The yield of potatoes, of course, depends on the soil and variety. Fertilizers alone are often not enough, since it is possible to collect 5 buckets of potatoes from one bush only using modern technologies. If this is your first time developing a site, you may have a good harvest in the fall, but in the future the number of potatoes harvested will decrease.
How to grow a bucket of potatoes from one bush?
What's so hard about growing potatoes? Having dug up a large area, we generously fertilize it with manure. Now we plant good and large potatoes in the ground. With this method, we usually grow a bucket of potatoes per square meter and consider this sufficient. If we discard the spoiled and diseased tubers, then in the balance we will get a completely disappointing figure. Continuing to work in the old fashioned way, we break our backs to eat our potatoes only at the end of summer - beginning of autumn. Meanwhile, a bucket of potatoes from a bush is a completely common thing. The yield may be higher. There are several ways to significantly increase it.
From whatdepends on yield?
First, let's figure out what affects the final result. Of course, we need to take into account some nuances:
- The larger the potatoes, the higher the yield.
- The more root crops set, the more promising the potential harvest.
- Need he althy, intact potatoes - the less waste, the better.
- It is important to wait a certain time for the harvest. The number of potatoes may be large, but some of them are peas, while other root crops may be fully ripe. It is important that all the potatoes have time to grow.
How to ensure each of these conditions, let's take a closer look.
Potato sizes
There are specially bred large-fruited varieties. For example:
- Idaho variety potatoes can be found in fast food restaurants. This variety produces perfectly even, elongated and fairly large tubers. It has an atypical taste, which is why restaurant potatoes are very different from homemade food. Getting 550 centners of such potatoes from one hectare of land is quite realistic. In Russia, it is successfully cultivated, not only for the purpose of breeding. The variety is early maturing, resistant to diseases. Idaho is very nutritious and high in starch.
- Bellarosa is a Slovak variety cultivated in Russia, Poland, Belarus. It has a high yield and large size. The variety is highly starchy (up to 19%). It quickly boils soft, has a crumbly white pulp. Bellarosa potato peel is brownish. With regular watering, potatoes can reach 500-600 grams.
- Gala - potatoes grow 400 grams each. And there are 5-6 of them on the bush. In addition, the variety is quite early. Up to 80% of all potatoes are large. It is characteristic that nothing seems to say anything about high productivity. Outside, Gala is a bush 45-50 cm high.
- Luck - the variety is not only large-fruited, but also fruitful. 25 root crops on a bush with an average weight of 180 grams allow you to get a crop of up to 960 centners per hectare.
- Rozara variety is also distinguished by many tubers. You can easily dig 20-30 pieces. Each has a good size - at least 150 grams. The variety is starchy and disease resistant. The stems are large, but susceptible to attacks by the Colorado potato beetle.
- Slavyanka - Ukrainian variety with very large tubers. Potatoes up to one kilogram in weight are a reality. Grows even on poor soils. Starch contains a little - 12% of the strength. Used as a fodder crop due to low palatability.
The use of high-quality and modern planting material greatly facilitates the cultivation of potatoes. How to get a bucket from a bush with a good variety is known in any village. The cost of varietal potatoes for planting, of course, is higher. So why not increase the yield by an order of magnitude?
What determines the number of potatoes on a bush?
On average, two dozen potatoes are formed on a bush, but there can be five or forty. Back in the eighteenth century, the Russian agronomist Bolotov countedone hundred potatoes per bush. If everything is clear with the size of root crops, it depends on the variety and suitability of the soil, then it is more difficult to increase the number of potatoes. Of course, the variety plays a big role. Also, the number of tubers directly depends on the looseness of the soil. In heavy clay, there is simply nowhere for roots to develop.
There is a certain dependence of the number of tubers on the number of trunks in the bush. The more branchy and lush the plant, the more active photosynthesis, the more it stores nutrients in the tubers. For more trunks, more eyes are needed. Folk methods of selection and preparation of seed material in this case are fully justified.
Ripe potatoes
Before you grow a whole bucket of potatoes from one bush, you need to choose the right variety. It is advisable to focus not only on productivity, but also on the climatic features of your area. For the middle band, mid-season and mid-early varieties are suitable.
