Growing potatoes - my feedback on "alternative methods" and experiments with potatoes (Orel)
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FERTILIZERS FOR POTATOES AND REVIEWS ON EXPERIMENTS IN ITS CULTIVATION
I followed the tradition for several years in a row. It worked. I have been preparing a garden bed since autumn: width 1 m, length 10 m, height 0 m. A flat slate box is reinforced with a 4 × 20 mm pipe. This height is sufficient for quick warm-up, and width is sufficient to retain heat. I filled it with superphosphate and potassium salt according to the instructions. Last year there was an opportunity to use chaff (husk from wheat grain) - I added two buckets per 40 sq. m. And also ground limestone - a handful per "square": there was no more. I dug it up and left it for the winter.
At the end of February, he transferred the potatoes from the cellar to the apartment. A little: taking into account the possible rejection - 65 pieces, somewhere around 4 kg, the harvest from which for us, eight people, is enough in summer and early autumn. I sprout it in a vegetable box in the kitchen, near the wall, opposite the window: diffused light. I spray it with water every four to five days so that it does not dry out. The size of the tubers is normal - about the size of a chicken egg. I never process or stimulate anything - why interfere with nature?
Weather permitting (usually at the end of March, on weekends) I go to the dacha. If winter garlic has hatched, then the soil has thawed. I dig a hole in the garden bed, put a thermometer in it (you can't put a thermometer on a wide field, but you can put it in the garden bed) and cover it with a piece of board. I cover the top with agrofibre No. 60 and a film.
I monitor the temperature on weekends; at 7 ° and above, I plant potatoes under a shovel.
Last year it happened on April 5th.
Planted 14 tubers for Bellarose. Nevskaya - 11 (along the northern edge), Red Sonya - 12 (along the southern edge). The rest are different early varieties, all good. In the middle, closer to the end of the bed, I put a thermometer. The shelter is the same, only along the arcs. At 15 ° and higher, I remove the film from the ends, throw it up and fix it. This usually happens in late April - early May.
Again, on weekends, water and feed as needed. So, in May 2020, I watered twice with an interval of two weeks. The tops seemed to me pale and weak, so after watering I fed them with urea at the root: 1 tbsp. l. on a bucket of water.
At a temperature of 20 ° I remove the film (somewhere May 5-15).
Around the same time, the tops grow up to 10-15 cm. Instead of hilling, I mulch the bed with a layer of hay 10-15 cm thick: it is much easier, more convenient and more useful. I shoot agrofibre according to the weather, in late May - early June. The potato is in full bloom at this time, which means that in two or three weeks you can start digging it. They dug a bucket - ate it, dug a second one - ate it, everything is simple, no fancy. The main thing, like in a waltz, is not to go astray.
In June 2020, we were sick. They rarely visited the dacha, they were in no hurry to dig young potatoes. Everyone was happy: “Oh, how good the tops are! There will be a harvest! " (photo 1). On July 12, the old stocks ran out. They dug a nest, the second, the third ... Result: 14 tubers! And the largest one is about the size of a chicken egg. "Additional option": a bear gnawed through him (photo 2-3). There were 12 gnawed in total!
We are shocked: how so? Everything always worked out, and then once - and a tuber with a hole, a kind of zero. It is from this zero that the experience begins ... Zero means that the agricultural technology I use could not ensure the harvest of potatoes in a cool, cloudy, dark spring. Therefore, in the winter I have developed the following rules.
Organic matter - humus, compost, chaff, etc. - put only when planting and two or three handfuls per hole. Taking this opportunity, I will ask experts: is there so much organic matter that the potatoes begin to fatten?
To add potassium and phosphorus in the same doses: my pension will not be enough for their excess.
Lime flour should also be added: it won't get any worse. Definitely.
Water if dry. There is no overflow in high beds, and potatoes love change: moisture is air. (It was the North-West last year, it was rained, but it was dry here. From April to September, there were three rains: two only nailed the dust, the third good - a barrel had accumulated under the drain from the roof.)
Feeding with nitrogen is strictly according to the indications, and not earlier than the buds appear.
As soon as the seedlings emerge from the ground, it is necessary to replace the old film with a new, transparent one, and change the agrofibre No. 60 to No. 30. Potatoes do not have much light.
At a temperature of 10 °, open the ends of the beds, and at 15 °, remove the film. The coolness of the potatoes is only good.
Foliar dressing slows down the growth of tops.
