On July 20, employees of Metos LLC visited demonstration plots in the Nizhny Novgorod farm AgroAlliance-NN, where employees of Firma Avgust JSC carried out processing. More about the project
In one of the plots, we made a trial digging to see how the tubers develop and how much available moisture they have.
On visual inspection, the following can be said. Atmospheric precipitation that fell between July 9 and 12 thoroughly wetted the soil horizon and nourished the soil with available moisture. Now the plant is going through a phase of flowering - an increase in the mass of tubers, so moisture consumption takes place in large quantities. Now you need to turn to the installed weather station with a connected soil sensor and monitor the development of the root system to make sure that there is enough available moisture for the development of the plant.
The next time period from July 13 to July 25 will be taken for analysis.
Schedule 1
The graph (Graph 1) clearly shows active water consumption from a depth of the soil horizon of 0 - 50 cm. The activity of water consumption in a plant is not always the same.
Schedule 2
During the day, the activity of water consumption is always high, especially in summer. From the moment the air temperature rises, the soil warms up well, so the plant begins active water consumption for its comfortable life. At night, water consumption is reduced.
Schedule 3
At a depth of 0-10 cm, the activity of water consumption is different, because from this soil horizon more moisture evaporates into the atmosphere, so this layer will always be subject to a lack of moisture.
Schedule 4
During the time period from July 13 to July 25, about 45 mm evaporated from the soil surface into the atmosphere. Such a large amount of lost moisture without timely watering will lead to critical water stress in the plant, and in this phase of the growing season this has a bad effect on yield.
As mentioned earlier, now the plant is in the flowering phase - an increase in the mass of tubers. For potatoes, it is necessary to maintain the available humidity within 80% of the FPV.
Schedule 5
The graph (Graph 5) clearly shows how the plant actively consumes available moisture during the day and night. There is also an approach to the low content of available moisture in the soil. It is recommended to water in a timely manner in conditions of high air temperatures in order to saturate the soil with available moisture and avoid water stress in the plant.