Analysis Of Potato Varieties At The End Of The Summer

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

← Read the previous part. Potato harvest by June

How to grow a good harvest of delicious potatoes. Ending

All these tubers of the Lyra variety are

obtained from one potato bush

Summing up and calculating the harvest of 2013

Now, when the results are known, I want to evaluate the varieties of the potatoes grown. Some of them pleased with the harvest, but there were also those that I decided not to grow anymore or will renew the planting material. I want to note right away that our site is located in the Vsevolozhsk region, where sandy soils are predominantly. And, of course, in other parts of the region, these varieties could show themselves differently.

This season, like other gardeners, has pleased me with a long warm summer, which began at the end of May. Warm and humid June also brought trouble for potatoes - an early outbreak of late blight. Even resistant varieties were taken by her. Saved hot and dry July, stopping the spread of this scourge. However, the rainy weather in the first half of August played into the hands of phytophthora, which, waiting for the heat, was biding its time.

The only thing I managed to do to stop the invasion of late blight was to remove the first yellowed leaves in the lower part of the potato plants. I collected them in plastic bags, which, after filling, tied them tightly and then took them out to trash containers.

There was no time to spray the tops of diseases because of the constant watering of the beds, trees and shrubs to save them from drought. Planting potatoes abundantly watered only once, and only new varieties. And this then affected the harvest. The watered varieties produced a generous harvest of large tubers, while the other varieties slightly reduced the yield from 30 tubers in the nest to 20. For example, the Santa variety instead of 33-35 large tubers in the nest produced only 23.

Gardener's guide

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

This proves once again that the Dutch potato varieties require high agricultural technology. In addition, this variety must be fed with manure infusion once a season if you want to get a decent harvest. Nevertheless, it must be said that, in general, the potato crop was rich.

The record holder in terms of productivity was a new variety for us, Lira, of Iranian origin, which I bought in a supermarket like ordinary potatoes for food. In the previous issue of the magazine, I described the beauty of its leaves and huge stems. I was looking forward to digging it up and seeing the tubers. I started digging potatoes with this particular variety.

The first nest dug amazed not only with the size of large, not overgrown tubers, but also with their number: there were 38 of them! Before that, the maximum belonged only to the Dutch varieties Santa and Desiree - 35 with a high level of agricultural technology. In addition, the Lear variety turned out to be very tasty, it turned out to have a yellow and firm flesh. This variety, as well as the Finnish variety Timo Hankkiyan, were planted in the first row near the gladioli garden, which I often watered, and along the way watered this row of potatoes.

So they got more moisture than all other varieties. In addition, I fed the new varieties of potatoes with an infusion of liquid manure. In general, they grew royally: they received everything they needed in the right amount. So they thanked me with a generous harvest. The Timo variety, like other early varieties, had to grow no more than 10 tubers in the nest, and there were 15-20 of them, and they were large and clean.

The newly acquired potato varieties looked modest against the background of the Lira variety in terms of the harvested crop: from 15 to 25 large tubers in the nest. But this is only against the background of a record-breaking variety. On the whole, these are, of course, very good results. Here are the varieties that pleased: Charoit, Lomonosovsky, Danae, Timo, Pearl, In memory of Osipova, Breeze.

Notice board

Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

These are the tubers that the

Ladoga variety gave this season

A very good harvest without watering the plants gave varieties that I have been growing for more than one season: Colette, Ladoga - there were 20-25 tubers in the nest. I think that in order to get a good harvest, you need to conduct annual observations of the yield of different varieties of potatoes and plant at least fifteen varieties on the site. Moreover, some of them should give a rich harvest during the dry season, while others - during the wet season.

According to my observations, there are many more varieties of potatoes for dry seasons. To get a significant harvest in the dry season, you need to shed the plantings at least once a season. The most favorable varieties for the dry season include the following varieties: Aurora, Zenith, Colette, Santa, Ladozhsky, Latona, Charodey, Timo, Ryabinushka, Elizaveta.