In the summer, in the midst of the struggle for the harvest, following the surprise, the traditional Russian question appeared: what to do? Somehow I didn't want to lose a whole patch of potatoes, and the search began. I have no Internet. There is literature, the press.
Some were rejected. First, there is no seed potato, no free land, no time to grow new plantings.
Secondly, there is no mood for innovation and testing. The spring fervor like "oh, I will move mountains!"
See also: Propagation of potato varieties with mini-tubers: from A to Z
We decided to rely on folk experience: everything is simple, understandable, accessible. True, there is no guarantee. In addition, if the potatoes are already crazy, they are unlikely to come to their senses. And the struggle for the harvest began.
I braced myself and bought potassium monophosphate. An expensive tool. Diluted 1 tbsp. l. in a bucket of water. On a weekend, I watered, sprinkled the plantings - the leaf is wet, but it does not drip from it. The bucket was enough for me for all the potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. Then he bred less. On another weekend I poured and sprinkled with a solution of complex fertilizer with microelements: magnesium, boron, molybdenum, cobalt, etc. Well, on the third day I poured and sprinkled with a solution of ash: it won't get any worse. And so several times. Food should be complete and varied, but without fanaticism.
As you understand, I am a senior in potatoes, and we are weekend summer residents. I clarify: in order to be in time for everything, not to forget anything and not to confuse anything, on the eve of departure I write a list of what needs to be done. Yes, it is old, primitive, but in fact it helps out. The main thing is not to forget to look at this list.
In order not to go to another painful extreme (and this has happened), I am guided by a schedule: work - 45 minutes, rest - 15-20 minutes, lunch - one and a half to two hours. Working in the heat - 20 minutes, cooling off in the shade - 15-20 minutes. If the work requires an uncomfortable, sedentary posture, I work for 20-30 minutes, then warm-up for 5-10 minutes.
I fully share the statement of the doctor-healer S.I. Bubnovsky: life is the right movement. This is how we balance: we do all the most important things and do not fall off our feet from fatigue. But back to our garden.
Everything would be fine, but only the waltz replaced the lambada. Sometimes heavy: buckets, buckets, sprayers ... Therefore, the search for easy ways began immediately after "zeroing".
We studied the method of N.F.Semenenko ("In vain the neighbors had fun ...") with cutting the tops. The idea is interesting, but it did not come to the point. And here's why: we have long noticed that under weak tops there is rarely a good harvest. Yes, it happens, but rarely; I read several articles with photographs, where the authors tie a huge (1, 5-2 m) tops to stakes, or even to trellises and get excellent yields from these bushes! Therefore, the length of the tops is not an indicator for tubers.
While I was digesting all this, an idea was born: it is better not to cut the tops, but to do something so that all its strength and power flows into the tubers. That would be great!
Thanks to Nadezhda Filippovna - she pushed my train of thought. It became clear what to look for, and “whoever seeks will always find”.
It turned out that there are such agrotechnical methods: desiccation and senikation. They are said to increase yields by 20-25%. Suitable. I am opening "Dacha" No. 8 for 2015, "summer resident's dictionary". The option with copper sulfate disappears: there is no copper deficiency in the soil, and we do not need the extra one. Magnesium chlorate. What kind of poison? Search, watch, delve? It takes effort, time and money. And they are in shortage - a deficit.
Of all that I found, I liked the article by VP Gladkikh "Potato gives a lesson." Thanks a lot to him! Everything is sensible: what, when, how. After a series of foliar dressings, I did just that: I put 1 kg of double superphosphate in a bucket, filled it with water, left it to brew overnight, and stirred it in the morning. The solution turned out to be cloudy, as if dirty boots had been washed. He defended, poured and sprinkled the tops.
I suspect that under the signboard "double superphosphate" there is phosphate rock (at best). For two weeks of observation, no change in the color of the tops was noticed. Although, it is possible that the previous feeding affected. I was about to repeat the spraying with the replacement of the double superphosphate with the usual one, but how much is possible! I'm tired of it. Never before have they paid so much attention to potatoes and have been with the harvest, but here it is, do not understand what is going on. And there are enough other worries.
In general, I left everything as it is. Only on weekends did I continue to water: if it is dry, then 100 liters per garden bed. Poured from the bucket straight into the middle, moving from one end to the other. If it was too dry, the operation was repeated. The tops were growing (photo 4), the potatoes were blooming (photo 5). Probably, this would have gone on for a long time, but on September 20, the frost put an end to this matter.
