Hilling - this is a procedure in agriculture, which consists in the fact that the plants pile up a soil pile to the bush. When growing potatoes, hilling is considered one of the most important activities. With the help of simple manipulations, you can create conditions for the formation of roots and tubers, as well as achieve moisture conservation. Hilling also helps plowing the land, which means it saturates the soil with oxygen. Consider how to spud potatoes and whether to do it.
Expediency and necessary materials
Not all gardeners use this type of soil cultivation. Those who apply note the advantages of the method. First of all, the nutritional area of the plant roots is increasing. The soil is maintained in a loosened condition. Hilling helps prevent overcooling of potatoes during spring frosts. Without this treatment, it is difficult to achieve high yields.
To make the hilling you will need:
- plain hoe or chopper;
- mulching layer;
- gloves.
Basic Rules
If the gardener has never encountered raising potatoes, he is faced with the question of how to grow up potatoes. Here are the basic principles of this event:
- When planting potatoes, rows should be placed in the range of 50-60 cm from each other. During hilling, the earth will be picked up from the aisles to the bushes.
- Tubers are planted in open ground after the snow has melted and the soil has dried out, but frost is still possible. If there is a threat of frost, you should completely cover the fragile shoots with soil. To do this, the earth from the aisles is shifted towards the bushes with a hoe with a long handle.
- If spring frosts are not observed, the first hilling begins at the time when the tops reach the level of 15-20 cm. The procedure is best performed on a sunless day or after rainfall, when rain moisture has leaked into the ground.
- In the heat, the beds are processed in the morning or evening. If the earth is very dry, water the beds before the procedure. During the first treatment, the bushes are covered with soil, capturing the lower leaves. Aisles are covered with sawdust or peat mulch.
- After the bushes reach a height of 25-30 cm, a second treatment is performed. If required, the beds are watered, weeds are removed.
- The frequency of hilling is related to the type of potato, type of soil, climatic conditions. Early ripe varieties are treated once.
- Clayy heavy soil plants require similar cares once a week or two. Potatoes cultivated on light soils will have 2-3 treatments per summer. In favorable conditions, gardeners do not spud, but loosen.
These are the basic rules for tillage near potato bushes.
How to do the processing?
The hilling process can be performed weekly. After weeding the soil, wait for rain. Crests make the ridges out of the ground so as to cover half the bushes. Primary processing is carried out when the tops have grown to 15-20 cm.
After 7 days, they are treated a second time. During this time, the tops grows by about 10 cm. If it has not grown enough, processing should be postponed for another week or two.
In dry times, you should not carry out the procedure, this can lead to potato diseases. It is best to carry out this event after the rain has passed or watering has been completed. Before this, weed beds should be weeded.
Is there any need to do this?
Often gardeners are tormented by the question of why spud potatoes. If you do not perform this procedure, the number of root crops is significantly reduced. This is due to the fact that roots and new tubers form on the stem in the sprinkled area. The earth is supplied with oxygen, so the growth of tubers is enhanced.
The hilling process helps fight weeds. But you should be careful not to destroy the roots of the plant. The soil near the bush is slightly loosened, with the help of the earth from the row-spacings form ridges of the required height.
When to start processing?
Gardeners are interested in when to spud potatoes after planting. The opinions of specialists on this issue are mixed. You should start from the height of the shoots. But in different sources, the numbers vary. They fit into the interval from 14 to 20 cm.
Many gardeners try to spud as early as possible. And not always the height of the bush tells them about the need for processing. Experienced gardeners are used to relying more on their intuition.
Early hilling can replace weeding and loosening of plants, and also well protects seedlings from frost.
In most regions of Russia, potatoes are planted in early May. But after a couple of weeks, frost usually sets in. Shoots have already appeared at this time. Ground-covered sprouts will withstand any temperature drop, even slightly below zero.
It happens that after processing the growth of the bush is enhanced. Under favorable weather conditions, bushes gain strength in the shortest possible time.
How many times to process?
Usually spud twice. Secondly, a couple of weeks after the initial treatment, before flowering potatoes. But if you start early, two procedures are not enough. It is necessary to focus on the needs of landings.
If the bushes grow, the branches scatter on the sides, and the nest grows wide, the tubers look from under the ground, which means you need to huddle.