The varieties Charoite, Lomonosovsky, Danae, Zhemchuzhina, Pamyati Osipova, Breeze were first purchased and planted this year, but we can say with confidence that they are suitable for the dry season, but with mandatory watering. For the wet season, the best varieties are Radonezh, Liga, Lisetta, Madam. Unfortunately, there are few of them, and there are much more wet seasons in the Northwest than dry ones. I consider my favorite variety Lugovskoy to be an all-season one. This is the only one of the varieties I grow that is slightly affected by late blight and then only on the leaves. When we dig potatoes, the tops of this variety are seized by the disease only along the edge of the leaf. The tubers were never hit.

For several years I tested Belarusian potato varieties: Lileya, Skarb, Zhuravinka. This year she has planted another variety grown in Belarus - Molly. Unfortunately, these varieties have not been tested in our climatic conditions. The harvest was poor, and the tubers were small. Only the Zhuravinka variety turned out to be the most productive. The nest contained 25 tubers consistently, but of medium size. It turned out to be moderately resistant to late blight in the tops, but resistant to it in tubers and resistant to scab. The disadvantages of the variety can be attributed only to the fact that it requires watering in dry weather, and it needs to be planted only in a sunny place.

Based on the results of this season, I made a conclusion for myself that I will replace the early varieties of potatoes Adretta, Elizaveta, Ryabinushka, Nevsky with more productive varieties of Lira and Timo that are much superior in taste. I noticed: any purchased potato variety gives the greatest yield on my site in the first two or three years. Then it begins to degenerate: the tubers become smaller, and there are fewer of them in the nest.

This is due to the fact that we cannot provide one hundred percent crop rotation, and we plant potatoes after potatoes. The soil is depleted even when applying a large amount of organic fertilizers, as we do on our site. Diseases accumulate in the soil. Therefore, constantly for planting, you have to acquire new tubers of your favorite variety.

Unfortunately, varietal potato tubers in seed shops and sold at horticultural exhibitions do not match the super elite, as indicated on the price tags. These are, in my opinion, tubers harvested from the common heap of the dug crop. Alas, sellers of high-quality seed potatoes often deceive us in pursuit of quick profits, passing off wishful thinking.

Every year, half of the newly acquired potato varieties fail. Therefore, my experience has shown that you need to acquire at least ten tubers of each variety, and then select the most productive from them. Therefore, in recent years, I have been increasingly trying to buy potato planting material in ordinary supermarkets. I choose elite expensive varieties of potatoes, the packages of which indicate not only the manufacturer (full address and country), but also its variety. And it turned out that sometimes these varieties do not let me down.

For example, this year, as I noted above, this is how I bought not only the super-yielding variety Lira, but also the yielding variety of Lithuanian origin Breeze. Several years ago, I also bought Colette and Karatop varieties in a supermarket. By the way, at the exhibition for gardeners only this year the Colette variety first appeared.

Buying a package of such planting material, I immediately acquire a lot of clean tubers at an affordable price, of which I select some for planting with the largest number of eyes, and the rest go for tasting. But I want to remind you that you need to wash them very carefully and process them against possible pests and diseases, so as not to bring them to your site. This is a prerequisite for the development of a new variety.

Potatoes are a very time consuming culture. And only with a high level of agrotechnical measures can a rich harvest be grown. Then it is not necessary to allocate a lot of space in the garden for this culture. One has only to devote more time to it, then you are guaranteed a good harvest. After all, the experience of gardeners is known, who, with high agricultural technology, collect up to one ton of tubers from a hundred square meters. And why then take up extra land ?!

"How to Grow a Good Harvest of Delicious Potatoes"

• Part 1. Purchase and disinfection of potato planting material
• Part 2. Preparation and planting of potato tubers
• Part 3. Diseases and pests of potatoes
• Part 4. Potato harvest by June
• Part 5. Analysis of potato varieties at the end of the summer