What soil will potatoes grow best in?

If you have a land plot, then, most likely, you have either already grown potatoes on it, or are going to do it. This root crop is so popular that everyone strives to plant it, believing that they will not have to bother too much with it, any soil for potatoes is suitable, and the harvest will be in any case. In fact, potatoes are a very moody vegetable. It is only at first glance that everything is simple: I dug a hole, threw a tuber there, covered it with earth - and all the technology. But a picky culture will not yield a crop in every soil, and it will not be content with a waste place on the site either.

Growing healthy potatoes with good yields is not easy at all. An integrated approach is important here, including the selection of a landing site, fertilization, seed selection and pest control. Let's start with the basics.

What kind of soil do potatoes need?

If you were interested in this issue earlier, then all sources reported the same information: potatoes love light and loose soil. There are, of course, ideal soils for growing vegetables, but most likely your site is not one of them. The soil for potatoes is good loamy or sandy loam. An excellent harvest of potatoes can be achieved if the soil is peat or black earth.

The soil for potatoes is not suitable if it is heavy clayey. It is easy to determine it - water stagnates on the surface during the period of snow melting or after heavy downpours. Sandy soil is also not favorable for a vegetable. However, on such land, you can also plant root crops and get a pretty good harvest, you only need painstaking pre-planting preparation for refinement and more careful care.

Regarding the location of the potato field - here it is worth choosing an area free from thick shade; such, where the sun does not look at all - will not work, because the plants can turn yellow, drive out to growth, give poor flowering. You will get either a small crop or too small tubers. Ideally, if the open sunny plantation is protected from the north or northeast by shrubs.

There is another popular way to determine the seat for potatoes. To do this, take 4 leaves of bird cherry and brew them with a glass of boiling water. Let's wait until the infusion cools down and throw a lump of earth from the site into it. By the resulting color of the mixture, it is easy to determine what acidity the soil on which you decided to plant potatoes has: red shades - the soil is acidic, greenish color will indicate a slightly acidic environment, which we need, a blue tone will indicate neutral acidity. The acidity shown should not scare you away from planting potatoes; it can be corrected by applying various fertilizers.

So, we found out that with a strong desire, potatoes can be grown on any soil, only labor costs will be different with the same desire to get a harvest.

Video "How to determine the acidity of the soil by folk methods"

In the video, the gardener tells and shows how, using folk methods, to determine the acidity of the soil on the site "

How to prepare the soil for planting

Potatoes bear fruit well if the soil is loose, moist and well ventilated with air, so we will proceed from these parameters as ideal for soil under potatoes.

The processing of the landing site should be started in the fall. The selected area is freed from the tops of previous plants and weeds. Then it is carefully dug up with the overturning of the earth layer. You should dig with a full bayonet of a shovel. Plowing should not be leveled; this is done specifically so that in winter the pests that have dug in the ground will die from the cold.

Additionally, shallow furrows can be built to drain excess moisture in early spring, this is especially true for clay soils.

In the spring, the site is loosened with a rake, this process is done when the earth dries up and begins to crumble. After that, the soil under the potatoes will retain the spring moisture. When the sun warms up the top layer sufficiently, the site is dug up, loosened and leveled. You can not dig light soils in the spring, it will be enough to loosen the soil, saturating it with oxygen.

It must be remembered that the purpose of spring cultivation is to create loose soil for potatoes, destroy weeds, pests and preserve valuable spring moisture. Another aspect of processing is applying fertilizers and placing them at the desired depth in the formation.

Potatoes are picky about soil fertility. It draws from the soil different amounts of trace elements that it needs for normal growth and productivity. You will need different fertilization for different types of soil. The factor of pre-cultivation of the soil for potatoes also plays a role: if you have loosened the soil perfectly in compliance with the above rules, then the plant will need less nutrients for growth and development at the initial stage, because you have eliminated unfavorable factors that prevent the normal development of the vegetable.

We give approximate fertilizer rates per 1 hundred square meters:

• With fertile soil, about 2 centners of manure will be required, which can successfully replace compost, 1.5-2 kg of ammonium sulfate, about 2 kg of superphosphate and no more than 1.5 kg of potash fertilizers.
• If the land is insufficiently fertilized, poor in minerals, then we apply a larger amount of fertilizer to the soil under the potatoes. We increase the amount of manure by 2 times, we also add about 1.5 times more of all the above fertilizers.
• On peatlands, the amount of manure decreases to 1-2 centners, but superphosphate (up to 3-4 kg) and potassium fertilizers (2-2.5 kg) increase, additionally we add a small amount of boric acid to the soil for potatoes, 30-50 g is enough.

Wood ash has a good effect on increasing the yield; it can be applied to any type of soil. Enough 5-10 kg per hundred square meters, so that the soil for potatoes is enriched with a whole ensemble of nutrients and minerals.

Manure or compost, as well as superphosphate, must be applied to the soil under the potatoes when digging in the spring. These fertilizers are placed at a depth of approximately half a shovel.

Nitrogen fertilizers or others of your choice are not applied all at once, but in several stages. Half of the norm goes into the soil for potatoes with harrowing after digging. The rest should be divided in half and added before hilling the bushes, when they reach 15-20 cm, and again - during the budding period.

Potato varieties for different soil types

Successful soil preparation for potatoes is not all the nuances of growing a vegetable. It is worth taking care of choosing the right planting material, in other words, choosing a variety that will yield a good harvest on your type of soil.

We will give several of the most common varieties with their gradation of planting on different soil:

1. Bullfinch - medium-sized pink potatoes with red eyes. It can be grown on any soil.
2. The Rose. If you have light potato soil or peaty soil, it will work well for growing.
3. An early variety Zhukovsky feels good on any soil, so its cultivation should not cause problems.
4. Another early variety - Belorussky - honors its name and prefers "native" peat bogs.
5. Cleopatra loves sandy and clay soils.
6. The new product is completely unsuitable for heavy soils, but on cultivated loams, peat and sandy loam areas, it will delight you with a good harvest.
7. Sedov prefers only sandy loam and loamy soils.
8. Nevsky also manages to grow to glory on loam and sandy loam.
9. Svitanok Kiev sits exclusively in woodland, steppe or forest-steppe zones.
10. Scarb gives an excellent harvest on fertile light loams.
11. Blue is ideal if you have a high groundwater level, it is a "water lover", so if you want high yields, take care of supplying it with the necessary moisture.
12. Color and Nakra are universal for any area - you can safely plant and enjoy the harvest.
13. The slider is suitable for planting only in light soils.
14. Loshitskiy prefers wet soil, therefore, land with a high sand content will not suit him.
15. The climber is resistant to any changes in the ground, he can produce a wonderful harvest even in a peat bog.

Video "Fertilizing the soil for potatoes with ash and mineral fertilizers"

The video tells what fertilizers and when to apply on the site where the potatoes grow.