Dear Readers,
Seed farm - "AgroAlliance-NN" (Nizhny Novgorod region), specializing in the production of potatoes of European varieties of high reproduction, continues its "Diary of observations". The article in this issue is devoted to the beginning of spring work on the farm.
Kirill Kraev, specialist of AgroAlliance-NN LLC
SHIPMENT OF SEED MATERIAL TO CUSTOMERS. CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
The 2019 season for the farm began with shipments of seed to our customers. One of the first applications came from HCH Zadokas, this company notified us in advance of how soon they would need to get the right amount of seeds of certain varieties. Thanks to this, we were able to draw up a work schedule, and from February to April all shipments were shipped consistently.
Almost all other customers tried to postpone the export of seed material as late as possible, in this regard, since the end of April, despite the fact that our enterprise has been working practically without interruptions, queues have accumulated on the territory of the farm. Cars arriving for loading were forced to stand idle for a day, and some for two. At the time of this writing (May 19 - ed.), We still have one client who has not yet taken out the seed material.
The second issue that sparked discussion among customers was related to the caliber of the seed. In previous issues of the magazine, we already mentioned that last year, due to weather conditions, almost all varieties planted few tubers on one bush, as a result, the potatoes grew larger than usual (mainly with a diameter of 40-60 mm or 40-55 mm). Thus, tubers of these fractions predominated in the prepared seed lots, and not all customers were satisfied with this. In order to avoid such situations in the future, the farm decided to purchase a line for the calibration and packaging of potatoes, which will allow us to break batches into fractions of 30-45 and 45-60 (55) mm.
Summing up, we note that, despite some difficulties, the entire amount of seed material was sold. In parallel with the shipment, the company was actively preparing for planting, delivered potato seeds of high reproductions (super-super-elites and elites from originators), which will be planted for propagation under contract agreements.
This year, the main part of the seed material is made up of varieties of the company “H-Zet-P-Si Sadokas”, which supplied us with the basic material not only of Russian origin, but also of the Dutch (for example, varieties such as Memphis and Sylvanas).
CHOICE OF WORK PERIODS AND WEATHER CONDITIONS
This year, the spring in the Nizhny Novgorod region stood out early, but "extended" in time: in the daytime the air temperature reached a record 25 ... 27 ° С, and at night it dropped sharply to 0 °, sometimes to minus 3 ... 4 °, as a result, the soil warmed up So slow. This fact kept us from planting early, although some potato growers in our region started planting work as early as May 1. Other arguments “spoke” in favor of the later dates, in particular, it was important, if possible, to foresee the circumstances in which the cleaning would be organized. In our region, August is often quite hot (the average daily temperature is above + 25 ° C), for harvesting seed potatoes, which must be stored until the end of April, these are not the most suitable conditions. Therefore, we shifted the planting time in such a way as to schedule harvesting at the beginning of September, when the maximum air temperature does not exceed 18 ... 20 ° С.
We started on May 9. At the time of planting, the soil in the fields warmed up to 15 ... 17 °, and we were already insured against the return of spring cold weather, which often falls during the May holidays.
METHODS FOR SAVING MOISTURE AND COMBATING LUMBERS
At this point, the soil in our fields has not dried out (although we do not carry out early spring harrowing to retain moisture) and contained enough moisture at a depth of 8-10 cm to germinate potatoes.
The rejection of spring harrowing is due to the fact that, according to our observations, this technique leads not only to saving moisture in the fields, but also to the formation of dense lumps of soil with a diameter of about 30-40 mm. The plowing discs of the planter move these lumps to the center of the ridge, but as a result of subsequent combing, they are not crushed. Lumps are stored before harvesting and arrive with the harvest in the storage, making sorting difficult and creating conditions for additional mechanical damage to the potatoes.
Another principle that we try to follow when planting is the stage-by-stage preparation of the soil in small volumes (as a rule, no more than 1-2 hectares).
This approach is also associated with the mode of saving moisture in the fields. In addition, in this way we try to deal with the consequences of heavy rains, often observed in our area in mid-May. Heavy rain “nails” the soil that has already been prepared for planting; when the earth dries, a crust forms on the surface, which must be destroyed once again with a mill. In conditions of large farms, it is almost impossible to do this, but without this operation during harvesting, agricultural producers are faced with the same problem of lumps.
FEATURES OF LANDING SPECIFIC VARIETIES
At the time of writing, the landing was completed on 50% of the area. Work was completed with the varieties of Sylvanas, Memphis and Colomba.
Planting depth ranged from 6 to 10 cm (the indicator depends on the caliber of seeds), we tried to keep the tuber in well-prepared soil to a depth of its size, and on top of the planter formed a soil layer of 12-14 cm. This approach allows the tuber to get optimal conditions for the rapid formation of the primary root system.
Before planting, we equipped our planter with nozzles, which provide the ability to treat the tubers with fungicide more evenly and in a larger volume (about 120 l / ha). This year we used one of the modern systemic preparations (main components: azoxystrobin and mefenoxam), designed to protect potatoes from root, stem (root) and tuber rot.
Sylvanas was planted first and has a longer growing season compared to other varieties in our line. When planting, the following parameters were set: planting depth from 6 to 9 cm (taking into account the caliber of the material used), planting density - from 47 to 000 tubers / ha, which corresponds to the recommendations of the specialists of the company HZP-SE Sadokas ...
The next to be planted was the Memphis variety. When planting, the following parameters were set: planting depth 6-9 cm, planting density - from 50 to 000 tubers / ha.
Then we proceeded to planting potatoes of the Kolomba variety, the planting density ranged from 50 to 000 tubers / ha, the depth varied from 66 to 000 cm.
Since the fields in our farm differ in uneven terrain and irregular shape, we plant 6 to 9 ha per day, depending on the change of varieties and the length of the headland. Currently, work is underway to plant Red Scarlett potatoes.
We will talk about how plants will develop and weather conditions will develop in the next issue of the Potato System magazine.