One of the foremost farmers in the Novgorod region, Ivan Geletey, lives and works in the Borovichi district. Three years ago, he took up the production of meristem potatoes. Then they first got small tubers, and in subsequent years they began to grow them in order to have their own super-elite seeds.
The project was a success. This spring, Ivan Geletey not only provided himself with planting material, but also sold 25 tons of such seeds for propagation to farmers, owners of personal subsidiary plots of the region.
The greenhouse grows 2000 micro-potato plants — genetic copies of plants that are not infected with viral and bacterial infections. Great theoretical and practical assistance is provided by scientists of the All-Russian Potato Research Institute named after A.G. Lorha.
“Our experience has shown that we can grow excellent seed potatoes, significantly superior in many respects to planting material from Europe. I'm not even talking about the fact that this allowed us to save millions of rubles, ”says Ivan Ivanovich.
Now Geletey's farm is harvesting potatoes on seed plots. Ivan Ivanovich proudly stated that the yield per hectare reaches almost 300 centners, which is a high result for seed plots. The total area of such plots in the farm was 45 hectares this year, which is 30 hectares more than last year. There are 750 tons of super-elite seeds for storage. It is planned to collect another 400 tons of such planting material in the remaining areas.
Work is also proceeding at a high rate in the fields occupied by ware potatoes. The turn of harvesting beets, carrots and cabbage will come soon. Regarding the harvest, Ivan Geletay says: “There is no need to blame the weather, it was good. It was necessary to do everything with heart and on time, which is what we did. And the result will be good. We will fill our storages to the eyeballs and reach what we have planned. "
Source: http://mcx.ru/