How to sow potatoes in no-till cultivation with rice straw mulching
The main sowing methods for no-till potato cultivation with rice straw mulching are the following three:
1. Directly placing seed potatoes and then covering with rice straw
In no-till paddy fields, dig high-yield ditches (irrigation and drainage ditches), with a ditch width of 20 cm and a depth of 15 cm, and a bed width (including ditches) of 150 cm. The excavated soil must not be piled on the ditch edges; the bed surface should be slightly arched to avoid water accumulation. Generally, small weeds and rice stubble do not affect planting. If there are large weeds, they can be trampled down or hoed away, and there is no need to use herbicides. Sow 4 rows per bed in a wide-narrow row pattern, with a wide row in the middle with a row spacing of 34 cm, and narrow rows on both sides with a row spacing of 28 cm, a plant spacing of 25 cm, and 20 cm reserved on each side of the bed. Place the seed potatoes in a staggered triangular arrangement, planting about 6,000 plants per mu. Place the seed potatoes on the soil surface (pressing them lightly into the mud is better), with the bud eyes facing the soil surface, then evenly cover with 8-10 cm of rice straw (the so-called 8-10 cm is not the thickness after the rice straw is compacted, but "gently patted firm, pressed but not compacted"). The rice straw should cover the entire bed surface without leaving gaps. Otherwise, the heat-preserving and moisture-retaining effect is reduced, the tubers are prone to turning green, the rate of green tubers is high, and the marketable rate and marketable quality decline.
2. Burying the seed potatoes and then covering with rice straw
The rest is the same as the previous method, except that the seed potatoes are buried in the soil by digging holes or covering them with ditch soil.
3. Burying the seed potatoes or directly placing them, then covering with rice straw and then covering with soil
In no-till paddy fields, plow high-yield ditches (irrigation and drainage ditches) in advance, with a ditch width of 30 cm and a depth of 20 cm, and a bed width (including ditches) of 100 cm (large beds are inconvenient for covering with soil), and keep the ditch soil for covering the rice straw. Sow 2 rows per bed, with a row spacing of 0.30 m and a plant spacing of 0.25 m, burying or placing the seed potatoes in double rows in a staggered triangular arrangement, planting about 5,000 plants per mu. Then evenly cover with about 5 cm of rice straw. Then go back and dig the high-yield ditches (irrigation and drainage ditches), and directly cover the excavated soil on the rice straw, with a thickness of 5-8 cm being suitable. Its characteristics are that it has all the advantages of both conventional tillage and no-till rice straw mulching cultivation, and at the same time avoids the shortcoming of being unable to carry out no-till rice straw mulching cultivation because of insufficient rice straw, and can also greatly reduce the rate of green tubers.