Underground planting of potatoes allows you to get an early harvest, because this crop ripens faster in the conditions of winter-spring moisture. The plant manages to give tubers before the onset of heat and the appearance of late blight, so there is practically no need to treat the disease. However, there are risks, including the likelihood of seed loss during the winter. How to plant potatoes in order to collect a good harvest, we will understand further.
Is it possible to plant under the winter?
In spring, often from under the ground you can see seedlings that stretch from the fruits of nightshade overwintering in the soil or tomato. Potato also belongs to the nightshade family, therefore it can be planted in autumn and bear fruit in spring. This is also evidenced by the fact that the potatoes remaining in the ground at a great depth in the spring break through to the surface, although they form small tubers.
More skilled gardeners, on the contrary, specially plant potatoes in the winter so as not to waste time in the spring. The yield of winter potatoes is not less than that planted in spring. It really needs a snowy winter. No matter how strange it may seem, the winter plantings of tubers do not justify themselves in the southern and southeastern regions, where the snow falls lightly, and long winters often occur during the winter.
In conditions of sudden heat, the tubers germinate, and when severe frost sets in, they die.
When planting potatoes in winter, it is worth considering the approximate time of snow cover formation and its thickness. It protects the soil from deep freezing, so tubers will not freeze. As a rule, this cover is formed only in December. In the southwestern territories, its height at the beginning of winter is from 2 to 3 cm, and at the end it reaches up to 6-7 cm. In the central and south-eastern regions, the height of the cover is from 5-10 cm to 20-23 cm.
Choosing a place for planting potatoes and their preparation
For planting, a place that is protected from the sun, and where melt water does not stagnate, is suitable. For example, it may be a site near the fence, currant bushes or gooseberries. To obtain a good harvest, it is recommended to conduct winter planting on sandy or sandy loamy soils. A good crop can also be harvested from loam. On clay lands, where water stagnates in the spring, planting should be done on beds, and not on a flat surface. This will protect the tubers from getting wet.
In areas where potatoes sprout in the summer, after harvesting there are many pests, so they are not suitable for planting tubers for the winter. So, the site must be chosen elsewhere. It is preferable that cabbage or legumes grow on it earlier.
The selected site must be prepared in the right way:
- Clean and treat with a disc harrow using a walk-behind tractor or tractor.
- Add organic fertilizer. As a rule, gardeners use manure or humus.
- Soak for some time and loosen the soil. The optimum depth is up to 30 cm.
- After rains, perform cultivation. To do this, you will need light agricultural equipment, for example, the same walk-behind tractor or a mini-tractor.
To prevent potato decay, it is worthwhile to develop a site with a slight slope, which will ensure the normal absorption and distribution of moisture in the soil.
Seed selection
Potatoes planted in autumn will be hibernated in extreme conditions, and in spring its sprouts need to wade through a thick layer of soil. In this regard, for planting, it is recommended to choose large tubers weighing at least 100-150 g, and they should be completely healthy.
It is worth considering that many vegetable diseases make themselves felt only during vernalization. Since tubers for autumn planting are not vernalized, in July, when the tops are still green, it is worth noting with pegs the most healthy and powerful bushes that are not affected by any diseases. It is the fruits of these bushes that will serve as seed material.
Of course, in addition to the correct choice of the tubers themselves, you need to pay special attention to the choice of plant variety. For this, it is worth considering two nuances:
- To get an early harvest, plant early varieties (necessarily frost-resistant), the representative of which is Luck, but there is a risk that the tubers will go up during the January thaw, but a significant part of the bushes will die with the onset of frost.
Ultra-early varieties germinate too quickly in the spring, so they can freeze even at night at low air temperatures.
- Later varieties, including Lorch, Zdabytak and Asterix, are more resistant to temperature changes, however, they germinate much longer, growing the root system first, and then - a powerful tops, which quickly coarsens.
So, the best option is a mid-early potato, since it is more productive than the late varieties, and also sprouts later than the early varieties. Here are some examples of medium early ripening potatoes:
- Nevsky
- Svitanok Kiev;
- Volzhanin;
- Agria
- Adretta;
- Impala
- Call;
- Karatop;
- Margarita
- Horizon;
- Radic;
- Haze;
- Fortress;
- Talovsky 110;
- Caprice;
- Axamite;
- Lapis lazuli;
- Uladar
- Lilea;
- Breeze;
- Jawar.
For planting in the first half of winter, it is worth using sprouted shoots, and in the second half - sprouted, which in February can grow from 2 to 4 cm. In this case, the risk of frost is practically reduced to zero.
Preparing tubers for planting
Typically, in the winter, potato tubers die due to rot or soil pests that infect the plant in the fall. So, in order to get a good harvest, it is necessary with all responsibility to approach the preparation of seed material. In general, you need to follow two simple steps:
- 14 days before planting, take out the tubers in the sun so that they can turn green outside and inside. At the same time, it is recommended to turn them over regularly. So, landscaping is carried out. The color of potatoes changes due to the production of solanine, an organic compound that will protect the crop from soil pests, including the bear.
- Sprinkle the tubers with a solution obtained by mixing 10 l of water, 4 g of Actara and 10 g of Fundazole 30 minutes immediately before planting in the wells. This will protect the plant from rotting and pests in the first stages of development in the soil.
What depth should I plant?
The key to successful wintering of tubers is planting at the right depth. The following points were experimentally established:
- when planting to a depth of 0 to 12 cm, the tubers freeze and die;
- when planting to a depth of 20 to 30 cm, the tubers are crushed by an excessively dense layer of soil, and their shoots are very weak when they break out.