A large root crop will take longer to grow. On average, potatoes of mid-ripening and late varieties are slightly larger than early ones. Do not expect a large yield if you decide to dig up a potato bush immediately after flowering.
Most often, the ripeness of potatoes is determined by the leaves. Agronomists believe that this is not entirely true. The tops can also dry out due to a lack of nitrogen or heat. It also makes no sense to overexpose the "dried" potatoes. Withering leaves will draw moisture out of the tubers, and the quality of the crop will decrease.
It is recommended to cut the fallen tops a few days beforecleaning. Potatoes still have time to absorb the juices. You can check the readiness of the crop by digging one bush. The firmness of the peel indicates maturity. It should not peel off when rubbed.
Crop Preservation
Additionally, care must be taken that all your rich harvest is not destroyed by diseases and pests. As mentioned above, cutting dead tops before harvesting additionally helps to protect the tubers from diseases. The most important enemy of potatoes is phytophthora. There are practically no varieties resistant to it. Chemicals are used to protect the plant. It is also recommended not to plant potatoes in one place using crop rotation. A minimum of 3-4 different crops should precede a new planting of potatoes. Among the predecessors there should not be a tomato and other plants susceptible to late blight.
Fertilizers
There are many proven folk remedies and tips on how to grow a bucket of potatoes from one bush and not lose the harvest. Hardening of planting material in a special solution gives good results. Usually use water with the addition of potassium permanganate. The solution should be slightly pink. They also use boric acid, Bordeaux liquid.
Fertilization of potatoes gives excellent results and significantly increases the yield. The combination of organic and mineral substances is considered the best for a plant. In the old fashioned way, potatoes are fertilized with manure, ash, crushed eggshells are added. Such advice you will find when wondering how to grow a bucketpotatoes from one bush. This is not entirely correct. The benefits of eggshells have not been proven at all. Manure can become a source of diseases and excess nitrates. The rotted manure is brought in for autumn plowing at the rate of 400-500 kilograms per one hundred square meters of land. Potash and phosphate fertilizers are applied in a ratio of 1:1. The best effect is achieved when fertilizing the soil with organomineral complexes.
The most important role for the potato crop is soil preparation, loosening and watering. You practically do not need to dig up the field in the spring if you dug it before winter. Hilling will remove excess weeds, will prevent the formation of excess moisture in the soil. Regular watering can increase yield. The tubers absorb moisture well, but the quality of the potato, its keeping quality is reduced.
Experience growing potatoes: 20 bushes - 40 buckets
Experienced vegetable growers have a similar secret. Some will find it quite unusual.
The bottom line is to properly prepare the planting material, and then let the bush grow as much as possible. For the experiment you will need:
- 20 eyed seed potatoes. If there are a lot of sprouts, the potatoes need to be cut so that there are 2-3 of them left on a piece.
- Mixture for processing planting material. For 10 liters of water, a glass of ash is taken, 1 teaspoon of boric acid and one tablespoon of Bordeaux mixture. Soak the seed in the solution for 15 minutes.
- Throw a teaspoon of "Amophoska" into the marked holes.
We plant potatoes at a sufficiently large distance. Dip a little. After the sprouts appear, gently spread them apart, sprinkling each with earth in a circle.
When the stems grow up, the procedure must be repeated, gently bending the tops. It turns out that we divide the bush into several parts, and each will grow as an independent plant. Well, you already know how to grow a bucket of potatoes from one bush. It is better to dig such a bush with a pitchfork so as not to damage the tubers. Carefully undermine it from all sides, lifting the ground. There will be a lot of potatoes!
Conclusion
If we add high-quality fertilizers, a good variety, watering and top dressing to this method, leaving not 2 eyes, but all available ones, then we can get a bucket from each sprout.
Theoretically, you now know how to get 5 buckets of potatoes from 1 bush. This bush will take about a square meter. That is, the question of whether or not to divide potatoes when planting remains rhetorical. From the same area you will get about the same yield. The choice remains - what do you like more: hilling beds in the fresh air or sprouting eyes indoors.
