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Probably, not only every schoolchild, but also many kids know that the edible parts of potatoes are underground. From childhood, many remember the fairy tale “Tops and Roots,” where a cunning peasant deceived a greedy and lazy bear, who wanted to do nothing, but with the help of threats to receive his share of the harvest. So in the case of potatoes, he received exactly half the harvest by weight - “tops”, which he did not know what to do with, because they turned out to be completely inedible.
True, in the modern world the above-ground parts of potato bushes are also used. Potato tops are used to prepare special infusions to combat insect pests. And if there is a significant amount of green mass, it can be composted and obtained valuable organic fertilizer. Although you shouldn’t be happy about the large size of potato leaves and stems. After all, the size of potato tops does not have a direct impact on the yield. Of course, with a good potato harvest, as a rule, large and tall tops grow, but if its height approaches the meter mark, then it’s time to sound the alarm. In this case, the probability is too high that the tubers of such tops will ripen small and few in number.
Reasons for intensive growth of tops
Why do potatoes have high tops? There are several possible answers to this question, and often the reason lies precisely in the incorrect actions of the gardener himself.
Excess nitrogen
It often happens that while acting with the best intentions, a person does not get exactly the result that was planned. Here too, an excessive dose of fertilizer can lead to excessive growth of potato leaf mass, unfortunately, to the detriment of tuber yield.
An excess of these fertilizers leads to the fact that potato tops can grow up to a meter or more in height. But the tubers hardly develop, and the harvest will be unsatisfactory.
What to do when the tops have already grown? You can try adjusting the feeding. The best solution for these purposes is the addition of superphosphate. Of course, the tops will not go away from this, but the process of tuberization will be stimulated. After all, superphosphate has the ability to accelerate the aging process of potatoes and activate the outflow of nutrients from the leaves to the tubers. To prepare a nutrient solution, 100 g of superphosphate is diluted in 10 liters of hot water and the resulting solution is poured onto potato bushes. This amount is enough to process one hundred square meters of potato field.
For the future, you need to know that if, when preparing beds for planting potatoes in the fall or spring, they were filled with manure or humus, then the potatoes no longer require any additional nitrogen fertilizers.
But fertilizing with phosphorus, potassium, iron, magnesium and microelements can be carried out several more times during the season, especially if signs of starvation appear on the leaves: chlorosis, yellowing and others.
In general, you need to be very careful when feeding potatoes. After all, even if the tops grow large and healthy, and the tubers delight you with their size and quantity, potatoes oversaturated with fertilizers do not store well. This means that all your good harvest may soon disappear. Therefore, it is advisable to carry out feeding strictly according to the instructions and it is better to give less than to overfeed.
Large tubers
For the same reason, when a gardener wants to do the best, but the result is not at all the best, he uses large tubers for planting.
What's going on? Large tubers contain a correspondingly larger supply of nutrients. Therefore, potato plants grow intensively and increase their green mass in height mainly due to the tuber, while the root system almost does not develop. When the nutrition from the tuber ends, the plant begins to develop new tubers, but time has already passed, the growing season is coming to an end and the tubers grow very small.
Lack of light
The simplest answer to the question: “Why do potatoes have high tops?” is the fact that plants may not have enough lighting.Probably everyone who has ever grown seedlings at home knows this effect well. If the light level is low and the sprouts do not have enough light, then they begin to grow very tall. So potatoes, planted in a shady or semi-shady place, begin to stretch upward, closer to the sun, in the struggle for additional lighting.
The same effect can occur in a sunny place if the tubers are planted too close to each other. Potatoes react poorly to dense planting - they either begin to stretch out or are affected by fungal diseases from poor air exchange in the beds.
Although in the southern regions, where there is so much sun that there is plenty of it for everyone, even in semi-shaded places, despite the tall growing stems, quite good potatoes can ripen.
Weather
If in all the above cases much depended on the gardener’s actions themselves, then no one can influence the weather. And in warm and rainy summers, all the grass grows by leaps and bounds. Potato tops are no exception. And since weather conditions are quite unpredictable, in this case there is only one thing that can be done. Wait for the potatoes to bloom and after a while trample down all the tops so that they lie on the ground and can no longer take nutrients from the tubers. As a result, all the energy of the plants will be transferred to the tubers and you will be provided with a bountiful harvest.
What to do if the tops are low
In fact, the height of potato tops does not always have a negative effect on potato yield.After all, there are many varieties that are characterized by a high above-ground part. For them, the height of a potato bush within one meter is practically the norm.
You can only worry in cases where a variety you know has been growing for a long time, and it has suddenly become very elongated.
Everyone knows that the world is far from perfect, so while some are very worried about the large size of their potato tops, others are perplexed why their tops are so small.
If you're trying out a new potato variety and encounter one of these problems, don't worry until after you've harvested. Because potato varieties have very different characteristics and among them there are those whose tops do not grow higher than 40-50 cm. But at the same time they can boast of quite decent yields - up to 25 tubers per bush. For example, the popular Red Scarlet potato variety has similar characteristics. The potato variety “Udacha” also has very short tops. The short stature of the bushes is simply a feature of some varieties.
But it's not that simple. Unfortunately, short stature of potato tops can also cause a lack of nutrients, primarily phosphorus. At the same time, the potato yield decreases sharply. To make sure of the diagnosis, you just need to dig up at least one tuber from under the bush and cut it into two parts. With phosphorus starvation, a purple tint will appear on the cut. Feeding with superphosphate will help to cope with this problem, and it is better to do it in the form of spraying on the leaf.
Thus, you should not be too upset if it seems to you that the tops of your potatoes are not similar to those growing in your neighbor’s garden. First you need to make sure that this is not a feature of the variety, and then take any measures.
