How Many Potatoes Per Plant? Closely-Guarded Secrets To Getting A Rich Harvest

Are you a gardener? Do you want to grow potatoes? Do you want to know about the yield of potato, ways to increase its yield, taking proper care of potatoes, soil and fertilizer requirements, preparation of seed potato, harvesting of potatoes, or any other thing related to growing potatoes? If yes, then you have reached the right place as in this article you will read about how many potatoes per plant and also this article will answer all the questions that are in your mind regarding the growth of potatoes.

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1. How Many Potatoes Per Plant?

Typically, seed potatoes are used to grow potatoes and many gardeners grow potatoes at home. The best part about growing potatoes is that potato plants yields harvest in abundance. In ideal conditions, per potato plant yields approximately 5-10 potatoes. The yield is totally depended on the care you give to the potato plant and the type of potatoes that you select to grow. Under, weed-free conditions, 2 pounds of potato seeds can generate 50 pounds of potatoes. This simplifies that a ten-foot potato plant row gives a yield of 15-60 pounds.

But as said before, the yield totally depends on the prevention from disease, weather conditions, care, and variety or type of potatoes. So, if a potato plant doesn’t get the ideal growing conditions, or gets diseased, then the expected yield of potatoes would go down. In such a scenario, you would obtain approximately 3-6 average-sized potatoes with a handful of small potatoes from every potato plant.

2. Increasing Yield

If you also grow potatoes yourself, then you might be looking for ways to increase the potato yield. It is quite disheartening to get a low yield or even more small potatoes. To help you deal with such a problem, here are a few tips mentioned below:

Make sure you do not water the plants too much or too little as this might drastically reduce the yield.
Their water requirements are depended on the texture of soil and it’s moisture levels so you need to check the soil and water it accordingly.
To check for water requirements, take some soil in your hands and then squeeze it to form a ball. After that, try forming a ribbon out of it.
Buy certified and good quality seeds for growing potatoes. They should be free from any diseases.
Keep them protected from pests and disease in their growth days.
Using a regular treatment of aspirin to your plants will help to increase productivity and growth of potatoes.

3. Proper Potato Care

Caring for growing potatoes needs cultivating, hilling, and proper watering. Here is how you need to go with these 3 requirements in detail.

Cultivating

Cultivating soil refers to loosening up the surface of the soil so as to help the roots of potato stems soak ample quantities of air and water.
When you see the soil turning crusty or packed, you need to rake its top inch.

Hilling

You need to hill the potato stems at least one time during the whole season:

Loose soil helps its developing tubers in the easy expansion.
Hilling helps the potatoes, poking from the surface of the soil. This will not let them become green due to the sun.
You can make use of a tiller or a hoe for hilling the potato stems.

Proper Watering

As discussed before, potatoes require medium quantities of water. Make sure that the water supply is even or else you might get cracked potatoes. Best sort of watering for potatoes is deep watering. It helps in transferring the water to the potatoes attached to the deepest of roots.

4. Soil and Fertilizer

Growing good quality, big potatoes requires correct preparation and type of soil at the time of plantation. The seed potatoes used as seeds need acidic, loose, and deep soil. It also needs high amounts of nitrogen and potassium, while plantation. After some time, they need extra shots of chemicals and fertilizers for proper formation of tubers in the potatoes. The quantity of fertilizer required totally depends upon the soil test results. Fertilizers can be used for potatoes in the following ways and categories:

Cover crops: If you are thinking about growing potatoes organically, then you can choose between organic fertilizers and Cover crops. Crops such as soybeans, crucifers, grasses, and Cereals, when grown before potatoes, help in fixing the required nitrogen levels in the soil.
Organic Fertilizers: Such a type of fertilizer is prepared from poultry-manure and compost. It is organic in form and instills a lot of essential nutrients in the soil.
Non-Organic Fertilizers: Such kind of fertilizers contains strong chemicals. These chemicals sometimes even burn the seed potatoes so you need to use them smartly. Before planting the potatoes, you should incorporate these non-organic fertilizers. Typically, you need to use one ½ of fertilizer at the surface of the soil.
Post-Planting Fertilizers: These fertilizers are used after the potatoes have been planted. A mixture is made by mixing greensand, bone meal, and cottonseed meal for increasing the levels of phosphorous, potassium, nitrogen, and soil acidity in the soil.
Nutrient and Micronutrient: If you see the plants turning yellow or light green in color, then this may be an indication of nutrient deficiency in potato plant. Usually, sulfur and magnesium deficiency cause such a color change in the stems and leaves of potato plants. You should get soil testing done in order to act accordingly.

