Potato varieties "Beauties of the East" - my reviews
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Growing potatoes of the grade Beauty of the East
One of the “miracles” of our modern economy is that the Russian product itself is now largely non-Russian. Where did they not bring potatoes to us! That is why this letter does not have a price: it’s time to relocate foreign novelties to their native land - let them grow and feed.
Unexpected discovery
Until 2010, our village was an excellent supplier of potatoes. In the autumn, after harvesting, money changers came and made exchanges - grain for poultry and mixed feed for cattle, sugar and vegetable oil, melons and watermelons were changed for potatoes.
But after the drought of 2010, everything changed. There was no potato, merchants disappeared, and the villagers themselves became money changers, only now they exchanged their money for potatoes in a store where the price of one kilogram of potatoes was equal to the price of two buckets in the previous year, 2009 ...
In early spring, when I arrived at the store, I noticed potatoes on the window, the look of which surprised me. They were very beautiful, white, clean tubers without the slightest sign of disease or damage. I happened to see many different varieties, but this was the first time I saw it! I asked the seller to show the container to find out who is the supplier of these glorious vegetables. On the bag were indicated the exporter and the state - Pakistan. Wow!
And I didn’t know that such a country exports potatoes, because there the usual temperature is, when it’s not hot, -40 ° in the shade, and the heat starts at 50 ° ...
I was like, like, and decided to buy this product - see, check. Cooked, mashed. Liked. On a barely blowing day, they were fried in lard - very tasty! In appearance and taste, the starch content is approximately 16-17%.
After the trials, we decided to land a trial batch of several clubs in the spring. To increase the yield, I decided to use the method that I tested - seedlings with sprouts. The tubers were lowered into the cellar, where they were until the start of vernalization. 35-40 days before planting, they underwent vernalization and on May 15 they were planted in a prepared bed for sprouts to germinate.
See also: Selection of potato planting material - reviews and tips
Two weeks later, on this bed, the earth began to rise from the seedlings. And after a week it became clear to me that I could not propagate this potato with sprouts, since there were growths of kov from one to three on each tuber, mainly two. It followed that this potato was a late-ripening variety, that it needed 120-135 days for ripening. In early ripening and mid-ripening varieties, the number of sprouts on the tuber ranges from 9 to 16, and an average of 12 pieces. They grow in different ways. In late-ripening varieties, shoots begin to branch near the ground, and in early-ripening and mid-ripening only after the shoots grow 20-25 cm from the ground, stepson begins to grow from axillary buds at the base of the leaf.
Yes, I was not very pleased with this turn. Our snow begins to thaw intensively on April 10-15, and the first frosts have been observed since September 3. Time for ripening late ripening varieties is not enough. And another thing: plants during flowering, laying of stolons and the formation of tubers need a large amount of water. This is the period from July 15 to the end of August, and at that time it just does not rain, this period is the hottest for the whole summer.
Features of preparing potatoes for planting
In the fall, I plant it in the kitchen garden. The land is sandy, the harvest is large every year, so it is necessary to replenish nutrients in the soil. Usually, for those 5 sotok, where vegetables are grown, I contribute annually to 10-15 cube. m of humus. Loosening for the winter I do not spend. And under loosening I mean the cultivation of the land by hand with a special device.
Three garden pitchforks and two eyelets for cuttings are welded onto a pipe with a diameter of 25 mm. Parallel to the ground, a bracket is welded, which serves as the basis for the lever “pitchfork - stalk”. Loosen, stepping back. Coverage 600 mm, which is very convenient for the preparation of beds in the spring. The bed is made in two passes (back and forth). Its width is 1 m 20 cm. With a bed length of 5 m, loosening takes no more than 10 minutes. The entire area of 500 square meters. I process one, although I am 78 years old.
The device is convenient in that it is easy to loosen the earth, especially considering that the surface fertile soil layer is no more than 30 cm, and then there is solid sand. This sand just remains in its place, without mixing with the fertile layer.
I spend selection or selection of seed material for the next year at digging. If the bush is healthy, well developed and matured, which is determined by the yellowness of the upper leaves, it is dug out, tubers weighing 100-120 g are picked, healthy, regular in shape, not damaged, and stacked in trellised boxes of 75 pieces. They are dried in the sun and stored for two weeks in a dark barn. After that, together with the rest of the potatoes are lowered into the cellar. All seed in the boxes indicating the varieties is separate from the bulk until the rise to vernalization. The duration of vernalization is 35-40 days, it ends by the time of disembarkation. Usually we carry out the rise on April 1-2, and we land on May 10-12.
Good predecessors for potatoes are legumes, cucumbers, pumpkin, cabbage, beets, green and grain crops, as well as raspberries and strawberries.
Good neighbors for potatoes - spinach, radishes, cabbage, garlic. Horseradish, legumes, coriander, lettuce, onions, corn, and currants can also be excellent neighbors.
Bad neighbors - tomatoes, turnips, pumpkin, apple tree, celery, cucumber.
