Summer residents and farmers choose Irbitsky potatoes for planting, one of the best varieties of vegetable crops. Recently entered into the State Register, it has shown itself to be perfectly adapted to the conditions of central Russia. The variety is recommended for cultivation in the Volga-Vyatka region and the Siberian district. Thanks to their good adaptability to weather and climatic conditions, potatoes produce good tuber yields, and with the right agricultural technology, very high yields.
Description of the variety
The Irbitsky potato variety is considered a table type of vegetable product. The timing of full ripening of the plant is average.After planting, you can dig up the tubers after 65–70 days.
The upright bushes of the vegetable plant are of medium height and have dark green leaves. Large, wavy-edged plates and pinkish flower corollas will decorate a potato field.
Characteristics of a varietal potato type include such parameters as:
- presentation of tubers;
- pink skin and yellow flesh;
- starch content at 12–17%;
- versatility of using tubers in various dishes;
- crop safety by 97% during the winter period.
Each bush of the variety produces up to 10 smooth tubers. During the growing season, potato bushes are not exposed to fungal infection, showing resistance to it.
Farmers choose Irbitsky potatoes for planting because buyers like the excellent taste of the tubers. And the yield per hectare reaches 250–400 centners, at the level of other vegetable varieties.
Growing
To cultivate Irbit potatoes, you need a well-lit area with sunshine. The vegetable grows actively in fields with loose, fertile soil with neutral acidity.
To avoid problems when growing the variety, it is necessary not to plant seed material in the same place for more than 2-3 years. The best predecessors of vegetable crops are legumes, cucumbers, and pumpkin. Before winter, you can sow green manure on the potato plot: white mustard, alfalfa. Plants will enrich the soil with nutrients.
In the fall, it is advisable to deeply dig or plow the field for potatoes and apply fertilizer. The nutritional complex includes wood ash, nitrophoska, and humus. On heavy clay soils, the addition of river sand will be necessary. Depleted areas require humus and fertilizers.
Preparatory measures before planting vegetables include vernalization of seed material. Damaged and rotten tubers are culled within a month. Then the planting material is laid out in bright rooms in 1–2 layers for germination. If the tubers turn green, the quality of the planting material will only improve. The optimal seed size for planting is between 70–80 grams. Tubers weighing more than 100 grams are cut into 2-3 parts a week before planting.
Potatoes are planted in the soil after the soil temperature reaches 6–8 degrees Celsius.
Choose planting scheme for varietal potatoes 60x60 centimeters. A handful of humus and wood ash is added to each hole. The seeding depth is 6–10 centimeters. You cannot use fresh manure to fertilize potatoes, as it will cause infections and pests, especially wireworms.
Features of care
Agrotechnical measures for growing potatoes Irbitsky are the same as for other varieties of vegetable crops.
Care features include:
- loosening the soil;
- hilling bushes;
- weeding;
- watering and fertilizing.
Loosening the field is necessary in order to rid the plantings of fast-growing weeds. The first procedure is carried out before germination, then the rows are harrowed 3 times per season.
Hilling potatoes requires moist soil. You need to carry out the procedure twice: when the stems have reached a height of 15–18 centimeters, then before flowering. They rake the earth to a height of 10 and 17 centimeters.
Weeding is carried out as necessary. If the field is large, then herbicide treatment can be used. Some of them are used even before planting tubers - Titus, after - Lapis lazuli. The preparations are non-toxic to potatoes; they destroy only weeds, perennial and annual.
The Irbitsky potato is a type of vegetable plant that is resistant to drought. Plantings should be watered only during prolonged heat.
There is no need to fertilize the bushes if mineral and organic fertilizers have already been applied during the autumn preparation of the site. Wood ash in each hole during planting will help eliminate the lack of phosphorus and potassium during the growing season of the plant. Fertilizing containing nitrogen is excluded during the period of tuberization. After all, then all the power of the plant will go into building up green mass.
Advantages and disadvantages
The potato variety should be chosen for cultivation because it:
- perfectly adapts to different climatic conditions;
- produces an average of 400 centners of tubers per hectare;
- can be stored for a long time;
- widely used in cooking;
- resistant to viral diseases and nematodes.
Irbitsky potatoes are not given any negative characteristics. But a high yield can be obtained by following the rules of vegetable agricultural technology.
Pests and diseases
Despite the variety’s protection against viral diseases, under certain conditions it is susceptible to fungal infection:
- Late blight affects all parts of the vegetable plant. The danger of the disease is that it occurs at the end of summer, when the air temperature drops sharply and rains begin. Brown spots appear on the leaf blades on top, and a white coating appears below. The disease quickly spreads to stems and tubers. During harvesting, fruits with hard brownish areas are found. Then comes the rotting of the tubers. The affected bushes are sprayed with a solution of Bordeaux mixture so as not to destroy the entire potato crop.
- The description of ring rot is that the fungus attacks the vascular tissues of the stem and tubers. If the dug up tubers show cream-colored circles with transparent glassy zones nearby, then this is a fungal infection that has affected the vegetable. Prevention of the disease is the selection of seed material and its treatment with fungicidal preparations.
- Scab is characterized by sores on irregularly shaped tubers with a dry rim. Usually the fruits are stored for a long time, drying out over time.
After harvesting, diseased tubers are rejected so as not to infect others. Such seeds cannot be planted, otherwise all plants will be infected.
The most active pest of vegetable crops is the Colorado potato beetle, which is combated on all varieties of potatoes. Adults and larvae can be controlled by treating the seed and bushes before flowering. There are many drugs against the Colorado potato beetle: Alatar, Aktara, Prestige.
The wireworm develops in the soil for 3–5 years, damaging potato tubers. They get rid of the yellow worm using baits that are impregnated with poisons. These can be pieces of potatoes or cake scattered on the fields before sowing. Beetles like to bury themselves in piles of straw and grass. There they are destroyed.
When the rules of potato agricultural technology are followed, there will be no problems in cultivating the Irbitsky variety.
Harvest and storage
Potato tubers are dug up 70 days after planting the seeds. During this time, the tubers will be covered with a thick pink skin. After digging, the potatoes are scattered in 1–2 layers in a ventilated area to dry. It is important that light does not penetrate into the pantry, otherwise the fruits will turn green. Carefully turn the potatoes over so that all parts dry well.
Only healthy tubers are stored for storage, discarding damaged ones covered with spots of rot. indoors for Potato storage temperature should be air within 2-4 degrees Celsius, humidity - 75%. Vegetables require fresh air, so ventilation of the basement or cellar is required. Potato fruits are well preserved together with beets, which take excess moisture from the surface of the potato and prevent it from rotting.
