How and when to germinate potatoes for planting

Potatoes are called the second bread for a reason. In our diet, it occupies one of the main places. Potatoes are boiled, fried, stewed, it is an essential ingredient in the preparation of soups, borscht, cabbage soup, vinaigrettes. Chips, stuffing for baking, baked from it. In our country, starch is made from potatoes.

Even those summer residents who, due to lack of land, buy this vegetable, plant at least a few dozen bushes to feast on early potatoes. But it often happens that the result does not please us. We blame the weather, the late blight, the Colorado potato beetle, but we rarely think that the poor harvests have a large share of our fault. In order for a potato to give birth well, you need to germinate it correctly, plant it in a suitable place and provide acceptable care. The topic of our today’s article will be the preparation and germination of potatoes before planting.

Tuber germination

Before planting potato tubers in the ground, they need to germinate. Of course, you can plant them without eyes, but this will delay the harvest by at least 2 weeks. And in those areas where the summer is short and cool, it is generally not recommended to plant unsprouted tubers. So that our efforts are not in vain, let’s do everything right.

When to start preplanting

You need to get potatoes from the cellar or basement about 30-35 days before planting. We give a maximum period, if you plant only early varieties, then you can take out potatoes 5-7 days later.

If the eyes hatched well, but did not grow, also do not rush to transfer the tubers to heat – there they will quickly grow and outgrow by the time of planting, you will break them out, and you will have to wait for new shoots. It is better to wait a few days by lowering the temperature and adding lighting. Gardeners with even a little experience usually determine quite accurately by eye whether sprouted eyes need to be broken out.

When planting potatoes, the soil should be warm. In the cold, it will lie like in a pantry until the soil warms up to 12-15 degrees.

What tubers to take for planting

Whatever the size of the potato tubers, if they are not rotten and have been germinated beforehand, all will sprout. But the best yield is produced by potatoes the size of a chicken egg weighing about 100 g.

large tubers

Large tubers have a large supply of nutrients. After planting, they will give quite satisfactory growth. But until all the reserves contained in the planting material are used up, the development of the root system will lag far behind the tops. When the old tuber gives up all its reserves, the underground part will be weak and will not be able to satisfy the demands of the above-ground part. Until the balance is restored, there can be no question of any formation and development of tubers.

If you have large potatoes as planting material, cut it a few days before planting so that the cut is corked.

small tubers

If we take too small tubers for planting, the harvest will be poor. In order not to waste space, you will have to put 2-3 potatoes in one hole. Many do not see anything wrong with this, but those who have been harvesting know how inconvenient it is to dig up such nests. You will definitely cut several tubers, and digging the soil once is not enough – so you have to dance over potatoes planted in several pieces.

Preparing tubers for sprouting

How to cook tubers before germinating potatoes, the article describes in detail.

Now we will only repeat the main steps:

• Wash the tubers, sort and warm them up, pouring hot water with a temperature of 42-45 degrees;
• When the water has cooled, add a solution of potassium permanganate to a bright pink color and soak for another 15 minutes;
• Treat the planting material with humates, biofungicides, stimulants or chemicals at your discretion.

Germination conditions

There are many ways to germinate potatoes before planting. All of them imply the content of tubers at a temperature of 12-15 degrees. Another mandatory requirement is that the room should be well ventilated.

Humidity and light should correspond to the method you have chosen for the germination of tubers.

Tuber greening

It is recommended to green the tubers before germinating potatoes for planting. Do this in a cool, well-lit area. If the sun shines on the street during the day and the temperature is above zero, you can take the container with planting material outside and bring it back in the evening.

Under the action of light, solanine is formed in the potato – a poison that turns the tubers green, which is why the whole procedure is called “greening”. Solanine protects the bushes after planting in the ground from many pests, in particular, from rodents. Its accumulation to the desired concentration usually occurs within 20 days. After that, planting material can be brought into a warmer room directly for germination.

Methods for sprouting tubers

There are many ways to germinate tubers, we will remind you of those that are used most often. You can call them classic.

Growing in the dark

This is the easiest and most common way to germinate potatoes. It is simply folded into boxes or baskets and placed in a well-ventilated dark place. If the temperature in the house is low, then the container can be placed under the bed – so it will not even take up space. Just ventilate the room more often.

When potatoes are germinated in this way, the sprouts are white and elongated. Plant them carefully.

Growing in the light

This method is much better than the previous one, but it requires a lot of well-lit places, so it is difficult to apply it when planting a large number of potatoes. The tubers are laid out in 2-3 layers near the windows so that light falls on them. Sprouts are green, strong and do not stretch. After 10-15 days, they need to be swapped so that the tubers below are exposed to light. Naturally, this will take some time.

Wet germination

Germination of tubers in a humid environment has a number of advantages – a bright room is not required and planting material can be kept in large boxes. In addition, not only sprouts are formed on potatoes, but also roots, which will significantly accelerate germination – after planting, the plant will quickly take root and start growing, therefore, we will get the harvest earlier.

