Effective technology for growing potatoes by seeds

It often happens that when growing potatoes with tubers, more potatoes are spent on planting than are obtained during harvesting. To improve productivity, growing potatoes from seeds is used. This growing method has the following advantages:

• Low cost seeds
• Ease of storage and transportation
• Potatoes grown from seeds are resistant to late blight
• The yield from seeds is higher than from tubers

Content:

• Features of growing potatoes from seeds
• Transplanting potato seedlings
• Planting seedlings in the ground
• Rules for caring for planted seedlings
• Planting potato seeds in open ground

Features of growing potatoes from seeds

Growing potatoes begins with growing seedlings. If the seeds are placed directly in open ground, the result will be very small ones. tubers, from which it will be very difficult to grow good potatoes. Therefore, before planting the seeds, they should be germinated a little. To do this, they are placed on a damp cloth and placed in a food container in a warm place.

During the germination process, the seeds in the container must sometimes be ventilated. Also, if necessary, you need to periodically moisten the napkin. When the seeds germinate well, they should be placed in a seedling pot with previously prepared soil. Crops from germinated seeds are re-moistened and placed on the windowsill.

Not the same type of potato always grows from seeds.Planted bushes differ in yield, color and disease resistance. To improve the harvest for next year, you need to select the best tubers that will serve as planting material.

Transplanting potato seedlings

When the seedlings reach a length of 6-7mm, they are transplanted into special seedling boxes, the depth of which is about ten centimeters. These boxes are filled with a fertile mixture of peat and fertilizerswhich you can do yourself. Before transplanting seedlings, the soil in the boxes needs to be slightly moistened.

Transplantation is carried out according to the scheme of 5 cm between seeds in a row and 10 cm between rows. Transplanted sprouts should be sprinkled with soil or calcined sand. The surface of the soil in the box must be periodically moistened, avoiding excessive waterlogging. Boxes with seedlings should be covered with plastic wrap. To prevent seedlings from being pulled to one side, the boxes must be constantly rotated.

To ensure that the seedlings take root well, they can be fed with a urea solution. The soil with seedlings should be fertilized monthly with complex fertilizers. Over time, after the sprouts have become stronger, the film can be removed from the box. Before transplanting potato seedlings into the ground, they need to be pinched up a little. For this, seedlings can be taken out onto the balcony.

Planting seedlings in the ground

Planting seedlings in open ground must be approached very responsibly. For planting, you need to choose loose and light soil, since the root system of seedlings is very weak. It is necessary to replant only when the ground has warmed up a little. After all, potato seedlings are very susceptible to low temperatures.

On average, seedlings should be planted at the end of May. Potatoes are planted in specially prepared holes, the depth of which is ten centimeters.

These holes are first filled with water and fertilized with humus. The seedling is placed in the ground so that only a stem with three leaves remains outside. The planting pattern for potato seedlings is 70 by 30 centimeters. Even with very small seedlings, the planting pattern should remain the same.

Rules for caring for planted seedlings

First of all, you need to remember that seedlings are very vulnerable and may not tolerate temperature changes. Therefore, before the adaptation period begins, the seedlings need to be covered with plastic wrap. Also, caring for seedlings consists of watering. Watering should be done once every two days. When growing potato seedlings in a greenhouse, watering can be done more often, since natural moisture is not able to penetrate there.

You also need to weed and loosen the soil. Loosening is carried out during the period when a crust appears on the soil surface. When the above-ground part of the bush reaches a height of ten centimeters, the first hilling should be carried out. After three weeks, a second hilling should be carried out. This action is carried out with the aim of supporting the bushes with earth, since as the plant grows it cannot support its own weight.

Planting potato seeds in open ground

Compared to the growing method described above potatoes from seeds, in this case the seeds do not go through the pre-germination stage, but are immediately sown in open ground. This method of sowing seeds is called seedless. In this case, the first step is to prepare the ground.To do this, the rows of soil are filled with water and sown with seeds to a depth of one centimeter.

When their first two leaves appear on the plants, it is time to do thinning, the step of which should be twenty centimeters. Due to the fact that potatoes from seeds are sensitive to drought and weeds, watering and weeding should be carried out periodically. The harvest time is around the beginning of October.

The harvest collected in the first year will not be high enough. But in subsequent years the harvest will only improve. The tubers, which will then be used as planting material, can produce super-elite potatoes. This category is characterized by very high quality. Over time, the quality of the potatoes will deteriorate slightly. Therefore, after five years, you need to repeat the whole process growing from seeds.

Video about potato planting technologies: