Features Of Growing Potatoes: Agricultural Technology. How To Grow Potatoes? Photo

The homeland of the potato is America, where the aborigines gave it the apt name "papa". Potato cultivation in Russia is associated with the name of Peter 1, and for over 200 years this vegetable has not left private gardening. Indeed, in our country, this is the main vegetable garden. Chefs can prepare over 500 dishes without repeating the previous ones. Nutritionally, there is no vegetable crop that can replace potatoes in the diet. In addition, potatoes are also an industrial crop used to produce starch and alcohol. They are the basis for obtaining molasses, glucose, glue, vitamin "C", rubber, medicines.

Content:

• Autumn soil preparation for potatoes
• Fertilizing potatoes
• Watering potatoes
• Potato diseases
• Potato pests
• Protection of potatoes from diseases and pests
• Harvest

Autumn soil preparation for potatoes

The potato has a good quality. It can grow permanently and form high yields in one place with proper soil preparation and crop cultivation for up to 9 years. In order not to accumulate a negative background, it is better to cultivate potatoes in a crop rotation. Good predecessors in the crop rotation for potatoes are all pumpkin seeds (zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins), cabbage, beans, peas, and corn.

Potatoes do not like acidified soils, they prefer neutral ones. Therefore, in the spring, wood ash, slaked lime or dolomite flour (200 g / sq. M of area) are introduced into the soil under pre-planting loosening. Deoxidizers can also be added under the autumn soil preparation.

Since autumn, after harvesting the predecessor, provocative watering is carried out (if necessary) to obtain shoots of autumn weeds. After the destruction of weeds, they are applied on sufficiently cultivated fertile soils in a bucket of mature humus or compost per sq. m. Add phosphorus and potash fertilizers, respectively, 30 and 15 g / sq. The plot is dug up on southern chernozems with a bed turnover of 20-25 cm. On depleted soils with a small chernozem horizon without bed turnover.

After 2-3 weeks, green manure is sown. From green manure crops it is better to use white mustard, sweet clover, oats, rye. They form significant biomass in a short time. With early sowing, green manure is embedded in the soil in the fall, with later sowing, it is left until spring and is sealed by deep loosening into the top layer (10-15 cm) before planting the tubers.

On poorly cultivated soils with an insufficient level of nutrient content, the rates of application of organic and mineral fertilizers are increased by 2-3 times and green manure is necessarily sown.

Fertilizing potatoes

Fall fertilization and green manure will provide sufficient nutrients for early potatoes. On chernozems, he will not need (due to the short growing season) additional fertilizing. On depleted and light soils, you can apply 30-40 g of nitroammofoska or nitrogen fertilizers per sq. m area.

When planting medium and later varieties with an extended growing season, potatoes are fed in the following phases or periods of development:

• mass shoots with pale green foliage,
• budding,
• mass flowering.

Top dressing is carried out in the form of solutions or dry forms of fertilizers for irrigation.

Top dressing during the period of mass shoots is best done with nitrophobic or nitroammophobic and 30-40 g / sq. m area.

In the phase of mass budding, potatoes need potassium, phosphorus and trace elements. During this period, the development of plants will be accelerated by feeding with potash and phosphorus fertilizers and wood ash. You can prepare a mixed solution for foliar feeding. In 10 liters of water, stir 25 g of potassium sulfate and superphosphate with 0.5 cups of wood ash. Add 0.5 liters of solution under the bush, then water and mulch. Instead of a solution, you can add a glass of wood ash under watering.

In the phase of mass flowering, potatoes are fed per sq. m 30 g of superphosphate. On depleted soils, a mixture of 35-40 g of water-soluble superphosphate with a glass of chicken droppings or mullein mixed with 10 liters of water is introduced into the furrows between the rows of potatoes or individually under the bush. The bushes are fed from a watering can without a nozzle at 0.5 l / bush, followed by hilling or 1 liter of solution per 0.5 meter of the furrow between the bushes, followed by covering with soil, watering and mulching.

For fertilizing potatoes, you can use new forms of fertilizers humate, urea (urea), junona, kemira and others. The rates, methods and periods of application are indicated on the packages or accompanying instructions for use. They are brought in for loosening or hilling. In dry weather, watering followed by mulching. All types of dressings are completed in July or a month before digging the potatoes.

