Yu.P. Boyko, Yu.A. Masyuk, O.A. Starovoitova, O.V. Abashkin, V.N. Zeyruk, L.Ya. Kostina, N.N. Gordienko, Z.N. Morzhenkova D.V. Abrosimov, Federal State Budgetary Institution "All-Russian Research Institute of Potato Economy named after A.G. Lorha "
EXPERIENCE OF GROWING ORGANIC POTATOES UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF THE MOSCOW AND TVER REGIONS
An organic product is a product that does not contain toxic substances or contains them within the limits of hygiene and food safety standards. Obtaining environmentally safe (organic) agricultural products is ensured by the non-use of chemical plant protection, using a complex of agrotechnical and biological methods of combating pests, plant diseases and weeds that do not have a negative impact on the environment.
The development of methods and techniques for obtaining organic agricultural products is carried out by the International Organic Agriculture Association (IFOAM) - a democratic organization that unites over 800 active participants in 117 countries around the world. Formal committees and groups have been established with a variety of specific and specific objectives ranging from the development of international standards to direct moral, material and advisory assistance to organic farming.
In Russia, the first projects for the production of organic agricultural products began to appear in the late 1990s. But until now, the share of agricultural organizations specializing in the production of biological products is very small. Market growth is constrained by many factors, including the lack of internal bio-production standards until recently: anyone could put the “bio” or “eco” badge on their product, which contributed to the growth of counterfeit products and undermined consumer confidence in the entire industry.
On January 1, 2020, the Federal Law on Organic Products came into force in the country, the document forms the regulatory framework for the production and offer of products in the Russian Federation, the principles of production of which exclude the use of fertilizers and chemicals.
Under the new law, Russia will have its own system of certification of organic products. Certificates will be issued by specialized accredited companies, their certification is dealt with by the Federal Accreditation Service (“Rosaccreditation”). At the end of 2019, three organizations passed certification: Organic Expert, FSBI Rosselkhoztsentr in the Voronezh Region and Roskachestvo.
The law introduces the concepts of organic products and their manufacturers, regulates the norms of production, storage, transportation, labeling and sale.
The document also defines organic agriculture. It already contains a list of requirements for the production of organic products, which contains 11 points. For plant breeders, the ban on the use of agrochemicals and pesticides is relevant: biological agents are used to control pests and plant diseases. The veto is superimposed on genetic engineering methods and hydroponic cultivation.
The law also prohibits the use of packaging made of materials that can lead to pollution of products and the environment, including polyvinyl chloride.
Manufacturers will be able to voluntarily certify production and goods to establish compliance with national, interstate and international standards. After that, they will be able to use labeling, which will be the hallmark of organic products.
Legislators expect that the law will really work in a year and a half or two years, since the process of checking manufacturers and issuing certificates takes a long time.
However, time will be required not only for paperwork.
A FEW WORDS ON PESTICIDES
Many pesticides, falling into the soil, remain there for many years. It is important for agricultural producers who have used or are using chemical plant protection agents (including those who have not yet thought about organizing the production of organic products) to know some terms.
Dates of pesticide degradation.
Decomposition of the pesticide with its conversion to environmental friendly chemicals. By the rate of decomposition, poisons are divided into 6 groups:
- - decomposition for more than 18 months,
- - less than 18 months,
- - less than a year,
- - up to 6 months,
- - up to 3 months,
- - less than 3 months.
MLC (Permissible Residual Concentrations) pesticides in food and feed products, in soil and other natural objects, established on the basis of the results of studying the toxicity of pesticide for individual organisms. Food and feed for farm animals with excess DOC of at least one substance are not allowed.
MDU. The maximum allowable amount of pesticide or other toxic substance in food and feed for farm animals, safe for consumption.
Pesticide persistence. The duration of the toxic chemicals preservation of toxic activity in nature (atmosphere, hydrosphere, soil).
According to the time of conservation of toxic properties (increase in persistence), pesticides are divided into 6 groups:
- - preservation of properties for less than 3 months,
- - up to 6 months,
- - up to 1 year,
- - up to 18 months,
- - up to 2 years old,
- - more than 2 years.
Depending on the environment and the climatic zone of application of the pesticide, the persistence of the drug can vary significantly. Reduce the duration of action of drugs that decompose its microorganisms.
Threshold of harmfulness. The level of pests, the degree of development of the disease or the spread of weed, when the harm they cause does not exceed the cost of protective measures (which makes the use of protective equipment economically inexpedient) or the presence of pests and pathogens does not reduce the yield.
T0.5 (half-life of the pesticide). The period of decrease in pesticide activity in the environment by 50%.
Pesticide toxicity. The ability at certain doses to cause disruption of life or acute poisoning and death of a plant or animal.
Phytotoxicity. Pesticide hazard for treated plants. One and the same pesticide can affect individual species, physiological state, stage of plant development in different ways.
Each pesticide treatment should always be biologically and economically viable.
