Vegetables

Potato crop guide

Growing potatoes and getting high yield of quality crop requires knowledge and expertise.

Here are just few of the facts

The potato ranks as the world's fourth most important food crop, after maize, wheat and rice.

• Since potatoes are sensitive to the chloride anion, it is essential to use chloride-free fertilizers, which contribute to increased yield and quality.
• Potato growth is classified into five distinct growth phases, and each growth stage has to be considered when managing the crop.
• The highest requirement for potassium is during the bulking up stage of the tubers. The flowering of potato plants indicates the beginning of this morphological stage.
• Adequate control over Nitrogen (N) supply is highly important to obtain high yields of excellent quality potatoes.
• Calcium deficiency interferes with root growth, causes deformation of foliage growth tips, and may result in reduced yields and poor quality.

Stage 1: Sprout development

Sprout develops from eyes on seed tubers and grows upward to emerge from the soil. Roots begin to develop at the base of emerging sprouts.

Stage 2: Vegetative growth

Leaves and brunch stems develop from aboveground nodes along emerged sprouts. Roots and stolon’s develop at below-ground nodes. Photosynthesis begins.

Stage 3: Tuber initiation

Tubers form at stolon tips but are not yet appreciably enlarging. In most cultivars the end of this stage coincides with early flowering.

Stage 4: Tuber bulking

Tuber cells expand with the accumulation of water, nutrients, and carbohydrates. Tubers become the dominant site for deposition of carbohydrates and mobile inorganic nutrients.

Stage 5: Maturation

Vines turn yellow and lose leaves, photo-synthesis decreases, tuber growth slows, and vines eventually die. Tuber dry matter content reaches a maximum and tuber skins set.

Cucumber

The plant has large, prickly, hairy triangular leaves that form a canopy over the fruit, and yellow flowers which aremostly either male or female. The female flowers are recognized by the swollen ovary at the base, which will become the edible fruit. The cucumber plant is a coarse, prostrate annual creeping vine that grows on any other supporting frames, wrapping around with thin, spiraling tendrils.

General Information About Cucumber

• The optimum time to introduce hives into the field is when approximately 25% of the plants are beginning to flower.
• The cucumber grows best under conditions of high temperature, humidity, and light intensity and with an uninterrupted supply of water and nutrients.
• Air temperature is the main environmental component influencing vegetative growth, flower initiation, fruit growth, and fruit quality.
• Close spacing increases yields, provides more uniform maturity, and reduces weed problems. It also results in shorter fruit with a lighter color.
• Numerous studies have showed a linear decrease in the yields of cucumbers as the salt concentration of the irrigation water increased.
• Crop yields are highly dependent on N availability to the plant.
• It has been shown clearly the positive effect of potassium fertilization on cucumber yields.
• Potassium has a well-known effect of both enhancing plant resistance to pathogens and of reducing the impact of the infection.

Growth Stages

Vegetative growth consists of 2 Stages:

Stage I – Upright growth is the initial stage that starts when first true leaves emerge and it ends after 5-6 nodes.

Stage II – Vining - starts after 6 nodes. Then, side shoots begin to emerge from leaf axils, while main leader continues to grow. Side shoots are also growing, causing the plant to flop over. Leaves are simple and develop at each node. Each flower/fruit is borne on its own stem attached to the main stem at a node.

Depending on variety and environmental conditions, flowers may begin developing at the first few nodes.