Potato Care In The First Half Of The Growing Season

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

After planting potatoes, a gardener may not appear in this field for a week, but then constant "potato weekdays" will begin, right up to the harvest of this crop.

Throughout the growing season, caring for potato plantings consists in constantly maintaining the soil of the site without weeds and in a loose state for better air flow to the root system. And it is also necessary to combat its pests, primarily the Colorado potato beetle and diseases.

If you planted potatoes with poorly sprouted tubers at the optimal time, then its shoots appear, as a rule, after 3-3.5 weeks. When using tubers with good strong shoots and when planting them in a sufficiently warmed soil, the first shoots break through to the surface of the beds after 7-12 days (depending on the soil and planting depth).

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6-7 days after planting, you need to loosen the soil with a rake - to make the so-called "blind harrowing". In this way, the first wave of weeds (in the state of "strings") sticking out of the ground invisible to the eye is destroyed.

Harrowing is also very important if a good rain has passed and a crust forms on the surface of the earth under the sun. This serious agricultural practice must be repeated if non-verbalized seed was used. In addition, early harrowing reduces moisture evaporation. In order not to walk once again directly over the planted potatoes, sometimes beans are sown with tubers (culture is a "beacon"), which quickly germinate in 4-5 days.

When green cones of the first shoots appear (2-5 cm in size) with not yet opened leaves, you can cover them with soil with a layer of 3-5 cm, this leads to the stimulation of new shoots in tubers. By the way, this agricultural practice is also incorporated in the intensive Dutch technology. In the same way, filling them completely, you can protect potato seedlings from late frosts. However, it must be remembered that this procedure can only be performed with seedlings with undeveloped leaves. Full shoots and mature bushes covered up to save themselves from frost must be freed from the ground. The impact of frost on the tops of potatoes is also reduced by preliminary (and long-term) sprinkling and abundant watering of the soil between rows.

Early shoots of potatoes are protected from negative temperatures by covering them with pieces of plastic wrap and other materials. This is especially true on plantings of early potatoes, since it is he who often falls under return frosts. In case of partial death of plants from the cold, their damaged parts are cut off, after which the growth of tops is more intensive. But in this case, of course, the harvest will be less than expected.

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If after a while after planting the gardener gets the impression that the emergence of seedlings is late, he needs to carefully dig out 2-3 planted tubers to check their condition. The reason for the delay in seedling emergence may be damage to the sprouts by rhizoctonia (fungal disease). The causative agent of this disease infects tubers in autumn and hibernates on them in the form of sclerotia (bulging black scabs) tightly attached to their skin, which is sometimes mistaken for adhered soil (this form of the disease is called "black scab").

When injected into moist soil, sclerotia begin to develop, form a mycelium, which affects the eyes and shoots of potatoes that form in the ground. Most often this disease is observed when planting tubers in cold, moist soil. It leads not only to delayed germination or weakening of shoots, but to the death of tubers without the formation of shoots. The greatest harmfulness is noted on heavy, clayey soils, especially during cold, protracted spring.

To reduce the negative effect of rhizoctonia on seedlings, it is recommended to carry out agrotechnical methods that contribute to the rapid development of seedlings: harrowing, destruction of the soil crust formed after rain. The most sensitive seedlings are from tubers that have not undergone high-quality vernalization before planting. Thinning of seedlings due to black scab leads to a large shortage of potato yield, since instead of affected shoots, the mother tuber is forced to form new ones, and this takes a lot of nutrients and time.

When, when examining tubers that do not sprout for a long time, they reveal softening of some part of it (from the side of the stolon or from the side), the disease is diagnosed as bacterial: "black leg", or "soft rot". Symptoms of this bacterial disease on seedlings: the plants are usually single-stemmed, greatly lagging behind in growth, the leaves are small, tough, curl along the midrib, yellowed. In a sick bush, shoots are located at an acute angle to the stem and stretch upward. The lower part of the stem softens, becoming brown (to black) in color. Hence the name "black leg". Affected plants are easily pulled out of the soil (the root system remains in the ground).

If tubers with symptoms of soft rot are found under the affected bushes, it is better to dig them up whole (tubers and plants) and remove them from the site, since they represent a source of infection for neighboring potato bushes. It is usually not necessary to wait for the harvest from potato shoots affected by the "black leg": such plants die. In the same bushes, in which individual stems still survive and produce a crop, it usually consists of very small tubers carrying a latent bacterial infection, which can appear, if not during storage, then under favorable conditions for it in the next growing season …

Before the budding phase of potatoes, it is advisable to carry out at least two hilling. Immediately before the first hilling (at a height of young plants of 15-20 cm), the plant is fed with nitrogenous mineral or organic fertilizers (especially if they were not applied during planting). For this, instant fertilizers such as urea can be used; very effective application of well-fermented slurry (1: 5) or bird droppings (1:15). Mineral fertilizers are scattered dry 5-6 cm from the stems. At the same time, they rake up the earth to the bushes and destroy the weeds.

Be sure to make sure that the leaves of the plants are not covered with earth and the stems are not injured. Experts recommend hilling after the rain, since the moist soil pinned to the stems contributes to the formation of adventitious roots in them.

The beginning of the formation of tubers coincides with the beginning of budding and flowering of plants. Hilling during flowering leads to lengthening the vegetation time of plants and the process of tuberization. It is not necessary to allow the plant to form buds, bloom and form seeds, as it intensively expends nutrients and energy for this, which could be used to create additional tubers or increase their total mass. It is necessary to remove the buds when their buds appear on the tops of the bush.

It is also worth recalling that with an excess of manure introduced when planting tubers, there is an excessive build-up of tops by plants; this phenomenon ("fattening of potatoes") is associated with an excess amount of nitrogen and a lack of potassium and phosphorus.

It is almost impossible to correct its consequences, since an excess of nitrogen leads, as a rule, to thickening of plantings, strong elongation of the bushes and, as a result, to serious damage to the lower tiers of plant leaves by late blight and to softening of the stems lying on the ground under the weight of the vegetative mass. You can, of course, pick off the lower leaves so that there is some ventilation at the soil surface, however, in general, this procedure does not save the situation.

According to experts, the optimum soil temperature for the intensive growth of daughter tubers is 16 … 19 ° C. A decrease in it to + 6 ° C or an increase to 23 ° C leads to a delay in tuberization. It is possible to soften the oppressed state of plants during high temperatures by watering the bushes at the root, it is especially advisable to do this on the seed plot and in relation to the varieties planned for reproduction.

Potatoes are a very demanding culture for a sufficient amount of moisture during the entire growing season, especially during active flowering - this is a period of intensive accumulation of tuberous mass.

If the summer is dry or there is a lack of moisture in the soil, watering (2-3 liters under the bush) is required. The water must enter the tuber formation zone. It is estimated that during the growing season, each plant needs at least 80-90 liters of water for normal development.

Sometimes it is recommended, after hilling to the bottom of the furrows, to fold the cut grass, which can simultaneously perform several tasks at once: to protect the bottom of the furrows from excessive moisture evaporation; overcooking, it emits heat, and after decay it turns into organic fertilizer by the next season. The grass lying in the aisles, letting rainwater flow to the bottom of the furrow, prevents it from evaporating later.

For this purpose, the aftertas of leguminous crops (clover, alfalfa, sweet clover, etc.) are better suited. It is believed that the use of such a "green fertilizer" is equivalent to the use of the same weight of manure. You cannot take for this purpose stalks of cereal weeds with ripe seeds and easily rooted plants (field sow thistle; pink thistle; small-flowered galensoga, otherwise "American", etc.).

Read the next part. Caring for planting potatoes in the second half of the growing season →