigation, the soil tends to become compacted, so shallow inter-row cultivation and loosening of the soil should be carried out to make it easier for the small seedlings to take root.

Pest and disease control. The main common pests of strawberry propagation seedlings are white grubs, aphids and cotton leafworms (Spodoptera litura). The main diseases are snake-eye disease (Ramularia leaf spot) and anthracnose.

White grubs: drench with 90% trichlorfon crystal at 1000 times dilution or 50% phoxim emulsifiable concentrate at 1000 times dilution to kill them.

Aphids: for cotton leafworm (Spodoptera litura), spray with 10% imidacloprid at 1000-1500 times dilution or 1.8% abamectin emulsifiable concentrate at 3000 times dilution.

Anthracnose and snake-eye disease: use 70% thiophanate-methyl wettable powder at 1000 times dilution or 75% chlorothalonil wettable powder at 800 times dilution alternately, spraying once every 5-7 days, for 3-4 sprays. Duan Yunxin