Potato harvesting completes the field period of the potato growing cycle. It is necessary to carry out harvesting in such a way as to obtain high-quality tubers and avoid crop losses.
It is necessary to harvest the crop in the short time and as quickly as possible. When the peel becomes coarse and stops peeling, this is a signal to start. The air temperature during this period should not be less than +10 ° C, with the decrease in this indicator, the tubers are injured by 80 - 90%, and this in turn leads to poor storage.
Harvesting potatoes begins with early varieties, while late varieties are harvested last. The most time-consuming process in potato cultivation technology is its harvesting.
Potato harvesting technology
First of all, it is necessary to mow the tops and weeds and remove them from the site. After 10 - 12 days after that, the terms for digging come. Potato harvesting methods can be mechanized, combined and completely manual.
On large areas of the industrial scale, combine harvesting of potatoes is used. This is a fully mechanized method that uses potato harvesters - combines. They can be both self-propelled and trailed. The machines dig up the ridge, the potatoes with the soil fall onto the conveyor, where the soil is separated, the tops are separated and the clean potatoes fall through the conveyor into the harvester bunker.
In small and medium-sized areas, the combined cleaning method is used. Potatoes are dug up by special machines that separate the soil and potatoes and pour them onto the ground. This is followed by manual collection of potatoes in mesh containers, bags, boxes. The advantages of this method of harvesting is the quality of the harvested crop, the tubers are slightly injured. Also, during the harvest, it is possible to immediately sort the tubers by size. This method of harvesting is used when growing early potatoes, since the peel is not yet completely coarsened, the tubers are carefully harvested from the ground by hand.
In small areas, potatoes are harvested manually. Here they use different design shovels and accessories for them. Potatoes are dug up and immediately collected in the container. It should be noted that this is a very laborious process that requires a lot of effort and energy.
Harvesting potatoes in household plots
The modern market offers many small-scale mechanization tools for harvesting potatoes. Harvesting potatoes with the walk-behind tractor is the most common. The walk-behind tractor is equipped with the special plow, which has fan blades for soil separation. The wheels of the machine go along the row spacing, and the plow directly along the crest of the row. The soil partially spills through the plow blades, and the potatoes remain on the surface. This is followed by manual collection of potatoes, which must be carried out very responsibly - it is not enough to collect tubers only from the surface, a lot of potatoes remain under the ground. In addition, there is also the special potato digger for the walk-behind tractor. It has an active separation of the soil due to the rotation of the motor. Potatoes are dug up with the tine and fall on the small sieve, where the soil is shaken, and the tubers are already spilled onto the ground. After harvesting, dug out potatoes are left on the site for several hours to dry.
Thus, if you are a farmer or gardener and want to mechanize the cultivation of potatoes and other crops on your site in order to facilitate hard manual labor, then first of all, you need to carefully analyze which mechanization methods are best to use. Before choosing the main method - the walk-behind tractor, the mini- or small-sized tractor, it is necessary to take into account the physical and financial capabilities, own age and area of the site, as well as the main crops that are planned to be cultivated.
Refinement of the site and potato crop after harvest
After harvesting potatoes, you need to refine the site. The remaining tops of weeds are removed from it, so it is very important to remove all tubers, even the smallest ones. These tubers can accumulate diseases and pests during the winter, which will have a bad effect on subsequent years of cultivation. The soil must be leveled while it is in the loose state, this will save strength, and the site will be ready for subsequent operations.
The potato crop after harvesting needs to be completed. First of all, the potatoes are cleaned of impurities of the soil and plant residues. Next, you need to carefully sort out the potatoes, exclude diseased, damaged and defective tubers. This will improve the storage of the potato crop , since healthy potatoes will not have a source of disease infestation.
As a result, having done everything correctly, high-quality harvested potatoes will be able to please you with a fresh and healthy harvest almost all year round.