BIO-ECOLOGICAL METHODS OF COMBATING PESTS AND DISEASES
What could be an alternative to agrochemistry? Abiotic physical factors are used to control pests and plant diseases: light, ultrasound, noise, high-frequency devices; biotic factors: antagonistic beneficial microbiota, flora and fauna, repelling plants, entomophages. Agrobiological methods are also used against pests and diseases: traps, temperature conditions, types of tillage.
Do not forget that plants need protection not only from diseases, pests and weeds, but also from other (abiotic and stressful) adverse environmental factors. These are sudden frosts, drought, technogenic pollution of soils.
The main task of plant protection is to achieve the unity of the organism and the environment by creating comfortable conditions for its growth, development, reproduction and targeted selection in sustainable ecocenoses.
On personal sites (when it comes to 3-5 acres), due to the small volumes and ecological diversity of flora and fauna, opportunities are created to cope with pests and diseases with their own hands and maintain the sustainability of ecosystems. In large fields, this task is complicated by the use of monocultures that are not capable of self-regulation. Not for nothing that even in tsarist Russia, peasants sowed rye and wheat in strips on the span of a scythe.
GROWING ORGANIC POTATOES
The main obstacles to obtaining organic potatoes are diseases, pests, and a lack of organic nutrients in the soil. Potatoes are especially harmful to Colorado beetles, late blight, phytopathogenic nematodes and viral diseases.
When organizing bioecological control of pests and diseases, an important problem is protection against the Colorado potato beetle. Being a stranger from the American continent, the Colorado potato beetle does not have local specialized parasites and predators in Europe and Asia, and most of them have to be introduced (imported) from abroad. In addition, the larvae and adults of the Colorado potato beetle are poisonous, and not all insectivorous animals can eat them. Our local entomophages are gradually adapting to the American alien and inflicting more and more sensitive blows to it.
Larvae of 4 ages (at the end of development), pronymphos and adults of the Colorado potato beetle are found in the soil and are therefore inaccessible to traditional pesticides.
Against these stages of the pest, biologics based on entomopathogenic nematodes (Nemabakt, Fitoverm) and other microbiological biologics (Bitoxibacillin, Boverin, Novodor) are used. Working solutions of these biologics treat manure or compost during the period of leaving the ground for pupation of larvae of 4 ages or adults for wintering. The invasive larvae of entomopathogenic nematodes enter the soil, migrate in it and look for their victims, soil entomopathogenic microorganisms form colonies in the soil.
Entomopathogenic bacteria kill the insect, causing it to have a specific disease - septicemia - and form their colonies inside the dead insect. The bacteria that multiply there feed on the saprophytic phases of entomopathogenic nematodes inside the affected insects, which pass there several successive generations. After the food for the nematodes inside the insect ends, they stop developing at the stage of invasive larvae. Then they leave the dead insect, going in search of new victims.
In the body of one Colorado potato beetle, up to 200 invasive larvae of an entomopathogenic nematode can be reproduced. Nematodes form vast (000–15 cm in diameter) zones around the dead insects, which, when the potato plantings are significantly populated by the Colorado potato beetle, gradually merge, condemning the death of 20-year old or adult larvae. The death of the Colorado potato beetle in the soil reaches 4-80%, which significantly reduces the risk of populating potato crops next year in the protected area.
In the spring, along with the first sprouts of potatoes, beetles immediately appear that crawl out of the soil at the crop landing sites or migrate from other places (the Colorado beetle can cover a distance of several kilometers). The spring generation of the pest is the smallest, so special attention should be paid to this particular stage of propagation of the beetle (in order to minimize its further reproduction). At this time, it is advisable to produce batches of larvae of the predatory bug Pikromerus, Perillus, Podizus.
Larvae of bugs, which by this time do not find another, more suitable food, destroy 70-80% of Colorado beetles coming out of the soil and arriving from outside. The first clutches of eggs of the Colorado potato beetle are often affected by diseases of fungal origin, due to the high relative humidity in this period of the year.
In the spring, it is advisable to carry out treatment with a biological product Boverin, which is active against the eggs of the Colorado potato beetle. In addition, against the eggs of the Colorado potato beetle, a mass release of the endoparasitic egg-eating insect edovum and local egg-eaters - larvae of lacewings, larvae and imago of ladybirds, larvae of the common camel and larvae of sirfid flies are carried out.The larvae of these insects also eat the emerging larvae of the Colorado potato beetle. 1 ages.
In addition to the above, in the larvae and adult individuals of the Colorado potato beetle, the smallest forids in the world parasitize, which are easily distinguished by the absence of transverse veins on the wings.
However, all these measures cannot insure the planting of potatoes against migratory adults of the Colorado potato beetle. Beetle migration from other places continues throughout the growing season of potatoes and often negates ongoing efforts to introduce a biomethod. In this regard, the potato planting wins, surrounded by forests, forest belts or other insurmountable obstacles for migrating beetles.