So, the optimal depth is from 12 to 20 cm. In this case, one should also proceed from the mass of potatoes for sowing. The sprout will be able to break through from a depth of more than 20 cm, if the weight of the tuber is 100 g or more.
Potato planting and harvesting methods
The specific method of sowing is determined by the type of soil and the location of the site. In the spring, the earth hardens in the garden. Of course, the heavier the soil becomes, the harder it will be for the sprouts to break through it. If the site is in a lowland, it can be flooded after snowmelt. Taking into account these nuances, potatoes are planted.
Light soil
Sowing is carried out during periods of autumn frost, when in the morning the soil slightly freezes, and during the day it thaws. You must adhere to the following instructions:
- Break twin beds 70 cm wide using pegs and twine. The optimum distance between them is from 80 to 100 cm. These parameters should not be violated, since in the spring greenhouses will need to be installed. As for the distance between the rows, it can be from 25 to 30 cm. Chess landing.
- Dig holes with a depth of 15-20 cm. Cover the bottom with compost, a handful of ash, and onion husks to protect the crop from wireworms. It is better to refuse clean rotted manure, since it is attractive to the bear. In the absence of organic matter, fertilizers can be scattered across the bed from the ratio of 30-40 g of potassium chloride and 40-60 g of superphosphate per 1 sq. Km. m. After you need to close the soil with a rake.
- Sprinkle planting material with clean water and sprinkle lightly with ground red hot pepper to protect against mice. You can simply treat it with a 1% solution of Bordeaux fluid.
- Dip the potatoes in the holes and sprinkle with earth.
- The beds are covered with branches (preferably pine or spruce) as drainage, and a layer of organic matter from sawdust, hay and straw is thrown on them. Its optimal thickness is 30-40 cm. After the plot, place poisoned cakes for rodents.
- Cover the bed with a white spanbond. The film will have to be abandoned, because under it the plant rots.
Read more about planting and growing potatoes under straw / hay - read here.
With the onset of spring, do the following:
- Remove the mulch and set the arc over the beds. Spun spunbond on them.
- If the potato has sprouted, the soil has dried up at a depth of 7-8 cm, and the rains do not rain, it is worth watering. It is recommended to add a growth stimulator to water, for example, Baikal EM-1.
- Remove greenhouses when the height of the sprouts is 10-15 cm. Bushes need to be spudded.
- Harvest when the tops are dry. First you need to clean the area.
This method is used in sandy, sandy loamy or loamy soils.
Clay soil
For the autumn planting of potatoes, you will need a lot of hay, which mows in several stages - in July, August and September. Landing is done in this way:
- The plot is covered with hay and straw. The layer should be continuous and 30 cm thick.
- Break the beds, keeping a distance between rows of 1 m, and between tubers in a row - 70 cm. Chess landing.
- Punch a stake through a layer of hay holes. Their optimal depth is 30 cm and a width of 8-10 cm.
- Separately prepare fertile soil - mix compost and ash in a ratio of 1 to 1. Pour about 1 cup of the mixture into each well, and lay on top a tuber sprinkled with powder of hot red pepper. After again, throw the mixture 3 cm thick.
- Stuff holes in the hay "pillow" with tows obtained by tightly twisting dry grass.
- In rainy weather, cover the beds with black spanbond, which must be removed with the first snow. In winter, the plant is warmed by hay, on which the lower layer of snow thaws. So, a snow dome actually forms above the potato, which protects it from frost.
In spring, weeds under mulch turn into humus under the influence of bacteria, and potatoes emerge. It does not need to be processed or fertilized, in addition, it is already protected from late blight due to the hay stick in the mulch. The first seedlings will sprout already on the 10-14th day, and directly the fruits can already be harvested on the 40th day.
This method is advisable to use on clay, as well as light soils, when there is a threat of flooding the beds.
Pros and cons
Potato winter planting has the following advantages:
- you can get an early crop, because seedlings appear 1.5-2 weeks earlier than during spring sowing;
- on “winter” potatoes, the most productive sprouts that often break at the fruits of spring planting remain intact;
- no cellar needed to store planting material;
- planting work can be carried out not in a hurry, and also it is not necessary to water grooves and fight weeds;
- the plant is resistant to late blight, especially Colorado beetles rarely eat hard greens, preferring young leaves of spring planting;
- fruits from winter planting do not need to spud.
Despite all the above advantages, it is worth taking into account rather significant shortcomings:
- even the middle strip of Russia is exposed to severe frosts below 15 degrees, and for potatoes, lowering the temperature below -10 ... -12 degrees is a serious risk of freezing;
- in the case of an excessively rainy spring or a very snowy winter, the tubers can get wet, so the seedlings will be excessively thinned;
- it is difficult to protect the crop from the black leg, wireworm, and the same Colorado potato beetle, since infection appears only in the process of tuber germination, and during winter planting it is not possible to remove infected material in a timely manner;
- often such a planting is unsuitable for use on clay and medium clay soils that are prone to strong compaction - it is difficult for sprouts to break through the surface, they are often affected by rhizoctonia, and the number of stems and, accordingly, the total yield of the bush are reduced.
So, potatoes can be planted for the winter to get an early harvest. Statistics show that about 12% of gardeners resort to winter planting. This means that the method is really effective, although there are risks of crop loss as a result of unexpectedly severe frosts or infection by rodents.