It's time to harvest potatoes. Employees of the Rosselkhoznadzor of Komi prepared recommendations for residents of the republic on how to assemble it and prepare it for long-term storage during the winter.
First of all, how to understand that the potato is ripe and ready for harvest? There are several simple agricultural techniques. If the potato tops began to dry and lay down, this is a clear sign that the growth processes are complete. Dig one bush and inspect the peel of the potato: it should be dense, without peeling. Try to separate the tuber from the stem - this should not cause any effort.
Before you start harvesting potatoes, we advise you to prepare the site: evaluate its area and your capabilities, weather, containers, the presence of shovels, forks, wheelbarrows. For harvesting potatoes, it is advisable to choose a clear weather.
Cutting the tops is appropriate in those areas where most plants are strongly affected by late blight, so that the infection does not get into the soil. The tops can be mowed after 90% of them turn brown, then scooped away from the site and burned.
Some farmers, when manually harvesting potatoes at the end of August, mow tops - about 15 cm from the soil surface. They motivate this by planning to get seed tubers.
It is very important to exclude plants suffering from late blight, because tubers can also be infected on them. The affected tubers will need to be set aside and put into any processing, but not stored.
For best storage after digging, the potatoes need to be thoroughly dried on the ground, but not in the bright sun, so that it does not turn green. We recommend drying tubers under a canopy, in one layer, so that the canopy covers the south side and allows the wind to walk between the potatoes. The exact drying time has not been established. Usually, five hours of a good hot day is enough, after which the potatoes can be safely stored. Before laying potatoes, it is necessary to process the vegetable store with a solution of copper sulfate or slaked lime.
Genya, Djavrşyan https://komiinform.ru