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Today, potatoes are one of the most common vegetable crops in Russia, and who can now imagine that 300 years ago no one had even heard of them. And on the American continent, which is the birthplace of potatoes, the indigenous population has been growing it not even for hundreds, but for thousands of years. Therefore, it is clear that we cannot do without potatoes in the next hundreds of years. True skilled chefs are able to prepare about 500 dishes from potatoes, without repeating them even once. And how many different auxiliary substances are prepared using potatoes - starch, alcohol, glucose, molasses and much more.
That's why people experiment with planting potatoes, trying to come up with new interesting ways. potato planting and caring for it in the open ground. Some focus on record harvests, while others want to minimize labor costs for caring for potatoes. At the same time, many so-called new methods are just well-forgotten old ones. This article will examine in detail both the traditional methods of planting and caring for potatoes, and will highlight new, sometimes very unusual ways of growing this beloved crop.
Factors affecting potato yield
Everyone wants their potatoes to not only grow, but also to please them with their yield. So that there will be enough for yourself and your family at least for the season, and there will still be left for planting next year. What determines getting a good potato harvest?
Potato variety
The varieties are very different. Each has its own pros and cons. And if some have productivity among their advantages, others may have a wonderful taste, but at the expense of productivity. This factor must be taken into account first of all, otherwise, no matter how hard the gardener puts in, nothing will work. This is already inherent in the tubers at the genetic level.
Quality of tubers for planting
Potato tubers differ in the qualitative characteristics of the seed material from mini-tubers to the second reproduction. See table below.
| Name of potato seed material | Characteristic | Method of obtaining |
|---|---|---|
| Mini tubers | Clean seed material for planting potatoes | Obtained for the first year of growing varietal potatoes from seeds |
| Super super elite | Clean seed material for planting potatoes | Obtained the next year after planting mini-tubers |
| Superelite | High quality seed material | Available the following year after landing the super elite |
| Elite | The most productive potato planting material | Available the following year after landing the super elite |
| First reproduction | The most common potato planting material | Obtained the next year after the elite is planted |
| Second reproduction | Can serve as the basis for a good potato harvest | Obtained the next year after planting the first reproduction |
In specialized stores, elite and first reproductions are most often offered for sale as seed material. This is the best case scenario. In markets you can most often find the second reproduction and beyond. As you can easily understand from the above, no matter how you care for and fertilize potatoes, if they are grown from low-quality planting material, nothing good should be expected from them. This is one of the main reasons for all the failures of most gardeners with the potato harvest.
Tuber size for planting
Something also depends on the size of the potato planting material. For some reason, many people think that the larger the potato, the more harvest it will produce. This is not entirely true. The fact is that large tubers, when planted, produce many small tubers, but a small thing, the size of a pea, on the contrary, can produce one or two, but large tubers. That is why experts recommend taking medium-sized tubers for planting, about the size of a chicken egg, so that both the size and number of future tubers are at a good level.
Preparation of planting material
What was not particularly taken into account by anyone just a few decades ago, now everyone, or almost all gardeners, are trying to master it. To get a good potato harvest, tubers need special preparation before planting. It includes protection from diseases, germination to obtain an earlier harvest and, often, rejuvenation of planting material.
Soil preparation
This is precisely the factor that has been taken into account by all gardeners from time immemorial, but is also the most labor-intensive. It is to simplify it that all sorts of techniques are currently being invented.
Potato care
Traditional, well-known work, which includes, in addition to planting itself, also weeding, hilling, watering, fertilizing, treating against pests and diseases, and harvesting. Many new methods of growing potatoes try to eliminate or at least facilitate many of these works by any means.
Traditional methods of planting and caring for potatoes
Some time ago, it was considered traditional to take several buckets of potatoes out of the cellar in the spring and immediately go to the prepared area and plant them. Nowadays, every self-respecting gardener begins to prepare potatoes for planting about a month, or even two, before planting.
Preparatory procedures
It is necessary to select tubers by size into small (25-45 g), medium (45-75 g) and large (more than 75 g). In the future, when planting, it is necessary to plant each size separately to ensure more uniform emergence. This will ensure the simultaneous speed of development of the bushes and make it easier to care for them. In addition, when planting, large tubers can be divided into several parts to obtain more planting material.
