A Ton Of Potatoes Per Hundred Square Meters Is Real

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Experienced gardeners from personal practice know that a potato harvest of about a ton per hundred square meters is not a fantasy, but a reality. For skeptics, I will give a calculation: on a hundred square meters (remember, this is a 10 by 10 m area, i.e. 100 square meters) with a planting scheme between rows of 60-70 cm, and in a row of 25-30 cm an average of 500-600 tubers are placed. The potential yield per bush is 1.5-2 kg. So much for a ton!

I think I will not be mistaken if I declare: most amateur potato growers receive no more than 150-200 kg per hundred square meters. How much is dug from each bush, it is not difficult to count. In my opinion, this is an insultingly low harvest that does not cover the huge labor costs and expenses. I believe that 50% of the yield depends on the quality of the varietal material, and another 50% depends on the correct agricultural technology.

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Most varieties of potatoes for various reasons degenerate over time (usually after 7-10 years): tubers reduce seed quality, the yield drops. There is a need to replace varieties and planting material with high reproductions “super elite - elite”, which have been very expensive lately. Therefore, after acquiring a small amount of planting material, potato propagation usually takes several years. I advise you to use the method of forcing seedlings, which is also called seedling or tuberless, for the rapid reproduction of valuable seed material.

It is known that in the eyes of potato tubers there are 3-5 dormant buds, which are able to germinate alternately when a previously formed sprout is rejected. To obtain potatoes from sprouts, the tubers are first laid out in diffused light for 2-3 weeks so that they green up and their eyes hatch. Then the tubers are transferred into containers, laid out in one layer at some distance from each other for 2-2.5 weeks and covered with a layer of moistened sawdust, peat or earth. And they do this so that the covering layer rises 2-3 cm above the tubers.

In this case, the temperature should be within 12 … 18 ° C. If necessary, the covering layer is watered. When a rosette of leaves appears on thick, strong shoots and a powerful root system is formed, the tubers are carefully selected from the substrate. The optimum height of the sprouts should be 8-10 cm. Then the sprouts are carefully separated from the tubers and planted one by one in open ground according to the scheme 60-70x20-25 cm. They are deepened so that the sprout rises above the soil surface by no more than 1 -2 cm. At the same time they try to put the roots of the sprout in the hole so that they do not bend up.

If the planting time has not yet come, and the sprouts cannot yet be planted on the ridge, then they are planted in separate containers with fertile soil. For planting seedlings, it is better to choose cloudy weather (or plant in the afternoon), when solar activity decreases and the likelihood of burns is excluded. After planting, the seedlings are watered if necessary, especially in dry weather. And the seed tubers are reused by placing them again in the same substrate.

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Potatoes love structured, fertile soil well-seasoned with organic fertilizers. Vegetable growers should know that this is a culture of loose, light, sandy loam soils, and they should strive to make their site this way by adding sand, peat and organic matter. I advise you to abandon the time-consuming and bad habit of digging a site with a shovel. The fact is that when turning over, soil living organisms die, which process organic residues. Fertility is created by the billions of microorganisms working on the site and thousands of earthworms that produce biohumus. If this is not the case, then the soil will be dead, and then you will not expect a good harvest.

You can loosen the ground with a garden pitchfork or, even better and easier, with a Fokin flat cutter. This tool does not disturb the inner world of the soil, as it happens when digging with a shovel, it allows soil microorganisms to unfold at full power. As a result, the land on the site becomes looser and more fertile every year.

The best time to plant potatoes usually coincides with the beginning of budding on birches. By this time, the soil is already warming up enough. I recommend the new method of planting potatoes on the ridges. In them the soil warms up better, more air enters the underground part of the plants, which is important. Ridge-planted less weeds, easier to harvest tubers.

When starting to plant potatoes, a marker or cord designate rows every 60-70 cm, it is advisable to give them a direction from north to south.

In waterlogged areas with a close standing groundwater, tubers are laid out after about 25-30 cm, right on the soil surface, and on light, highly fertile soils, they are planted in recesses made with a stake or some tool. The tubers are sprinkled with soil taken from the row spacing so that oval ridges 6-8 cm high are formed above the row. In order to avoid damage by spring frosts, the emerging seedlings are spudded, covered with a layer of soil by 2-3 cm.

In the future, another 1-2 hilling is carried out. In the intervals between hilling, the soil is loosened in the aisles without damaging the root system, and weeds are removed. Due to this, a more powerful root system is created, which leads to an increase in yield.

With regard to the choice of varieties, it should be said that there is no “best” variety. You need to test different varieties that give the greatest yield on your site, since the same variety can give excellent yields in one place, and mediocre in another, it depends on many factors. As a result, you need to select at least 3-4 varieties of different early maturity. This will be a guarantee of getting a good harvest in years of different weather conditions, because one variety may not bring this harvest, while the other will help you out.

Based on many years of personal experience, I can recommend the following potato varieties as promising:

- early ones - Luck, Zhukovsky, Nevsky, Bryansk (domestic), Premier, Karin, Svitanok (foreign);

- mid-season - Golubizna, Sotka, Lorkh, Kolobok (domestic), Skarb, Diamant, Lugovskoy, Lasunak (foreign).