The procedure can be performed three and four times during the season. The complexity of the process should not scare the gardener, because weeding is much more difficult.
Optimal time
Gardeners often process potato bushes during a hot summer day. Unfortunately, such an event will not be useful, and it will take a lot of energy. After the event, planting may fade.
Therefore, in the heat, processing is early in the morning or in the evening, when the sun is not so bright.
Perform hilling ideally after rain. So damp earth will not pour in from the ridges. And the moist soil moved to the stems will help the shoots to grow under the ground to grow tubers.
How to spud potatoes if the weather is dry? If rains are a rare occurrence, before hilling, it is worth watering the bushes.
Is treatment always needed?
Sometimes the gardeners do not have a question about how to grow up potatoes. Experienced gardeners try to come up with alternative methods of caring for potatoes. For example, there is a landing method in which hilling is simply not necessary. So, potatoes are grown under non-woven material. In addition, the “knock-off” method is also considered effective.
Hilling, as already mentioned, helps to solve several problems:
- loosening the soil;
- creation of an additional volume of land under which roots and tubers are formed;
- improvement of illumination of bushes;
- getting rid of weeds.
But it turns out that all these problems can be solved by the reverse method - “unleashing”. It lies in the fact that all growing potato tops are placed on the ground. Soil, grass, straw and other materials are poured from above, covering the shoots, leaving only the very tops. As soon as the tops are still growing, the procedure is repeated. Many gardeners grow potatoes under the grass. True, with this method, space is required much more.
Gardeners apply methods of cultivating potato crops in warm ridges, in bags. In these cases, hilling is also not required.
Processing methods
Hilling methods are directly determined by the characteristics of planting. If potatoes were planted manually, then earthing is used exclusively manually. To do this, use choppers, plows, harrows. How to spud potatoes with a chopper, will be said a little later.
If potatoes were planted with a walk-behind tractor, then they should be rolled up with a walk-behind tractor.
How to spud potatoes manually? No special skills are required here. Take a chopper and perform sequentially translational movements near the bush from the bottom up. Some varieties (Dutch, for example) should be completely covered with soil. Others - to the lower leaves.
Manual earthing is used in small potato planting areas. Of course, it is more labor intensive than the procedure for using special equipment.
How to spud potatoes with a walk-behind tractor?
Plan processing with a walk-behind tractor already during planting. To calculate the interval between plantings, you need to add 10 cm to the width between the wheels of the walk-behind tractor. If the bushes are planted densely, this will create problems with the passage of equipment.
The first time they huddle when the bushes grow to 15-20 cm. The hiller is adjusted so that the soil ridge is small. It’s fine, if some of the bushes are completely covered by the earth, after a while they will grow again.
Next, the hiller is adjusted so that the ridges are wider and higher. In this way, the tubers will not be damaged, and a suitable soil cushion of 20 cm will be formed.
When they spud potatoes for the first time with a walk-behind tractor, they lower their speed. Hurry is not worth it. This will help to notice all the errors and how to open the row spacing.
Hilling is performed by a walk-behind tractor or special hills. The wheels, hitch and hiller are mounted on the walk-behind tractor.
By setting the hiller, you can control the depth of immersion and the angle of processing. The walk-behind tractor is installed on a flat surface, the hiller is lowered and fixed to the hitch.
During the procedure, you may need to change the angle of attack.
It’s easy to process potato bushes with a walk-behind tractor. The main thing is to carefully set both necessary parameters. This is the interval between the bottom points of the disks. It is equal to the row spacing. As well as the angle of attack. It should provide good coverage of potatoes with soil.
The wheels of the walk-behind tractor must be 70 cm in diameter and 10-14 cm wide. With these parameters, the bushes will not be damaged.
Nowadays, summer residents use motor-blocks of domestic production. They are affordable and reliable in quality. A small area can be treated with equipment that has 5-6 liters. from. It happens that craftsmen improve aggregates with various home-made devices.
When processing heavy soils, a light walk-behind tractor may slip due to insufficient depth in the soil. Light weight does not allow him to go deep at the right distance. To solve the problem, gardeners install weighting agents on wheels or on the body. Weights or lugs are used as weighting agents.
So, we figured out how to spud potatoes. If all the recommendations are followed, any gardener will be able to increase the potato yield on his plot.