How is it carried out? Selected tubers are laid out in boxes in one layer on film, sprinkled with warm water and covered with the same film to maintain minimal moisture inside. The boxes are exposed to light.
The temperature at which vernalization is carried out can be from +10°C to +20°C. It is advisable to turn the potatoes over every few days. The duration of vernalization can be from 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on your conditions.
During the greening process, sprouts begin to emerge on the tubers. And here you can select all the diseased tubers. They differ in that the sprouts on them are very thin, thread-like, or even non-existent. It is useless and even harmful to plant such potatoes - they will be of no use, and they are quite capable of infecting neighboring bushes.
Disinfection of tubers can be done in different ways:
- Soaking in garlic infusion. To prepare it, dilute 100 g of crushed garlic in a bucket of water. The selected potatoes are soaked in this solution overnight.
- Soaking in a solution of biogenic fungicide "Maxim". About 2 hours is enough.
- Soaking in a solution consisting of 0.5 g of potassium permanganate, 15 g of boric acid, 5 g of copper sulfate, which dissolve in 10 liters of water. About one to two hours is enough.
Treatment of tubers with a solution of complex fertilizers mixed with microelements also gives some increase in yield. To do this, you need to dilute 400 g of complex fertilizer in 10 liters of water. Keep the tubers in the solution for about one hour, dry and plant.
Cutting tubers is also a very interesting way, allowing you to get a significant increase in the yield. Potato tubers can be cut crosswise, leaving only about 1.5 cm at the very end. Or you can make a shallow cut along the entire diameter.
To make it more convenient, you can put a small board under the knife next to the tuber, then the process will speed up and you don’t have to worry about cutting the whole potato.
Interestingly, this technique is even more effective than the usual cutting of tubers into several parts. The only note is that cutting is best done before vernalization.
Preparing the soil for planting potatoes
Potatoes will produce maximum yield on breathable and loose fertile soils. Therefore, preparing the soil for planting potatoes usually begins in the fall. Traditionally, the future potato field is plowed with a tractor, motorized plow, or manually with a shovel. At the same time, rotted manure is introduced.
In recent years, the method of sowing fields for potatoes in the fall with green manure - rye, mustard and others - has become widespread. In the spring they are mowed and potatoes are planted directly in them. This allows you to save on manure and obtain soil suitable for planting potatoes.
Planting potatoes
There are three main ways to plant potatoes:
- Smooth;
- Grebnevoy;
- Trench.
Smooth
The most traditional way to plant potatoes. Small holes are dug, 9-12 cm deep, into which the tubers are placed one at a time. The distance between standard medium-sized tubers is 25-30 cm for early varieties, 30-35 cm for late varieties.
You can plant:
- In rows with the same distance of about 50-70 cm between them.
- By square-nested scheme, 60x60 cm, suitable only for late and voluminous potato bushes. For everyone else, it is unprofitable if there is not enough land for planting.
- Double ribbons from two rows. It is this method that gives the best harvests. Between the rows in the tape there remains 50-60 cm, and the passage between the tapes is 80-90 cm.
In this case, you can plant the tubers a little more densely, each bush will have enough space to grow.
Grebnevoy
This method is suitable for northern regions, as well as for those areas where there is heavy, too wet soil. At a distance of 70 cm from each other, ridges 15-20 cm high are raked with a hoe, into which the tubers are planted. Due to better sun heating and ventilation, potatoes grow better.
Trench
This method is best for southern regions with a hot, dry climate. To plant potatoes, trenches are dug, 10-15 cm deep, with the same distance of 70 cm between them. Potatoes are placed in the trenches and covered with earth. This traditional method of planting potatoes has been greatly improved in recent years. And most likely, they returned to what it was a hundred years ago.
Trenches for planting potatoes are prepared in the fall and filled with all kinds of organic matter, plant waste, straw mixed with decomposed manure. In the spring, potato tubers are planted as early as possible, covered with the remaining soil and covered with straw on top. This combined method allows you to obtain earlier and more abundant harvests without additional fertilizing.The tubers use nutrients from the decaying organic matter in the trench.
Caring for potato plantings
Basic procedures for caring for potatoes after planting include:
- Watering – their frequency depends on weather conditions. Watering is usually required 1-2 weeks after emergence, during flowering and after flowering in hot and dry weather.
