The Latest Tutorial on High-Yield Potato Cultivation and Planting Techniques
The potato is an annual herbaceous plant of the genus Solanum in the nightshade family, also known as the earth egg, foreign taro, potato, and so on. The potato grows 30-80 cm tall, is hairless or sparsely pubescent. The stem is divided into two parts: the above-ground stem and the underground stem. The potato is one of China's five major staple foods, with high nutritional value, strong adaptability, and high yield, and is the world's third most important food crop, after wheat and corn. The potato reproduces by tubers and can be used as medicine; it is neutral in nature and sweet in taste, and mainly treats stomach pain, mumps, carbuncles, and other diseases. As a food, its storage period should not be too long, and it must be stored at low temperature, dry, and sealed.
Selecting Good Varieties
Selecting good varieties is an important part of high-yield potato cultivation. Research shows that excellent potato varieties and their high-quality virus-free seed potatoes can contribute up to about 60% to potato yield. Virus-free seed potatoes emerge early, have robust plants, large leaves, well-developed root systems, strong stress resistance, and great yield-increasing potential. Therefore, in production, virus-free G2 and G3 generation good varieties must all be selected.
Choosing and Preparing the Land
The potato is a crop that does not tolerate continuous cropping. The plot for planting potatoes should be chosen from land that has not grown potatoes or other nightshade crops within three years. Potatoes are very sensitive to continuous cropping, and continuous cropping must be avoided in production. If potatoes are planted continuously on one plot, it will not only cause serious diseases such as bacterial wilt, but also cause soil nutrient imbalance, especially of certain trace elements, making potatoes grow poorly, with short plants, low yield, and poor quality. Rotation of potatoes with plants such as corn and wheat has a better yield-increasing effect.
The expansion of potato tubers requires loose and fertile soil. Therefore, the plot for planting potatoes should preferably be chosen as flat terrain with irrigation conditions, good drainage, deep plow layer, and loose sandy loam. After the previous crop is harvested, deep plowing and fine harrowing should be carried out, and then beds should be made. The width and height of the beds should depend on the terrain and soil moisture. Where the terrain is high and drainage is good, wide beds can be made; where the terrain is low and drainage is poor, narrow beds or high beds should be made.
Applying Sufficient Base Fertilizer
The potato forms a large amount of stems, leaves, and tubers during its growth period, so it needs more nutrients. Among the three essential fertilizer elements, potassium is needed the most, followed by nitrogen, and phosphorus the least. Applying sufficient base fertilizer plays an important role in increasing potato yield. The base fertilizer for potatoes should account for 3/5 or 2/3 of the total fertilizer application. The base fertilizer is mainly decomposed manure, compost, and human and livestock manure and other organic fertilizers, combined with phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Generally, apply 1000-1500 kg of organic fertilizer, 15-25 kg of superphosphate, and 100-150 kg of plant ash per mu. The base fertilizer should be applied in the soil layer below 10 cm in combination with bed making or hole digging, so as to facilitate plant absorption and loosen the tuber-setting layer. When sowing, use 20-30 dan of decomposed human and livestock manure and urine per mu, or 5-8 kg of nitrogen fertilizer as seed fertilizer, so that seedlings emerge quickly and uniformly and grow robustly.
Seed Potato Treatment
1. Carefully Selecting Seed Potatoes
On the basis of selecting good varieties, choose healthy seed potatoes with regular tuber shape, typical characteristics of the variety, smooth skin, bright color, and a moderate size of 1-2 liang in weight for seed. When selecting seed potatoes, strictly remove tubers with cracked skin, deformities, pointed ends, necrotic buds, disease spots, or black rot at the navel.
2. Cutting into Pieces and Using Small Whole Potatoes as Seed
Planting seed potatoes cut into pieces can promote oxygen exchange inside and outside the tuber, break dormancy, and advance germination and emergence. However, when cutting into pieces, disease is easily transmitted through the cutting knife, causing seed rot, missing plants, or increased field disease incidence, and accelerating variety degeneration. If the pieces are too large, the amount of seed used is large; generally, cutting into 20-30 g pieces is appropriate. When cutting, cut lengthwise so that each piece carries an apical-dominant bud eye. When cutting, remove diseased potatoes, and strictly disinfect the cutting tools to prevent disease transmission.
Using small whole potatoes as seed can avoid disease transmission by the cutting knife, and small whole potatoes have strong vitality and drought resistance, emerge early and uniformly after sowing, and increase the number of buds, main stems, and tubers per hill. Therefore, using robust small potatoes of about 25 g as seed has a significant disease-preventing and yield-increasing effect. However, small potatoes generally have a short growth period, low maturity, and a long dormancy period, and often show premature aging in the later stage. In cultivation, it is necessary to master appropriate density, do a good job of sprout promotion, increase potassium fertilizer, and combine it with corresponding nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers to give play to the production potential of small potatoes as seed.
