Detailed Explanation of the Key Points of Carnation Cultivation and Management Techniques
Cultivation and Management Techniques
1. Environment Selection and Basic Construction According to the characteristics of carnations, the cultivation environment should preferably be selected in clay loam with dry terrain, convenient drainage and irrigation, flat land, and low soil salinity. In winter, the groundwater level should be below 80-100 cm, so that the root system will not be submerged during floods or waterlogging, and the salinity of the 20 cm topsoil should be below 0.1%. Soil with excessively high salinity or too strong alkalinity will affect root growth and may even burn the roots and kill the seedlings. It must be fully leached by rainwater or flooded with deep water to reduce the salt content before it can be used as a carnation planting base. In order to prevent rain and preserve moisture and meet the growing environment requirements of carnations, steel-frame plastic greenhouses should be built in the Yangtze River Basin. Considering comprehensive factors such as carnation variety combinations, rational use of labor, and the market@#@136@#@, the base should have a certain scale in order to achieve relatively high economic benefits.
Carnations, like many crops, cannot be continuously cropped. When planning and establishing a carnation base, arrangements must be made for rotational crops and land resting. The previous crop for carnations should preferably be a shallow-rooted crop. Paddy soil has few pathogenic bacteria and upland weeds and low salinity, making it a relatively ideal previous crop, but it should be deeply plowed in winter and exposed to wind and freezing to improve the soil structure. Near the base, there should be a pollution-free, low-salinity water source or tap water for irrigating carnations, and according to the amount of water required for carnation production, a water pump and corresponding pipes and valves should be installed. Around the base, a main drainage ditch 1 m deep should be opened and connected to the outlet. The ditches between greenhouses should be 50 cm deep and connected to the main ditch.
2. Variety Selection and Seedling Propagation
(1) Variety Selection At present, carnations planted domestically can generally be divided into three types: large-flowered, medium-flowered, and spray types, most of which are introduced from the Netherlands, France, Israel, and Germany. The varieties selected by production units should have conditions such as strong disease resistance, fast growth, high yield (especially winter flower yield), few split calyces, good quality, and strong marketability. In recent years, through experimental comparisons by research institutions and flower seed farms, a group of excellent varieties has been screened out.
(2) Seedling Propagation
○1 High-quality seedlings High-quality seedlings are the key to the success or failure of carnation production. High-quality seedlings should first possess the excellent characteristics of the original variety. First-generation seedlings obtained by pinching and cuttings directly from imported mother plants, or virus-free tissue-cultured seedlings, can meet the above requirements. Second, select cuttings with good root systems, thick stems, short internodes, no disease spots, and moderate seedling stage and seedling age.
○2 Establishment of the mother plant nursery The mother plant nursery should be set up in a greenhouse far from the carnation production area, with raised benches built off the ground, using peat mixed with rice husk ash, perlite, etc. as the substrate, and drip irrigation for water supply as much as possible, with nutrient solution cultivation. The nutrient solution concentration is 0.1%-0.2%, 2-3 times per week, and the substrate EC value is 1-1.5. The nutrient solution formula is shown in Table 2.
The mother plants should be imported mother plants from abroad or virus-free tissue-cultured seedlings produced domestically. The number of mother plants is generally 1/25-1/30 of the number of cuttings needed. The planting time of mother plants for cutting collection depends on the number of cuttings and the time when seedlings are needed in production; generally, seedlings are brought in and planted in September-October.
○3 Cuttings For carnation cutting beds, raised beds or ground beds can be used, with perlite and rice husk ash as the cutting substrate. The bottom of the cutting bed should be filled with 2-3 cm diameter stone particles or coal cinder to facilitate drainage. Electric heating wires should be installed beneath the cutting substrate. Use side shoots sprouting from the 2nd-3rd nodes in the middle of the mother plant stem as cuttings. When the side shoots are 10-12 cm long and have 8-10 leaves, break them off by hand, trim them, retain 6-8 leaves, align the bases, and dip them in rooting powder. Then insert them into the prepared cutting bed at a row-to-plant spacing of 2-2.5 cm, and immediately water thoroughly, shading with a shade net. Afterward, spray water according to the weather to keep the leaves moist. After new roots emerge, stop shading. Keep the cutting bed temperature at 15-20°C. Rooting begins in 14-15 days, and seedlings can be lifted and transplanted in 25-30 days.
3. Plowing, Land Preparation, and Disinfection Carnation plowing and land preparation should be carried out 2 months before planting. After the previous crop for carnations is harvested, there should be at least a 1-month rest period, so that the soil is fully plowed and mineralized, rained on, soil salinity is reduced, and the degree of soil maturation is improved.
In a plastic greenhouse 30 m long and 6 m wide, make 3 beds, with a bed width of 1-1.1 m, a middle ditch width of 60 cm, and a greenhouse-edge ditch width of 75-80 cm, and a bed height of 30 cm. Apply 1500-2000 kg of fully decomposed pig manure or cow manure per greenhouse, plow it into below 10 cm of the topsoil on the bed surface, apply 15-20 kg of compound fertilizer on the bed surface, and after leveling the bed surface, pour 0.1%-0.3% formaldehyde solution (formalin) into the soil, immediately cover with plastic film, uncover the film after 10 days, and loosen the soil 2-3 times so that the formaldehyde in the soil fully volatilizes, and then seedlings can be planted.
4. Planting At present, the planting time for carnations in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area is usually April-May, because the climate is suitable during this period, seedling prices are relatively low, and after 2-3 pinching treatments, they can enter full bloom in December, when flower prices are relatively high. For areas with relatively high subsoil salinity or night-tide soil, planting earlier can increase the survival rate of seedlings. If pinching is stopped in April, full bloom begins in July, all plants are cut back in mid-July, systematic reorganization is carried out in late July, and a second full bloom period appears around the Spring Festival. However, this cultivation method has fewer seed sources, higher seedling prices, greater difficulty in summer cutback, and lower prices for flowers produced in July, so it can only be adopted by units propagating seedlings or in areas where the survival rate of early-summer planting is relatively low.
The planting density is usually between 35-50 plants per sq m. For those with weak branching ability or later planting time, the density can be higher; otherwise, it can be lower.