- Feeding – are needed three times per season, the first with nitrogen-containing fertilizers, the second and third during budding and flowering with phosphorus-potassium fertilizers.
- Hilling – carried out several times as the potato bushes grow in height. It helps in the initial stage of growth to protect bushes from frost, removes weeds, retains moisture and stimulates additional growth of shoots and tubers.
- Zprotection from pests and diseases. Already at the stage of planting tubers, you can place ash, onion peels and eggshells in the holes. These products can repel the Colorado potato beetle, mole cricket and wireworm. But you won’t be able to get rid of the Colorado potato beetle in one go. If you do not want to use chemicals when growing home potatoes, then you can try spraying the bushes with a tar solution - dilute 100 g of tar in 10 liters of water and leave for 2 hours.
Regular mechanical collection of the beetle and its larvae is also effective.
Unconventional methods of planting potatoes
There are many similar methods, and every year restless gardeners try to come up with something new. With these methods of planting potatoes, they try to minimize their care.
Planting potatoes under straw or in straw
The popularity of this method is growing every year, despite the fact that it has both active supporters and equally ardent opponents.The main advantage of the method is less effort spent on growing potatoes, plus improved soil structure after such planting. Therefore, it is especially often used on heavy or virgin lands.
There are also disadvantages - many say that the tubers are often damaged by mice, and not everyone has the required amount of straw for large potato plots.
Typically, the tubers are laid directly on the ground, slightly pressing them, and covered with a 10-20 cm layer of straw. When sprouts appear through the straw, it is reported, this is done several times during the summer. This method does not require additional watering or fertilizing. Hilling is done using straw. Instead of straw, you can also use hay, grass clippings and other plant waste.
An important modification of this technique is that it is combined with the trench method of growing potatoes. Today this method is considered the most universal.
Watch the video below - material about planting potatoes under straw.
No-till method
This technique resembles the traditional one, but it attempts to significantly reduce the labor and time involved in preparing the land and planting potatoes. The potatoes are placed directly on loose soil prepared in the fall, fertilized with ash and lightly watered. Then earth from neighboring passages is thrown on top of it. As the shoots grow, hilling is carried out from the passages with their deepening. The harvest is quite comparable to the traditional one, but less effort is put into it. Watch a detailed video on how this is done.
Planting potatoes under black film
You can also use non-woven black material instead of film.The material is simply spread on the selected area and fixed at the edges. Then cuts are made into which the tubers are placed at the appropriate depth (9-12 cm) and sprinkled with soil. According to the technology, there is no need to do any hilling or weeding. In reality, the bushes bulge as they grow, and the potatoes turn green, so a little hilling is still necessary. But for early plantings the method may be interesting. Below you can watch a video about this technique.
Growing potatoes in box beds
This method requires very labor-intensive initial preparation, but then maintenance is minimal. First, box beds are built from boards, slate, bricks and whatever is at hand. The principle of their construction is similar to the production of warm beds. They are then filled with a variety of organic materials mixed with humus. Finally, tubers are planted in them, usually in a checkerboard pattern in two rows. Hilling, weeding and fertilizing are not required, watering as needed, but usually minimal. It is claimed that the potato yield under such conditions is an order of magnitude greater than with the traditional method. The main disadvantage is that the method is only suitable for small plantings.
Below you can watch a video on this topic.
Planting potatoes in barrels, buckets, bags and other containers
This method comes from the so-called Chinese technology. It stated that only 3-4 tubers could be placed at the bottom of the barrel and covered with fertile soil as the shoots grew. By the time the shoots grow to the edges of the barrel and fill it with soil, the entire barrel will be filled with ripe tubers. In fact, tubers grow only in the top layer of soil, equal to 40-50 cm. And the yield is thus similar to the traditional one.
Nevertheless, growing potatoes in various containers can be successfully used when there is a shortage of land. Packages or sacks of potatoes can be placed on any inconvenient areas, and thereby grow several additional buckets of potatoes without much effort. Since weeding, hilling and fertilizing are also not required with this method of cultivation. Watch the video about this original way of growing potatoes.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to plant and care for potatoes. It makes sense to try, experiment and judge from the results which ones are best suited for you.
