For several years I looked at the sachets of potato seeds on the shelves. A large selection is offered. And I kept thinking - why do I need potato seeds? Probably, it's such a hassle - to grow good potatoes from seeds? After all, in the first year, do not get a tuber for food. And now it's easy enough to buy seed potatoes. In addition, you can leave the planting tubers from your crop. Has germinated - has planted also all.
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- Potato seeds
- Soil for cultivation of potato seedlings
- Seed treatment before sowing
- Care of seeds and seedlings
- Peculiarities of potato sprouting
- Stages of cultivation
- How to calculate the time of seeding potatoes for seedlings
- Planting seedlings in the ground, the features of care
- Harvest
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In addition, potato varieties have the ability to degenerate, lose their varietal characteristics, no matter how well we care for it, fertilized, protected from the Colorado beetle. Yields are also gradually declining.
Specialists-potato growers are advised at least once in 5-7 years to update potatoes. I read these tips, I agree with that. Therefore, every 3-4 years I bought seed potatoes in specialized stores. Usually bought 2-3 varieties. One sort of proven, which has successfully grown on its site, which I really like to taste. Last years it is Adretta. Be sure to plant 1-2 new varieties to find out which variety is better to grow on my land. So "calculated" another very delicious for me a variety of potatoes - Picasso.
In the market, I do not buy potatoes for planting, since it's just another variety from another garden or field. He, too, was grown for several years without renewal - no one can guarantee that I will grow healthy and tasty.
.Refresh the potatoes, grow it healthy, without disease will help it grow from the seeds. Seeds from bags, which we see in stores, are called botanical. And I looked, looked at them - I could not stand it - I bought it, I sowed it... Now I will share my experience with you.
↑ back to content ↑Potato seeds
What is the fundamental difference between potato seeds and replaceable potatoes? And such that when grown from seeds, he does not accumulate disease. We get a healthy planting material.
Potato refers to solanaceous cultures, as well as tomatoes, eggplants, peppers.
Potato seeds are very small, so it seems that there are very few of them. Shoots are also small.Therefore, there are some differences from growing from seeds, for example, tomatoes.
As can be seen in the picture, the seeds of the potato are sown superficially, they are not buried on top of the soil. Germs are very weak and they can not just break through the soil layer. This must be taken into account when sowing.
↑ back to content ↑Soil for cultivation of potato seedlings
The soil structure for seeding potato seeds must be very shallow, loose. This is also required by weak shoots.
I usually buy ready-made soil. I look, that it was with perlite, which is a good baking powder and a good store of moisture. Such soil acquires the property of not caking, which is so important for small potato seeds.
Capacity for germination choose a small, shallow. I usually use plastic salad jars with a transparent lid for these purposes.They will only be needed until the seedling sprouts stage. I use two plastic molds. In one I make drainage holes. I put it in a whole shape.
↑ back to content ↑Seed treatment before sowing
Potato seedlings are often affected by a fungal disease such as a "black leg". Therefore, before sowing the seeds must be decontaminated. I advise you to do this with a solution of Phytosporin, prepared according to the instructions. But on sale there are other disinfectants - the choice is yours.
.I spread the seeds on a rag, fill it with a solution of disinfectant, leave for 30-35 minutes.A cloth is preferable to gauze or bandage. Seeds are small - they can get confused in large cells of gauze.
By the way, I advise soil for sowing also to pickle or calcine in a microwave oven. You can spill it with a solution of Phytosporin. And I put the container with the soil in the microwave for 7-10 minutes. The soil is usually moist and from it even steam comes with heating. It is steam that serves as a sterilizer.
If you chose to disinfect the soil with Phytosporin, then pour it well, so that excess moisture exits through the drainage holes. Why do we need such abundant watering before sowing?
Seeds, as I said above, are laid out over the ground. If you later water them from above, then the seeds, spread out through certain intervals, can be washed into a pile - it will be more difficult to dive such plants. Weak, fragile roots are intertwined, it will be difficult for you to extract them from the soil without damaging it.
Another reason is that watering the seeds from above can choke them - they can not proklyutsya, do not ascend.
By the way, in the garden and garden forums I often read reviews that the seeds, they say, are of poor quality, do not germinate. Of course, maybe so. But one more reason - that's why they do not rise, that are buried or planted in too dense soil. I almost all got up - 18 out of 20. By the way, they say that the older the seeds, the better they rise.
↑ back to content ↑Care of seeds and seedlings
After sowing, do not forget to close the mold on top of the lid. If a form without a lid is used, then an ordinary food film that will retain a certain moisture, so necessary for seeding the seeds, will do. The condensation on the lid or film will tell you about the appropriate humidity. In its absence, the seeds can dry out, not ascend.
.And one more warning. Do not put a jar of seeds on the windowsill. There they can be very cold. Low temperature is one of the reasons that seeds can not germinate. They will soon rot in a cold, moist soil. One of the tips - until germination, keep the pot of the potato seeds in a warm place with a temperature of up to 25 ° C. You can even put on a battery, lining a few layers of the newspaper or veneer. Season the seeds daily until pinched.
As soon as the seeds get through, the lid of the container is opened and placed in a bright warm place.
When your seedlings reach a height of 2-3 cm, they are ready for picks. Immediately in a large capacity to transplant the seedlings is not worth it, because the soil, not mastered by the roots, is sour. In general, before the final landing in the ground, it is necessary to dive, transplant the seedlings more than once - this is the characteristic of growing potatoes from seeds.