You need to take any moisture and breathable substrate:

• ventilated peat;
• well-rotted humus;
• sawdust or tyrsu.

A layer of moist substrate is laid out at the bottom of the box, potatoes are laid out on it in one layer and covered with peat or sawdust. Then everyone repeats, but you do not need to lay out more than 4 layers of potatoes – this makes it difficult for air to circulate. So the boxes will stand until the start of the planting season. Sprouting potatoes need to be moistened from time to time.

Preplant wilting

Know how many days it takes to germinate potatoes. But it happens that for one reason or another we could not get it out of the basement in time. What to do, is it really possible to plant unsprouted tubers? It is necessary to lay them out in a thin layer in a dry room and dry. The procedure lasts only a week and a half, the sprouts on the tubers will not appear during this time, but the eyes will wake up and give friendly shoots.

The potato has outgrown

It happens, especially in warm winters, that potatoes in the cellar or basement sprout on their own when it is not yet time to start germination. Sprouts need to be broken as early as possible so that they do not take nutrients from the tuber. Under favorable conditions, after 10-15 days, a new kidney awakens from the same eye.

But what if we got planting material from the basement already with good shoots, and there is simply no time to wait for a new awakening of the kidneys? There is only one way out – place the sprouted potatoes in a bright place with a temperature slightly below 10 degrees. So, the sprouts will stop growing, will not stretch out, but will turn green in the light. It will need to be planted as early as possible, while trying not to damage the shoots.

How to process potatoes during germination

It’s great if you have time to spray the planting material once a week with humate, zircon or epin. A good result is obtained by treatment with phytosporin. If you are drying potatoes, you do not need to do this, and if you are germinating in a moist substrate, do not spray, but add one of the above preparations in a low concentration to the water every time you water.

There are many artificial stimulants on the market, but whether to use them is up to you.

How to speed up the germination of tubers

How to quickly germinate potatoes if time is lost? Wet germination of potatoes, described above, is the fastest and takes about 10 days. If you know that there will be little time in the spring, green the tubers from the fall. And be sure to water the planting with one of the preparations indicated in the previous chapter, adding root or heteroauxin according to the instructions.

Improvement of planting material

We plant potatoes every year. Yields get worse over time.

• fewer and fewer tubers are in the nest;
• the number of plants affected by viral diseases is growing every year;
• palatability declines.

Why do potatoes degenerate

We buy planting material in the market or from neighbors, and then we complain: either the land has become not the same, or the potato has degenerated. This is not far from the truth. Tubers every year collect negative genetic material as if in a closet, and viral diseases also accumulate.

Tubers are not seeds, but modified parts of the stem. Growing potatoes year after year, we propagate them, strictly speaking, by cuttings that carry all the positive and negative genetic (and not only) information of the mother plant. In fact, we grow the same plant.

To avoid this, you can buy seed material annually in specialized nurseries – you can’t buy good potatoes from your neighbors – they have their own problems, they also carry the burden of changes accumulated over the years, only others. But certified elite seed material costs so much that, having looked at the price, we no longer want either a variety update or potatoes in general.

If you are satisfied with the varieties grown in the garden, and only the yield and frequent infection with viral diseases cause dissatisfaction, heal them yourself.

Healthy potato sprouts

We take out the tubers chosen for the improvement of planting material earlier than the rest of the potatoes, green them, as described above, and germinate them in wet peat or sawdust at a temperature of 20-25 degrees. Very quickly, the sprouts will reach a size of 5-7 cm. They must be carefully broken out, planted in plastic cups or individual pots, deepened by 2/3 into the soil for seedlings and immediately put in a bright place.

You need to care for potato sprouts in the same way as for tomato seedlings. It is necessary to transfer plants into the ground when the soil warms up, simultaneously with planting potatoes with tubers. They will produce two or three large tubers – this will be a healthy planting material for next year.

In autumn, the tubers need to be washed, held in hot water and potassium permanganate, treated with phytosporin, dried and put into the largest glass jars that you have. Tie the necks of the jars with a cloth (you can’t cover them with lids or polyethylene) and put them on the windowsill until spring. From time to time, the jars need to be turned relative to the light source.

In the spring, the tubers should be cut into several parts 2-3 days before planting, and no further processing is needed.

Obtaining planting material from seeds

Potato seeds are harvested when the berry turns brown. They are dried and stored in paper bags until spring. They are sown for seedlings at the same time as tomatoes, grown, cared for and planted in the same way.

In the middle or late summer, we will harvest small, bean-sized potatoes. You need to store them in the lower section of the refrigerator or in the basement separately from the rest of the potatoes. The following spring, it can be planted directly in the ground, or it can be grown through seedlings. It will give good planting material for next season.

Comment! On sale you can find hybrid potato seeds – it gives a full crop in the first year, but is not suitable for further breeding.

Conclusion

Watch a video that talks about sprouting tubers before planting:

There are many methods for sprouting potatoes, and all give good results. Choose the one that best suits your conditions and delivers the least amount of inconvenience. Good harvest!