Watering potatoes

In arid regions, potatoes are watered 3-4 times a month. In areas with sufficient rainfall, depending on the group (early, medium, late), 1-3 waterings are carried out during the entire growing season. Untimely irrigation dramatically reduces the yield. The tubers are small, the flesh is tough and tasteless. Determining the watering time is easy.

• If the lower leaves on the bush have begun to wither, watering is needed.
• Dip your palm into the soil near the bush. If the soil is dry on the palm floor, watering is necessary immediately. In this case, the rate should be at least 5-6 l / bush. If the soil dries up, watering is carried out directly under the bush without pressure, so as not to erode the soil. Usually, potato plantations are watered along the furrows between the rows.

Potato diseases

Of the potato diseases, the most common are fungal and bacterial rot: late blight, rhizoctonia, macrosporiosis, black leg and others.

General control measures are: pre-planting treatment of tubers with tank mixtures, including biofungicides phytosporin-M, binoram, gamair, alirin, planriz and others.

During the growing season, it is necessary to treat the bushes with the above biological products, and you can also use Bordeaux liquid or copper sulfate solution, according to the recommendations. The use of biological products can be started from the germination phase of potatoes and sprayed during the summer after 10-12 days until harvest.

The treatment of bushes with copper-containing preparations begins with the growth phase of the bushes, single budding and is carried out once a month. The last treatment is carried out 2-3 weeks before mowing the tops before harvesting. The place of the diseased plant (after its removal) must be powdered with a mixture of ash and copper sulfate based on a glass of ash and a teaspoon of the drug.

It is useful to treat the soil and potato bushes (more efficiently young) during the summer several times before hilling with wood ash. The soil can be powdered with chalk.

Potatoes often develop non-parasitic diseases associated with a violation of farming techniques (feeding, watering) or climatic conditions (prolonged rains, low temperatures, dampness). They do not accumulate in soil and plants, do not spread to healthy plantings. With a change in the weather for a more favorable one and optimization of agricultural technology, diseases disappear.

Potato pests

The most dangerous pests of potatoes are bear, Colorado potato beetle, wireworm, nematode. Effective chemical preparations have been developed against each pest, treatment with which 1-3 times during the summer period destroys pests and their larvae: sonnet, confidor, spark, decis, basudin (soil preparation). But it is better to grow potatoes at home without the use of chemicals.

There are good biological products that destroy pests and are at the same time harmless to humans and pets. Biological products nemabakt, entonem-F are characterized by a wide spectrum of action on pests. Good results are obtained when using bicol, bitoxibacillin and other biological products. Biological products against diseases and pests can be prepared in tank mixes, which reduces the number of plant treatments.

Protection of potatoes from diseases and pests

A disease is easier to prevent than to cure. Therefore, to obtain healthy potato tubers, it is necessary to carry out annual preventive measures that reduce or eliminate the causes of the disease.

• Grow only zoned varieties that are resistant to diseases.
• Grow vegetable crops, including potatoes, in a crop rotation.
• When growing potatoes in one place for several years, decontaminate the soil annually.
• Immediately remove diseased bushes from the field and destroy.
• Destroy diseased tops and do not use them for composting.
• Avoid cutting tubers as much as possible before planting.
• Do not apply manure under the potatoes. Use mature humus, compost, vermicompost for autumn application.

Harvest

Timely fertilizing, maintaining the soil in optimal moisture, carrying out loosening with hilling, protecting potatoes from diseases and pests contribute to obtaining high yields of good taste. The start of cleaning is determined by several factors:

• yellowing and dying off of tops in medium and late varieties of potatoes,
• in early varieties, they are guided mainly by the calendar harvesting dates specified in the recommendations for the variety. Harvesting of early varieties sometimes begins with green tops.

6-10 days before harvesting, the potato tops are mowed, which contributes to the formation of a coarser rind on the tubers, as well as their ripening. Cleaning is carried out in dry weather, but in case of prolonged rains, they are dug out immediately and scattered to dry. Wet potatoes are strongly affected by fungal rot. Do not delay harvesting late varieties intended for long-term storage.

Low temperatures dramatically reduce product quality. A decrease in soil temperature to +3 ° C with untimely harvesting causes the death of up to 80% of tubers. After harvesting, potato tops are taken out of the field and destroyed if potato planting disease has been observed during the summer. If the tops are healthy, they are laid in compost pits. All potatoes (small, diseased) are removed from the field and healthy tubers are selected when dried. The sick destroy.