.Peculiarities of potato sprouting
Which containers are suitable for the first pick? I consider that special plastic cassettes with cells for growing seedlings are sufficient at this stage. The cells are small, but the seedlings are not large either. Of these, it will be convenient to extract seedlings together with a clod of earth for transplantation into a large container.
The first pick should be carried out very carefully - the seedlings are very fragile. No crimping of roots - a small penetration of seedlings can be made by watering the solution of Phytosporin. When watering the seedlings themselves will drop a little lower. Any unintentional damage to brittle roots can lead to their decay.
The most common mistake is spraying the seeds with small sprouts from a manual sprayer. No excess moisture on the sprouts should not be - it can lead to the disease with a black leg. The soil must be moist, but moderately. Water should be on the edge of the tank, so that the solution of Phytosporin or water does not fall on the sprouts.
↑ back to content ↑Stages of cultivation
As you have already understood, growing potatoes from seeds is growing through seedlings.
The first stage is sowing.
The second is picking in small cells of a plastic cassette.
The third is transshipment into a large container - I use large half-liter plastic cups.
And then everything like with any seedlings - I transplant it into the ground around the second half of April, when the danger of frost passes.
But do not forget, I live in the Krasnodar Territory, and you are looking at the climate of your region. In the middle band, this should probably be done in the middle or even in the second half of May.
I am guided by the shoots of potatoes planted with seed tubers. As soon as ordinary potatoes grow, it's time to plant potato sprouts.
↑ back to content ↑How to calculate the time of seeding potatoes for seedlings
The first shoots appear usually in 3-4 days, and by the end of the week almost all the seeds are already rising. But I read in various forums that seedlings can appear in 10-12 days. From shoots to planting seedlings in the open ground, I had 2 months - it's much longer than when growing seedlings of tomatoes.
That is, if you plant potato sprouts in mid-May (conditionally on May 15), the sprouts should appear in the middle of March (March 15). And the seeds should be sown in the first days of March - March 1-5.
↑ back to content ↑Planting seedlings in the ground, the features of care
I'll run a little forward. Bushes of seeds I grew so different in volume, number of stems, height. After selecting those that I will plant next year, I felt like a breeder - it is at this stage that I decide which ones to discard and which ones to leave. Nubes grow small, but still there is bigger or smaller among them, there are flat ones - there are clumsy, there are clean ones - there are some incomprehensible specks.
In general, this is an amazing process. Of such a small seed, almost full-grown bushes grow.
Planting the seedlings in the ground, I slightly damped it - I left only the leaves on top.
The first time, planting seedlings of potatoes in the soil, did not take into account that the root system is much weaker than tomatoes, for example. Therefore, in dense soil, potato sprouts were difficult to grow. I think that next year, sand or sawdust should be added to the grooves when planting seedlings.
Distinctive feature - bushes grown from seedlings, stand longer green. Maybe it's because I poured them, and the main potato grows on my non-irrigated land. And maybe it should be so.
And further. Of course, as with the main potato - the main problem I have - the Colorado beetle. The leaves of this potato he ate particularly readily. I had to process it not 2-3 times, and once 5 or 6 - I lost my account.
Not so long ago I read that if you leave 40-50 cm between plants, and between 60-70 cm in rows, then you can get commercial potatoes from it.
But I did not know this, so I planted the seedlings close to each other - left between them 20-30 cm, and placed the rows too close together - no more than 30 cm. The harvest was small, but I counted on it. Since I planted seedlings very close to each other, it is very difficult for me to say how many tubers one plant gave. In general, it seemed to me that they lay flat under the ground.
What more i can say? Of course, there was a lot of trouble. Spring and early summer were rainy and cold. There was no frost, but I still covered the bed with the potato spunbond - from the wind, from the rain, too. Spanbond skips the rain, but still raindrops scatter, from large droplets with wind defends. Very fragile seedlings were planted.
In May and early June, there was enough moisture in the soil, rains regularly came, so I did not water the seedlings. Only fed up, as the regulars of the garden and garden forums advised - organic - did not water, but sprayed with self-made green fertilizer from grass and weeds. Here in this article - "Top dressing of tomatoes in the open ground and a greenhouse" - described in detail how I do it.
And then the seedlings grew. I was even surprised by the size of the potato bushes - well, maybe a little less than ordinary bushes.
Dug it out in early August - when the tops only began to turn yellow. The main crop of potatoes a month before had already been removed.
↑ back to content ↑Harvest
Now I will tell you about the size of the excavated tubers. Of course, they were small. Not peas, but their diameter did not exceed 3-4 cm, like a quail egg. True, several pieces were slightly smaller than the average size, but it was on those bushes that grew from the edge. I think they had more room for growth.
The total number of tubers obtained from seeds also surprised me. Prior to that, I read that it is possible to get 20-30 mini-tubers from one seed for the further cultivation of a full-fledged crop. But, alas, I can not boast of such a crop.
There were 20 seeds in the bag. 18 seedlings were planted, which were planted in the ground. Everyone accepted and grew up. The total number of tubers obtained is slightly more than 120 pieces. I think that our heavy chernozem played an important role here, which, even for ordinary seed tubers, is too dense. But I, frankly, are happy with the result.
Now my mini-tubers are lying green. It is advised to store them later, like ordinary seed potatoes, in a cellar.
Now the most important thing is to keep them until the spring.
.So let's wait... Then I will share with you the experience of obtaining a full-fledged harvest from small potato nodules grown from seeds.