They dug on the 26th (photo 6). Collected five buckets of grocery potatoes, about a bucket of seed and the same amount of trifles. To be honest, we did not even expect such a result (although it happened even better). In general, we believe that all the troubles and expenses paid off. Yes, and we were also greatly surprised by the absence of a bear. What drove her away? That would be to repeat in a simplified version, otherwise she got it already.
Well, I told about the harvest, now a little about myself. In the summer, I am a farmer practitioner, for whom it is important to get a good harvest and maintain health, and even better - to strengthen it. Without health, nothing pleases, even the best harvest. In winter, I am a summer resident-theorist: I sum up, study, generalize and share my experience. It is a pity, so far it is not possible to combine the roles of the peasant and the theoretician. Eh, it was nevertheless necessary to cut the tops of five bushes using the method of Nadezhda Filippovna - for testing. And it was possible to sprinkle with vitriol, and with desiccation the patch came out: it was a powerful foliar top dressing. After proper desiccation, the tops dry out. The sown green manure would have had time to grow before the frost, but they just emerged from me.
Well, I'll catch up on occasion. Now I know what and how, I hope you also know. The potatoes on the main plot were planted at the end of May: the sky is bright, the earth is warm.
Grew without problems, the harvest is normal. This, in my opinion, confirms the fact that a cool and dark spring is an ordeal for summer residents and early potato planting. But we can successfully overcome this test if we wish!
I read in one newspaper that phosphorus is not assimilated by plants through the leaves. Is this someone's personal opinion or scientifically proven fact? What do you think?
Reference by topic: Planting potatoes and growing them from A to Z - ways and preparation of seeds
TAKE A NOTE! HOW TO MIX POTATO FERTILIZER
Ammonia forms of nitrogen fertilizers (ammonium sulfate, ammophos) should not be mixed with alkaline forms (thermophosphates, lime fertilizers, ash): almost all nitrogen will evaporate.
It is necessary to combine fertilizers containing alkali with superphosphate gradually, in several steps, so that the water-soluble superphosphate salt does not become insoluble.
It is not recommended to prepare a mixture of nitrate with superphosphate and potassium salts in advance: the mixture can become damp. In general, only dry fertilizers can be mixed. If they are caked, they must not be wetted! They just need to be ground into powder and sieved.
Good luck to everyone and new achievements!
CULTIVATION OF POTATOES IN BAGS - EXPERIMENTAL VIEW
© Author: Andrey Nikolaevich Kuznetsov. eagle
Below other entries on the topic "Dacha and garden - with their own hands"
- Potato cultivation - rammer, triad and 150 buckets
- How to get friendly and healthy potato shoots
- Unpretentious varieties of potatoes, advice of specialists in growing
- Planting potatoes - tubers or eyes?
- Growing potatoes under a film - my reviews and tips (Bryansk region)
- Cultivation of potatoes from seeds (Tula region)
- Growing potatoes in the Chinese way + amendments for Russia and my reviews
- Early potatoes: planting and rearing for early potato harvesting
- Potato cultivation in Udmurtia - planting and care
- Growing potatoes in the Omsk region
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Dear readers, tell me, please, what happened to my potatoes? For many years the seeds have such sprouts. From 50 kg of potatoes, I gained only 3 kg of good seeds, and the rest are as in the photo.
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Last autumn, the potato showed an unprecedented trick: on the tops, in internodes, small nodules about 1 × 5 cm in size grew (some specimens were more than 2 cm in length). Moreover, this happened on the bushes of only one variety, which is popularly called Gypsy for the purple peel. This potato is very tasty, crumbly, but why did it give out strange tubercles?
After much thought, I came to the conclusion that the variety is degenerating and in this way, as it were, protects itself, fights for life under the sun. Well, if so, then I stopped relying on the harvest too - I will collect something, well, okay. But when I started digging, I was even more surprised: a lot of potatoes were born, and large ones, some specimens were very large. Here is a ready breeder theme! And I still regret that I did not preserve the very nodules that grew on the tops. Probably, it was worth putting them in the refrigerator and experimenting with them in the new season. Indeed, it is precisely such nodules that grow from seeds. Or not?
Therefore, I have one more question for our readers: who else gave out such a potato trick? Maybe some of the summer residents know what the appearance of such "surprises" on the tops really means? I would love to get answers to these questions, because I love doing experiments.