Potatoes are one of the most common agricultural crops. It is an annual plant with an erect or slightly spreading bush, consisting of stems covered with dark green leaves. The inflorescence is a scutellum. The fruit is a medium-sized polyspermous poisonous berry of green color. The main marketable product for growing potatoes is thickened underground shoots - tubers (stolons).

Basic information about culture

In the Solanaceae family, potatoes are the leader in popularity and demand. Currently, about 5 thousand of its varieties are known in the world. Information about many of them can be found in the "State Register of Breeding Achievements Permitted for Use". The document gives the ripening terms (early, late) for each variety, its purpose (table, technical, fodder), and also recommended regions of Russia in which the conditions are most favorable for growing. In addition, the State Register contains the addresses of the location of the originators / patent holders of varieties of this vegetable crop.

On the territory of the former USSR, the attitude to this culture is special - it is not for nothing that potatoes are called "second bread" in this region. It is mentioned in many recipes, it is present in almost every dish.

Homemade mini tractor

To grow an excellent potato crop, it is not enough to buy good seed and plant it, you will have to work hard throughout the season. How to spend a minimum of effort and time, this article tells.

Equipment for planting and processing potatoes

This time-consuming process can be greatly facilitated if you know which specific technique for planting potatoes, processing and harvesting them is most often used:

  • Mini tractor - two-axle agricultural machines equipped with four-stroke diesel engines with a capacity from 12-15 to 55-60 hp Like large tractors, they have steering, hydrostatic or mechanical transmission. Small mini tractors such as "Belarus" MTZ, "Scout", "Bulat" are used for planting and processing potato plantations with an area of ​​up to 3 hectares. Models of professional mini tractors "Kioti", "MULTIONE ","KUBOTA» used on vast planting areas over 3 hectares;
  • Motoblock - a single-axle car with a gasoline two-stroke engine, with a capacity of 3-5 to 12-15 hp, without a steering control and equipped with a mechanical transmission. A dacha or a small farm plot with a fairly limited area (up to 1 hectare) - these are the cases in which a walk-behind tractor will be more convenient and profitable compared to a mini tractor. In terms of functions, this unit is universal: plows, harrows, spuds, is used for planting and caring for plantations;
  • Motor cultivator - an agricultural machine of low power. Unlike a walk-behind tractor, it is intended only for processing the upper layers of the soil. So, the cutters with which the cultivator for potatoes is equipped, cultivate the soil to a depth of at least 25 cm;
Planting potatoes with a walk-behind tractor

To use this technique on the site for growing potatoes, it is equipped with special equipment, attachments. More about some of them:

  • Hiller - two-moldboard attachments for a mini tractor, walk-behind tractor. Depending on the number of hilling rows at the same time, the hiller can be single-row, two-row, three, and four-row. They can be equipped with some cultivators.It is clear that the greater the number of hillers, the more powerful the cultivator should be. Since the plant has to be hilled several times per season, then, having a cultivator for potatoes, the work is greatly simplified. The design of the hiller allows you to easily adjust the width of the row spacing, setting the optimal distance of 70 cm;
  • Potato planter - the planter for the tractor used for planting potatoes is considered a very modern attachment, since it performs several operations at once. The design of the equipment, which is attached to the tractor, includes a conventional row-crop plow for the land, containers of different capacities for tubers, and hillers. Sometimes the container has a fertilizer compartment through which nutrients enter the soil as soon as the tubers are planted.

Important! If a mini tractor is planned to be used all year round (in warm weather - for agricultural work, in winter - for snow removal and transportation of goods), it is better to pay attention to the models that are equipped with a heated cab. It is cheaper to buy such equipment from official dealers-manufacturers in such large cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, etc.

Now let's look at how, for example, a two-row
planter for potatoes of the Polish company Bomet, model "S-239". In one cycle, it:

  • prepares furrows for planting;
  • evenly distributes seed tubers in them;
  • covers the furrow with earth;
  • spud a row.

At the same time, the distance between the rows is automatically adjusted (63-68) cm. There is also the technical ability to set the desired distance between the tubers (29-32 cm). The sowing depth of planting potatoes is 10-15 cm. In a four-row potato planter, the planting material is immediately pickled during planting.

Water cooled

The potato digger is a mounted technique for harvesting potatoes using a mini tractor. So, the rotary potato digger KM-2 is connected to the MTZ-09N walk-behind tractor. A row of potatoes is dug in with an active knife, and then the earth is broken by a system of rotating rods, and the root crops remain on the surface, it remains only to collect them.

On a note.Thus, it is not difficult to grow and harvest potatoes, but this requires modern equipment and special devices.

Mechanized planting and maintenance of a potato plantation

Planting potatoes in combs

Planting potatoes with a mini tractor, as well as further measures for caring for the plantation, consist of the following stages:

  • Application of mineral and organic fertilizers using mounted centrifugal and trailed spreaders;
  • Autumn plowing of the site with mounted moldboard plows to the depth of the arable horizon;
  • Application of nitrogen fertilizers using centrifugal mounted spreaders;
  • Spring soil loosening using mounted cultivators to a depth of 12-15 cm;
  • Planting potatoes using a potato planter with the introduction of phosphorus fertilizers;
  • Hilling potatoes with a cultivator - for this, a cultivator is used for inter-row cultivation of potatoes (chisel, milling, with working bodies in the form of lancet paws) or 2-3 body hiller;
  • Treatment of the plantation against the Colorado potato beetle and late blight using mounted sprayers with a tank volume of 300-600 liters and a boom grip with nozzles of 6-12 m.

Important! For planting, sprouted potatoes with small (no more than 10-15 mm) green sprouts are used. It is not recommended to plant seed with long shoots - they will break off and be damaged, which will significantly increase the germination period.

Thus, planting potatoes with a mini-tractor and further care of the plantation using various attachments (planter, cultivator, hiller) is convenient and very effective both for medium-sized household plots and for large farm fields.

Planting potatoes in ridges