3. Sprout Promotion
Sprout promotion is an important measure for disease prevention and high yield in potato cultivation. Promoting sprouts before sowing can promote early maturity and increase yield. At the same time, during the sprout promotion process, diseased and rotten potatoes can be eliminated, reducing the rate of diseased plants or missing plants in the field after sowing, which is conducive to full and strong seedlings. Sprout promotion method: place seed potatoes and sand in alternating layers, about 3-4 layers thick, and keep them at the optimum temperature of about 20 degrees C and in a constantly moist state; the seed potatoes will sprout in about 10 days. During sprout promotion, soaking the seed potatoes in 0.5-1 ppm gibberellin solution or 0.1-0.2% potassium permanganate solution for 10-15 minutes, or soaking in 2% thiourea for 20 minutes, can improve the sprout promotion effect.
Sowing at the Right Time
The important condition for determining the suitable sowing time for potatoes is the temperature during the growth period. In principle, the peak tuber-setting period of potatoes should be under an average daily temperature of 15-25 degrees C. And the longer this period suitable for continuous tuber growth, the higher the total weight. In most cases, planting is done after harvesting late rice or middle rice. Autumn potatoes are best sown from late September to late October, and winter potatoes are best sown from late December to mid-January.
Reasonable Close Planting
The yield factors that make up potato yield are the product of the number of plants per unit area and the yield per plant. Yield per plant is determined by the number of tubers per plant and the weight per tuber. However, there is a contradiction between population yield increase and individual plant yield increase. When the number of plants per unit area increases, the yield per plant decreases accordingly, and both have a certain dependent relationship with planting density. Within a certain density range, population yield increases with increasing density; yield per plant decreases with increasing density. Therefore, determining density must consider the coordinated unity of the two contradictory factors, population yield and individual yield. If the density is low, although individual plants develop well and yield is high, because the total number of plants per unit area is small and fewer tubers are set, the yield is not high. If the density is too high, although the total number of plants is large, the weight per tuber is very low, and the yield is likewise not high. Therefore, reasonable close planting means having a reasonable population structure within a unit area, so that individual plants can develop well and the population can also play a yield-increasing role, so as to fully use light energy and soil fertility and thus obtain high yield. Considering the coordinated development of population and individual, under general cultivation levels, about 6000 plants per mu, with 2-3 stems per plant, is relatively suitable.
Field Management
1. Checking Seedlings and Replanting
After potatoes have emerged completely, check the seedlings promptly, and replant missing seedlings in time to ensure full stands. The replanting method is: when sowing, densely plant extra potato pieces at the edge of the field to be used for replanting. When replanting, if there are diseased and rotten potatoes in the missing hills, first dig out the diseased potatoes and the surrounding soil before replanting. When the soil is dry, dig holes, water them, and apply a small amount of fertilizer before planting seedlings, so as to reduce the time for seedling recovery and restore growth as soon as possible. If there are no reserved seedlings, you can select hills with many seedlings from the rows of emerged plants in the field, break off the extra seedlings from the base of the mother potato piece, and transplant them for replanting.
2. Intertillage and Hilling
Intertillage and loosening the soil make the tuber-setting layer soil loose and aerated, which is beneficial to root growth, stolon elongation, and tuber expansion. If the soil surface crusts before emergence, loosen the soil to facilitate emergence. After complete emergence, carry out the first intertillage in time, with a depth of 8-10 cm, combined with weeding. 10-15 days after the first intertillage, carry out the second intertillage, which should be slightly shallower. At budding, carry out the third intertillage, shallower than the second. Combine it with hilling, with hilling thickness not exceeding 10 cm, so as to thicken the tuber-setting layer, avoid tuber exposure, and reduce quality.
3. Topdressing
Potatoes take a relatively long time from sowing to emergence. After emergence, apply sprout and seedling fertilizer early with clear manure water plus a small amount of nitrogen fertilizer to promote rapid growth of young seedlings. At the budding stage, combine with hilling to apply tuber-setting fertilizer once, mainly potassium fertilizer, combined with nitrogen fertilizer, with the amount depending on plant growth. After flowering, generally no more fertilizer is applied; if later stages show fertilizer deficiency and premature aging, phosphorus and potassium or combined trace elements can be sprayed on the leaves.
4. Controlling Diseases and Pests
Potatoes have many diseases; common diseases include viral disease, late blight, bacterial wilt, ring rot, scab, and wart disease. Late blight mostly occurs in seasons with more rain and around the flowering period of the plants. Therefore, pay attention to early control with Bordeaux mixture or ridomil. Bacterial wilt is currently difficult to control with chemicals; control methods mainly include reasonable rotation, selecting disease-resistant varieties, and using small whole potatoes as seed.
The main pests of potatoes include ladybugs, cutworms, aphids, white grubs, mole crickets, and so on, which can be controlled by chemicals or manual capture and other measures.
Harvest
When potato plant growth stops and most stems and leaves turn yellow and dry, the tubers are easily separated from the stolons, the periderm hardens, specific gravity increases, and dry matter content reaches its maximum limit; this is the optimal harvest period for edible tubers. For tubers used as seed, harvest 5-7 days earlier to reduce the adverse effects of high temperature in the later growth stage and improve seed quality.