5. Preparing The Potato Seed

Potatoes do not have seeds in them so they require a completely different process to grow. For selecting a potato as a seed potato, select the one, which has a lot of eyes on it. You need to carefully scrape out pieces having at least two eyes on each one of them and then these pieces can be used as seed potatoes.

You need to be completely sure that the soil offers the ideal temperature that helps in stimulating the seed potatoes to sprout. In case you aren’t sure about it, you would need to do that manually. Take a plastic bag and place a few banana peels in it. Add the seed potatoes to this bag. The banana peels emit a gas that changes the temperature, thus encouraging the seed potatoes to sprout.

You may also try another solution for this. Find a drawer that is present in a room that has a temperature of approximately 21-26 degree Celsius. Place the seed potatoes in this drawer for 3 days. After these 3 days, check if they are starting to sprout. If you plant already sprouted potato seeds, you can be sure that they would yield a produce and provide you with an advantage.

Let them set aside for a few days to let them cure properly before planting to reduce the risk of rotting. Some fresh seeds sprouted and ready to grow can be found in the market.

Yukon Gold Potatoes - (4 lb seeds)

Simply Seed - 5 LB

Via Amazon.com

You can also have a look at this video, for a better visual demonstration of the preparation of potato seeds.

6. Spacing

Once you have properly prepared seed potatoes, you need to know how to bury them in soil at the proper spacing. Take each potato chunk with at least two potato eyes on each one of them, and bury them in rows. In each row, the seeds are about 12 inches apart. Also, ensure that each potato row is placed 2-3 feet apart. Cover them with a 4 inch level of soil from above. For maximum yield, good plant cultivation is extremely crucial.

7. Soil Moisture

Potato is cool weather plant and grows best in the winter season. For this, you need to plant the seed potato in the early days of spring, if you are living in a temperate zone. If you live in a warmer region, then late winter is ideal for you. If you live in a hot tropical climatic condition, then plant them in the coolest period of the year.

The soil moisture levels depend on the climatic condition and region it is being grown in. Generally, there is a high requirement of moisture in the soil for growing potatoes. For best results, an approximately 130 day crop needs 600 mm of water. Some people use ANPHSIN bags or 247Garden bags to grow potatoes which can be utilized for a few seasons and not take up much space. These bags are strong enough to hold soil, water, and plants.

ANPHSIN 4 Pack

247Garden 5-Pack

Via Amazon.com

8. Problems That Decrease Yield

The potato yield can decrease drastically due to a few reasons. Read on to know more about the two most common reasons for a decrease in potato yield:

Leaves with large holes: If you see large holes in leaves and stripped shoots then it is a sign of infestation by Colorado potato beetle. You can get rid of this condition by spraying a combination of water and basil leaves on the affected area.
Damaged young sprouts: If you see frost damage, black scurf, or blackleg disease, then you should immediately remove the plants already infected from it. This will prevent it from spreading on to other tubers and plants, and will not decrease the total yield.

9. Harvesting Potatoes

For harvesting potatoes, you need to have a spading fork or a shovel. Dig in the fork at the outer portion of the potato plant and then carefully lift it up. Remove as many potatoes as you need and then set it back.

Next, you need to thoroughly water it so that it settles back properly. If you are confused about whether they are fully mature or not, then you should rub its skin. If it is hard and resolutely stuck to its flesh, then it indicates that they are ready to use.

10. How Can I Make My Harvest Better?

Here are a few tips that you should keep in mind to get a better harvest for your potatoes:

Opt for a traditional way to grow potatoes by planting them in long parallel rows.
You can opt for a no-till way to grow potatoes in, which you need to lay all the potatoes that have already sprouted.
For getting an early yield, you should protect them using a hoop house, cold frame, or a greenhouse.

Conclusion

Through this article, you got to know everything about potatoes. You now know how many potatoes per plant, how you can increase the potato yield, ways to take care of potatoes, usage of fertilizers in soil, preparation of potato seeds, spacing requirements, soil moisture, problems that decrease the yield, how to harvest your potatoes, how to make that harvest better, and many more things.

Hopefully, now all your doubts about potatoes have been solved. So are you too planning to harvest potatoes and eat fresh self-grown potatoes whenever you wish? Then what are you waiting for? Now, that you know what all needs to be done and to be taken care of, you can start growing your own potatoes. The best part is that they are quite easy to grow.

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