Agrometeorology: Another cold wave threatens orchards

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They wrote: the precipitation in the past ten days was significant, 20-50 millimeters; in the southwest and central part of the country it fell even more, while in the north and the Great Plain it did not reach this value in some places. The 90-day precipitation amount is already more than usual in large areas, the top 70-90 centimeters of soil was saturated in many places, and in the southwest and northeast the 1-1.5 meter layer as well, and in some places water spots have also appeared. The temperature was above average, the air cooled down mostly only between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius at night, and during the day the air warmed up to around 15 degrees, and in sunnier areas to around 20 degrees. The soil temperature measured at 5 centimeters has been around 10 degrees since the middle of last week.

The spring development of the autumn sowings is progressing well due to the favorable moisture and temperature, and the winter wheat fields, which had a weaker winter, are also getting stronger

The arable fields could only rarely be plowed with machinery due to the permanently muddy soil, but the windy weather of the past few days has caused the surface to dry out a lot. Among the early stone fruits, apricots and almonds have bloomed almost nationwide. The frequent rainfall has favored fungal diseases. The frosts returning from the very end of the week may cause even more serious problems: apricots are damaged in the petal fall and fruit initiation development phase at frosts stronger than minus 1-2 degrees Celsius, peaches begin to be damaged at minus 2-3 degrees in full bloom. They added that although the soil temperature for sowing corn has reached the 10-degree threshold, it is still worth waiting due to the cooling next week.

According to the forecast, mild weather will remain until Saturday, and then by Sunday a cold air mass of arctic origin will flood the Carpathian Basin, and snow showers may also occur

Frosts will return from Monday, so you should definitely be prepared for frost protection. By Monday morning, the air will mostly cool down to between 0 and minus 5 degrees, and the wind will also blow, which does not allow the air layer near the surface to cool down as much, but makes protection against frost more difficult. The weather will slowly ease from Tuesday, the degree of nighttime cooling will also depend heavily on cloud cover. Overall, nationwide precipitation is unlikely, with less than 10 millimeters of precipitation expected from showers until the middle of next week.

MTI