For prophylaxis, during the entire growing season, local entomophages are periodically introduced (released into nature) (and also attracted using plants: cosme, chamomile, Jerusalem artichoke, dill) to maintain a protective background from the Colorado potato beetle and vectors of viral diseases - aphids, leafhoppers and herbivorous bugs. The fight against globoderosis is carried out by long-term cultivation in areas of crops that are not susceptible to damage to the golden nematode.
When growing potatoes, it is recommended to use biological products that contribute to the formation of a powerful root system.
The root system develops faster than the pest multiplies, as a result of which potato bushes “run away” from the nematode invasion and manage to complete the vegetation without suffering much from the root parasite.
Potatoes can be planted on the globose-free areas only after at least five years of cultivating unaffected crops on them, otherwise there is not only the accumulation of pathogen in the soil, but also the possibility of the emergence and accumulation of aggressive new races of potato nematodes. If the planting of nematode tolerant potato varieties is carried out according to the predecessor, which is a potato cultivar susceptible to globose disease, then this inevitably leads to a mixture of varieties, which is especially dangerous in seed plots.
A preventive measure in the fight against potato glauberosis is to carry out phenological observations of the state of growth and development of potato bushes (monitoring), with the aim of timely detection, localization and immediate elimination of initially occurring diseased plants. In the phase of the onset of flowering, the characteristic signs of potato globose disease are most evident.
Plants lag behind in growth and development: as a rule, these are stunted bushes with one or two thin stems, with shredded leaves, with a wrinkled leaf blade, which prematurely acquires a light color to very pronounced chlorosis. The identification of diseased plants and their timely removal prevents the progressive reproduction of the potato nematode, the further accumulation of a dangerous invasive principle in the soil and the spread of the disease to free places and neighboring fields.
Entomophages are actively fighting the carriers of viral diseases (herbivorous bugs, aphids, cicadas).
To attract individuals of the local beneficial entomofauna, they create peculiar “islands of safety”, for which various umbrella, cruciferous and Asteraceae nectaronos are sown: for example, dill, coriander, sunflower, clover, yarrow, chamomile. They attract ladybugs, camels, gall midges, lacewings, carnivorous bugs, sirfid, etc. Also, the use of the biological drug Entomoftorin provides good results.
The described measures provide reliable protection against pests and diseases throughout the growing season.
PEST-FREE HARVEST EXPERIENCE
Work on obtaining a potato-free crop of potatoes is underway at the All-Russian Research Institute of Agricultural Medicine named after A.G. Lorch since 1985. Over the years, the Institute has created biological products against late blight, Colorado potato beetle, other pests and diseases: Activator-A, Diprin and Nematol. Scientific and technical documentation (regulations, technical conditions (TU) and recommendations for their use have been developed. These drugs have contributed to the healing of plants, increase their immunity and have shown effectiveness in the fight against late blight (especially in combination with copper sulfate (0.01%), which has fungistatic properties).
All tested biological products showed high nematicidal, fungicidal and entomocidal activity, and in the case of Diprin application the yield increase was the highest (1.9 t / ha), which we explain by the biostimulating properties of the isolation products of the nematode Pristionchus uniformis - the active principle of the drug. The well-known biological products of bacterial (Bitoxibacillin, Novodor), viral (VIRIN-OS), fungal (Boverin) and nematode origin (Nemabakt, Fitoverm) were also successfully used.
From the results of many years of observations on the potato fields VNIIKH them. A.G. Lorch on monitoring species diversity, potato biocenosis has a steady tendency to curtail. In 2017-2018 there was a sharp drop in the abundance of almost all types of elements of biocenoses studied by us. The population density of entomophages, in particular ladybugs and sirfids, pollinators: bumblebees and honey bees, decreased. Of the entomophages, only the gall midge of aphidymysis and lacewing increased.
The Redkinskaya agro-industrial company Organic Seed and Ware Potatoes located in an area favorable for growing potatoes (the village of Koshelevo, Konakovsky District, Tver Region) began work on the production of organic potatoes in 2013. Under organic crop rotation 200 hectares were allocated. A certificate for organic farming was obtained, issued on the basis of Article 29 (1) of EU Regulation No. 834/2007 and EU Regulation No. 889/2008 by the State Limited Liability Company Certification and Testing Center (Latvia).
When growing organic seed and ware potatoes, pesticides and organic fertilizers were not used. A crop of organic tubers of potato varieties was obtained: Zhukovsky early (110 tons), Kladodez (11 tons), Kuznechanka (116 tons), Layla (6 tons), Lyubava (210 tons), Nevsky (187 tons), Red Scarlett (358 tons) , Romano (55 tons), Tuleevsky (73 tons), Luck (100 tons), Violet (3 tons), with an average yield of 12-14 tons / ha. The use of bio-ecological means of potato protection provided a yield increase of 20-60% compared with the untreated control. On the basis of experimental data, a technological map of non-pesticidal cultivation of potato tubers was compiled.