Content
Every gardener dreams of a rich harvest of vegetable crops on his plot. To obtain it, you need to take care of high-quality planting material. Potatoes are considered the main crop and occupy a large area of all plantings. Simply taking the tubers out of the cellar and planting them in the ground will not yield positive results, even if you select the most productive varieties.
We will talk further about how to prepare potatoes for planting. Let's talk about ways germination and dressing of planting material, soil preparation. Each reader can choose the appropriate option for preparing potato seeds for planting.
First steps
As a rule, to obtain strong sprouts, potatoes are removed from storage 20-30 days before planting. It has been proven in practice that such time is enough. Preparatory work does not require any material costs. To obtain early potatoes, appropriate varieties are used. Under favorable climatic conditions, it is planted in early May, so the preparation of tubers begins at the end of March.
Sorting
First of all, the seed material is carefully inspected for damage.During sorting, tubers with the slightest hint of disease are removed. Most often, dry or wet rot and scab occur on tubers. Substandard potatoes smaller than a chicken egg, with signs of deformity, will go to waste. If the tuber is more than 90 grams, it is also discarded.
Calibration
What does this mean:
- Small tubers are not able to produce a sufficient number of stems, therefore, you will not get a large harvest.
- Large planting material will quickly form the above-ground part of the plant; all the nutrients contained in the uterus will go to it. Root development is blocked at the initial stage. In the future, the root system will develop slowly, and time for the creation of tuber primordia will be lost.
When preparing potato seeds for spring planting, you should do calibration. The first pile will contain tubers weighing from 30 to 50 grams. In the second - from 50 to 75 grams. In the third - from 76 to 90.
Sometimes vegetable growers use nodules smaller than 30 grams to obtain planting material for the potato variety of interest. But the selection must be carried out in the fall. You need to take tubers from the most developed and healthy plant of a certain variety.
Many novice vegetable growers will probably wonder why fractional selection of potatoes is needed when preparing seed material. It's simple: tubers of the same size are planted separately. Then seedlings will appear in each area at the same time, which will greatly facilitate further work.
landscaping
The question of how to properly prepare potatoes for planting includes landscaping. During the initial examination of the material, tubers with emerging sprouts were selected.Green potatoes are less susceptible to pest attacks because they contain the poison solanine. Such tubers should also not be eaten.
The room should be warm, from 10 to 12 degrees, and sunny with good ventilation. The sun should directly hit the potatoes. Planting material is laid out in one layer. From time to time it needs to be turned over so that the landscaping occurs evenly. After 25-30 days, the tubers become green.
What is the best way to green potatoes? Containers must be transparent; plastic containers, cake pans, and plastic bags are suitable. If you use bags, tie them at the top and make holes for air circulation.
Express method
This method is acceptable in cases where it was not possible to prepare planting material in a timely manner. And the deadlines are running out. We'll have to start drying the tubers. Potatoes are placed in a warm, dry room with a temperature of 14-16 degrees. The tubers are laid out horizontally in one row. The presence of light is not necessary. You can use a dark room. The method is effective, after 10 days the potatoes are ready for planting.
Other germination methods
Gardeners are very original people. They come up with various techniques to prepare potatoes before planting.
Wet method
Many vegetable growers use wet germination when preparing tubers. With this method, light is not needed, and high-quality sprouts appear in half a month.
The containers are filled with wet sawdust, sand, and peat.It is better to take sawdust from deciduous trees, since coniferous trees have too much resin. Before laying, they are poured with boiling water twice to “wash” the resins. River sand is thoroughly washed.
According to experienced vegetable growers, this method of preparing potatoes for planting allows them to preserve nutrients in the tubers. Shoots are friendly.
Warming up
The heating method allows you to reduce the preparation of seed material to a minimum. Sometimes, after a long period of germination, the eyes for some reason do not hatch, although the tubers appear healthy.
If there is no other material, and the deadlines are already running out, you can try heating the tubers at high temperatures: from 35 to 40 degrees. The buds get a boost, sprouts appear in about 5 days. You can plant them, the planting material is ready.
Fairy lights
String the sorted potatoes on twine or thick wire and hang them in front of a sunny window. From time to time, the tubers need to be sprayed with a spray bottle.
We use transparent bags
Preparing potato tubers for planting is an important point in obtaining high-quality planting material.
If there is not enough space in the apartment to install containers for sprouting tubers, you can take ordinary plastic bags. You need to make holes in them for circulation. The bags should not be overfilled so that the tubers do not overcook and the sprouts do not intertwine with each other.
The bags need to be tied with a strong rope and hung in front of the window.Through the film, enough light reaches the tubers, the sprouts do not stretch or outgrow.
In any container, sprouts on potatoes do not break off.
Tips from experienced vegetable growers on preparing potatoes for planting on video:
How to stimulate germination
Stimulation of potato tubers is carried out when the timing of normal germination is missed. One liter of water is poured into a small container and a solution is prepared, which includes:
- stove ash in any quantity;
- microelements on the tip of a knife;
- copper sulfate ¼ teaspoon.
The tubers are placed in boxes and sprayed with a solution. Repeat the procedure every other day. You can prepare a large amount of solution, maintaining the proportion of ingredients, and add potatoes to it.
Such germination of potatoes before planting using copper sulfate not only stimulates the vitality of the tubers, saturates them with nutrients, but also destroys fungal diseases.
Stimulation can be carried out using other drugs:
- Nitrophoska;
- Effecton;
- Urea.
Disinfection of tubers
Preparing potatoes for planting in the spring does not exclude dressing the tubers. There are many means to help prevent the spread of rhizoctonia and scab. Among the most common means is formaldehyde.
A solution is prepared in advance in the following proportion: one part of 40% formalin is taken to 200 parts of water. The tubers are dipped into the solution for 5 minutes, removed, covered with burlap and left for 2 hours.
You can spray the planting material instead of soaking it. For 100 kg of tubers, three liters of solution are prepared, the proportions are the same. The potatoes are first sprinkled with clean water and then with formaldehyde solution. To destroy pests, it is enough to keep the tubers under burlap for about 6 hours.
Setting the stage
You can get a rich potato harvest only on fertile soils. It can be sandstone, clayey or chernozem, but light. In the spring, you need to start preparing the soil before planting potatoes. If the soil is clayey, then sand is added to it.
In the fall, experienced vegetable growers harvesting potatoes prepare the soil for planting potatoes - sow the area with siderites. And in the spring they mow and plow the ground. By overheating, plant residues increase soil fertility in a natural way. Experts believe that potatoes need to be planted in a new place every year. Grows well after legumes, corn, cucumbers, strawberries and raspberries.
As soon as the soil warms up to 10 degrees, the preparation of potatoes for early planting is completed, you can proceed to work on the site.
Before plowing or digging the soil, add humus or ammophosphate - up to 3 kg per hundred square meters. After this, the clumps are broken up and the roots of the weeds are selected. You cannot start planting right away: the soil must settle and warm up. After all, the soil below before plowing was colder than the top layer.
Before planting potatoes, the area is leveled and marked. Row from row should be on distance up to 75 cm. Weeding and hilling will be easier.A day after digging up the area, you can plant potatoes. You can’t wait any longer, the soil will lose moisture. The hole from the hole is 25-30 cm, depending on the variety.
Conclusion
We told you about ways to prepare seed material and soil for planting potatoes. Of course, each person decides for himself whether to use the acquired knowledge or not. But I would like to note that our climatic conditions do not allow potatoes to remain in the field for a long time in the fall. If you plant unprepared potatoes in the spring, they will lie in the ground for a long time. The tubers will spend energy on germination, thereby reducing productivity.
