The Latest Causes of Potato Skin Cracking and Preventive Measures
Potatoes are one of the foods many people love, and they are also an important food and vegetable crop in our country, with large-scale cultivation in the southern regions of our country. Anyone who has experience growing potatoes probably knows that cracking can occur during potato cultivation, so why does cracking occur? Qinnong Web will explain it for everyone today.
I. Causes of Potato Cracking
1. Excessive sand and gravel content
When the sand and gravel content in the soil is too high, it is easy to produce scratches on the surface of potato tubers. The scratches gradually deepen as the tubers expand, and when they reach a certain degree, skin cracking appears. In addition, when the temperature is relatively high, after continuous drought, suddenly watering heavily or encountering rainfall can also cause cracking: during drought, the roots and stems form periderm, and the expansion speed is slow; when it is humid, the plant absorbs more water, and the tubers expand quickly, causing the periderm to rupture.
2. Temperature effects
The suitable temperature for potato tuber formation and expansion is 15~18°C. When the temperature is suitable, potato tubers expand rapidly, but if they encounter high temperatures or a drop in temperature, the cell division speed of the outer layer of the potato tuber slows down, while the cells inside the tuber are still dividing and growing rapidly. This creates an imbalance in the growth speed between the outer and inner cell layers of the tuber, making it very easy for potato tubers to develop skin cracking.
3. Pest effects
Potato nematode disease is also one of the main causes of skin cracking. This disease is caused by nematodes infecting and damaging the tubers. After being damaged, the skin shows brown cracking, and the interior develops dot-like gaps or a hollow heart-like appearance. Diseased plants above ground usually do not show obvious symptoms in the early stage of damage, sprouting slowly, being thin and weak, or growing slowly and being short, similar to the symptoms of water or fertilizer deficiency. As the damage gradually worsens, small spots appear on diseased plants, and the spots continue to expand. Sometimes they show wilting at noon or premature death.
Potato nematodes spread through diseased seed potatoes, diseased soil, diseased fertilizer, water flow, daily farming operations, and other means. In other words, repeated potato cropping provides favorable conditions for nematode damage. However, in recent years, due to the constraints of traditional planting patterns and arable land area, the multiple cropping index of potatoes has generally been relatively high. Coupled with farmers' low awareness of potato nematode control, potato nematode disease has spread very rapidly.
II. Control Measures for Potato Cracking
The control of potato cracking mainly involves carrying out good routine cultivation management for potatoes, including the selection of planting soil, maintaining a stable temperature, and so on. For the control of potato nematodes, experts suggest that farmers should emphasize prevention over treatment when controlling nematodes, with prevention as the main approach. In addition to adopting agricultural and physical control measures, it is also necessary to combine Yinghui nematicides to control the number of nematodes in the soil. Among Yinghui nematicides, products such as Ligensha, Yinghui Kuaixian, Tiandixian, and Wuxian all have two dosage forms, granules and liquid formulations, suitable for use during different growth stages of potatoes. Farmers can apply Yinghui nematicide granules in furrows, in holes, or broadcast over the whole field before transplanting potatoes, with a duration of up to 2-3 months. If potatoes are damaged by nematode disease during the growing period, Yinghui nematicide liquid formulations can be diluted with water for root drenching or flushing application.
The above is what Qinnong Web introduces to everyone regarding the causes of potato cracking and related control measures. The phenomenon of potato cracking greatly damages farmers' economic interests and has become a problem that has troubled many farmers for a long time. We hope this article can provide some help to the many farmers growing potatoes.