Agrometeorology: autumn sowings overwintered well, even managed to strengthen at the beginning of winter

As they wrote, this year’s winter also fits into the series of milder than average winters that have been going on for years, despite the fact that most of January was truly wintery, favorable for agriculture, with significant snow cover and hard frosts. The winter was also drier than usual: more precipitation fell in the southern part of the country, which is drier in autumn, so the moisture conditions leveled out somewhat. The relatively thick and long-lasting snow cover was very useful, but more would have been needed to replenish the soils in the Great Plain. There was less sunshine than the long-term average in December due to persistent low-level stratus clouds, and in January and February due to frequent frontal passages.

According to the analysis, the autumn-winter recharge of the soils began in the last decade of November

At that time, heavy rains irrigated the fields, which was very good for the autumn cereals that had sprouted quite unevenly. However, this process stopped in December, and in the gloomy, humid, foggy, and uniformly gray weather, only drizzle occurred at most. The weather, which was several degrees milder than usual at this time, and the adequate amount of moisture present in the root zone both helped the autumn sowings to strengthen. In the last week of the month, cold air masses arrived in several waves and the sun also shone. By the end of the year, the top one-meter layer of the soil was only near saturation in a small area, in the southwest and north, and the Great Plain was still 100-140 millimeters short of saturation. The temperature dropped significantly compared to the period before Christmas, but it was still around or slightly above the long-term average.

At the beginning of January, real winter arrived, which had not been seen for years

Several waves of snowfall arrived, but in some places sleet also fell, and the temperature was several degrees below the long-term average. There were days when the average daily temperature was between minus 5 and minus 10 degrees Celsius, and at night the air cooled to minus 15 and in some places below minus 20 degrees in large areas. The autumn sowings were protected from the cold by a 10-20 centimeter snow cover, which did not allow the soil to freeze to a greater depth. The frosty weather lasted for almost three weeks, so this year the number of pests and diseases decreased to a greater extent than in previous winters. A significant easing began in the last decade of January, which was accompanied by significant precipitation, mostly rain. The snow melted, and the filling of the soils gained new momentum.

The changeable, slightly milder than average, rainy weather continued in February, and snowfall, sleet, sleet, and rain occurred.

At the turn of January and February, 10-35 millimeters of precipitation fell in ten days, most of which was in the Great Plain, where it was needed the most. In the second week of February, the temperature rose further, the air warmed up above 10 degrees Celsius several times during the day, and the average daily temperatures were between 4-7 degrees, which significantly disturbed the dormant state of the plants. However, in the middle of the month, frosts between minus 5 and minus 8 degrees Celsius still occurred, and it snowed in several places. The real spring weather only arrived in the last week of February, when the air warmed up to 10-15 degrees Celsius during the day in sunny, mostly dry weather, but the sudden start of vegetation was held back by night frosts. The vegetation period began first in Transdanubia, then in the eastern part of the country, and in the second half of the month, the buds of early stone fruits swelled and then burst in more and more places. Although more or less precipitation fell frequently in February, overall, most of the country received 5-15 millimeters less rain than usual at this time of year. By the end of winter, the soil layers deeper than half a meter were only filled with moisture in the southwestern part of Transdanubia, in the northern part of the country and along the eastern border, while in many places in the Great Plain and Mezőföld, 40-70 millimeters were missing from the saturation of the upper one meter. The autumn sowings basically overwintered well, they were even able to strengthen at the beginning of winter, but at the end of winter, freezing could have caused problems, when the very wet soil froze at night in several cycles and thawed during the day, and the roots of the plants could have been damaged due to the raised soil – they wrote.

MTI