How to Plant Potatoes? Detailed Planting Methods and Steps

When planting potatoes, choose a loose, fertile, well-draining sandy loam soil for planting, then apply enough base fertilizer and wait for later planting. Before sowing, take the seed potatoes out 20 days in advance to sprout them, then cut them into pieces and sow them into the soil at a row spacing of 15cm and a plant spacing of 15cm, and finally add some manure and cover with soil. If there is no water nearby, you can cover with a layer of plastic film, and once they sprout, just remove the film, and after 3 months they can be harvested.

High-yield potato planting methods:

1. Seed selection: What kind of seed is good to choose?

Seed selection is a prerequisite for ensuring high potato yields, but many farmers are still stuck with the planting concepts and quality from over a decade ago, growing the same variety for over ten years. Although many people have already changed varieties during planting, the soil used for planting has not been renewed, causing the quality of the variety to seriously degrade. The potato variety should be chosen according to factors such as the planting environment, time, and weather. Market demand and season should also be considered. As long as you choose the variety based on these environmental factors, you can achieve a very good yield.

2. Seedling raising: How to raise seedlings?

If potato planting encounters fluctuating high and low temperatures, they will easily rot, so when sprouting you must ensure conditions for complete and uniform seedlings. Choose disease-free medium-sized potatoes with relatively uniform eyes for sprouting, cut them and let them dry, place them in a relatively shady spot, spread a layer of moist sand over them, then cover with plastic film for insulation. Generally, within 1 to 2 weeks the eyes of the potato pieces will begin to sprout; sow the ones that have already sprouted, and continue sprouting the ones that have not yet sprouted.

3. Temperature: What temperature is best?

Potatoes have a relatively high demand for light, but they are quite strict about light and temperature. During the potato seedling stage, 20 degrees is the most suitable temperature. The temperature for potato tuber growth should be controlled at around 18 to 20 degrees; higher than 20 degrees or lower than 18 degrees will have different effects on the growth and development of potatoes. For example, according to the weather and farming conditions in the south, sowing begins around the Start of Autumn, harvesting can begin in November, and after harvest winter planting begins, with harvesting possible around the Start of Spring the following year. And so on by analogy. Spring planting can be harvested in May to June.

4. Cultivation: How to cultivate?

Potatoes grow faster in the later stage, so the soil for planting potatoes must be fertile, deep, and relatively soft. The drainage system should be good. Divide the land into rows and prepare it into field beds, with the field beds 70 to 80cm wide and 30 to 40cm high. The main thing is still to choose different field beds according to the variety, and to reasonably control the planting density; generally the distance between each hole is about 15cm, and the row spacing is 15cm. And because the potato growing period is relatively shorter than that of other crops, you must ensure its fertilizer requirements.

The above is a related introduction to how to plant potatoes, and I hope it is helpful to everyone.