The pre-cultivated potato is preliminarily treated with a solution of the purchased fungicidal potato preparation preparation: 60 ml per 6 buckets of planting material.
The contents of the bottle are dissolved by water 1: 10. The potatoes are irrigated with an atomizer directly in the boxes first on one side, then turned over and processed on the other side. Such protection of tubers is very effective from Colorado beetle, horsetail, wireworm. In addition, this solution can be used against aphids.
The planting process
Last season I decided to check the possibilities of the Beauty of the East variety. For this, a land plot of one hundred square meters was allocated. Since the variety is very powerful, the order of planting was chosen as follows. Row from row was located at a distance of 1 m, and the bush from the bush in a row was 50 cm. The weight of the tuber was 100-120 g, all tubers were germinated, with sprouts about 1 cm long.
Landing was carried out carefully so as not to break off the sprouts. The tuber head is directed upward, the planting depth is 10-12 cm. 200 tubers were planted on an area of one hundred parts. It should be noted that among the sprouted tubers there were 8-10 pieces of sprouted, without sprouts, with thin sprouts and white strings-roots. They were rejected. Shoots appeared after 14 days. The land was well prepared, humidity was normal. The temperature in the spring was not higher than 20 °, rains fell on time.
About a week later, the bushes swelled and became like dark green balls. Leaflets are beautiful, carved, larger than that of ordinary potatoes. Yes, the appearance of this variety is different from other varieties.
Along with organic fertilizers, many seeds of weeds fall into the soil, so before the first hilling, I carefully weed the weeds. Plants are quickly gaining strength, and when they reach a height of 15-20 cm, I start to hoe them, pouring a little bit of land on both sides and not filling up sprouts.
In our region, from July 5 to July 15, the air temperature drops to 5-6 ° at night, and to 9-12 ° during the day, and it rains, so there is a very high probability of phytophthora outbreak. Bushes at this time are still small, spraying is not difficult. Where it is warm at this time, such processing is not necessary.
A few days after treatment, I cultivate aisles. For these purposes, I use a special tool similar to a plane cutter, only its cutting part is an acute-angled equilateral triangle welded to a half-arc from a bar with a diameter of 15 mm. During cultivation, the cultivator goes to a depth of 15-18 cm. The edges of the triangle are sharpened sharply - to cut the roots of weeds. The time of loosening the row-spacings is chosen so that the stolons have not yet been formed and have not climbed out into the row-spacings.
The second hilling is carried out before the rows close and close. The land in the aisles is very soft, so this time the land is poured more than at the first hilling. The roller is made low and to the tuber was not 6 more than 25 cm. The row turns out to be such that in the middle (where the bush) a hollow is formed to accumulate water from rain or watering.
Immediately after hilling, I spend secondary processing on the possible phytophthora, this must be done before the budding, otherwise it will not be easy to get into the aisles: the height of the bushes reaches 1 m.
The next task that needs to be solved is to keep the bushes green from mid-July to the end of August. We do not have rains at this time, so once in a do not divide, I spend watering with sprinkling. Water is taken from the well, cold (12-14 °). I water from 12 to 17 hours so that the foliage dries by the evening. September 10-12, I mow the tops. Potato growth time is 120 days. After 10 days, they started digging potatoes, and here a surprise awaited me and my wife ...
Harvest in "pits"
Usually we choose a fine autumn sunny day and dig one hundred 1,5-2 hours. The first excavated bushes showed that for a frivolous attitude the plant "took revenge" to us in full measure. The shovel from the center of the bush had to be removed at 40 cm so as not to damage the tubers, which could be almost at the middle of the rows. A turn out the bush with land and harvest, retreating so far away, very hard!
To select all the tubers, we had to dig “pits” up to 70 cm in diameter to a depth of 25-27 cm. The number of large tubers was at least 12-14 pieces: from four bushes - a full large bucket.
To the best of our ability, we dug this weave for three days — 2-3 hours before lunch and the same amount after. The results were as follows: 40 buckets of excellent marketable products and two buckets of cut tubers (5% of the total crop). Rarely managed to dig a bush without damaging the tubers. And plus two buckets of small potatoes, a total of 44 buckets. From which it hardly blows that the reproduction rate, i.e. the ratio of dug potatoes to planted is 14,7. This is more than a good result!
I only had to see something like that once. In 1978, we planted a new Belarusian variety of potatoes for industrial purposes at our site. The tempo with starch content is 21%. Then with 10 a hundred we dug up 4,5 tons.
According to my assumptions, the productivity of the Beauty of the East variety can be increased by another 20-25% if the planting is compacted: row from row - 80-85 cm, and bush from bush in row - 40 cm. In this case, the number of tubers per hundred square meter will increase to 275- 280 pieces (usually up to 320 pieces are planted per hundred square meters in potato farms).
See also: Planting potatoes and growing them from A to Z - ways and preparation of seeds
A true review of several popular varieties of potatoes on video
© Author: Vladimir Leonidovich BELOUSOV.
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- Potatoes with seeds (Tula region)
- Recovery of potato varieties after degeneration and potato sprouts
- How to grow potatoes in straw
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