The road to the fields of the Michurinets agricultural enterprise in the Novosibirsk region is truly Russian: the car will not pass, even the Niva can hardly make its way through the mud, and on bumps and serpentine turns the car throws it from side to side. But you get to the vegetable fields - and real Europe opens up to your eyes: the plantings are even, even measure with a ruler. The pitch is so neat and well-groomed that you want to take off your shoes.
Technology, and most importantly, the culture of vegetable growing "Michurinians" really borrow from Europe - from Germany and the Netherlands. Peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers are grown in greenhouses, and cabbage of various varieties, from white cabbage to Peking cabbage, is grown in the fields. But the main pride is potatoes. Here it is planted in a cassette way, growing from seeds, not tubers.
So far, a Dutch variety has been sown on the experimental field. On its basis, agronomists plan to obtain hybrids adapted to the conditions of Siberia. This is potato of the XNUMXst century, Siberian innovators are sure, soon in this way (by seeds, not tubers) it will be planted everywhere, from large farms to summer cottages.
“The method has two main advantages, which make it not only convenient, but also economically profitable,” explains Nikolai Potapov, general director of the Michurinets agricultural enterprise and the Agros agro-technological company, Ph.D. - Firstly, we get healthy plants that are not susceptible to disease, resistant to late blight, and are of excellent quality. Secondly, we exclude the costs of harvesting and storing potato seed stock.
According to the head of the farm, in order to store tons of planting material, one needs large storage areas, special conditions, and care. And often deliberately low-quality seeds go into the ground - sick, frostbitten, with rot. To avoid this, the technology of growing from seeds was developed.
From potato seeds, seedlings are first grown in greenhouses, and then they are planted in the fields with the help of special equipment - according to the "cabbage" technology worked out in the farm. On a special trailer, which "sticks" seedlings from cassettes into the ground, three people go to control the process. Up to four hectares are sown per day. There are already cars in the West that can be driven by one operator-driver. There is also a technique with video cameras, which gently weeds the fields. Soon all this will appear and we, the Michurinians are sure, will minimize manual, very expensive labor.
- We would develop faster, but we still do not have a mini-farming culture, - Nikolai Potapov explains. - If we talk about Germany, there a farm of five hectares is already considered large. And in our country, the success of the industry is measured by the giant farms. But only when we understand that it is possible to deal with vegetables on a small plot, get a rich, high-quality harvest and a good income - only then will the real development of the industry begin. Now in Russia greenhouse facilities have been tightened up, but as for open ground, we are marking time.
The taste of the final product grown from seeds is not inferior to the usual potatoes. Vegetable growers have already carried out an organoleptic evaluation of tubers intended for the production of chips, and set potato high scores. The variety is Dutch, but the residents of Michurin are already working with local breeders. For example, Zlatka potato, created at the Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Breeding, a branch of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS, is also the best suited for making chips. According to the state program, by 2024, the Michurinets farm should supply 94 tons of selected potatoes of this variety to the market.
Text by Nikita Zaikovа