Characteristics of Sante Potatoes

Sante potatoes are a mid-early table variety with a perfect balance of taste and yield. Its characteristics made the culture unusually popular among gardeners and summer residents. It is unpretentious, easy to care for and resistant to most painful conditions.

Characteristics of Sante potatoes

Features of the variety

Many summer residents and gardeners grow potatoes Santa, not even suspecting his name. I am Holland. The vegetative period from the appearance of the first sprouts to the collection of potatoes is 85-90 days.

Description of the potato:

1. Bush erect, short.
2. Root the system is well-branched.
3. The leaves are simple, dark green in color.
4. The flowers are white, large, collected in inflorescences a corolla.

Under each bush 15 to 20 tubers are tied. There are a lot of eyes on them, but they are not deep and therefore almost invisible.

The taste of the potato is pleasant, intense, it does not require long cooking. During the heat treatment, the tubers do not change color. They are used to make chips, various convenience foods, stuffed and baked.

Advantages and disadvantages

The culture has excellent taste, yields high yields and does not require special care. The advantages of Sante potatoes are as follows:

• high yield – up to 28-50 t / ha;
• beautiful root crops: smooth peel of yellow color;
• large tubers – their mass reaches 150-200 g;
• lends itself well to storage: a thin, but quite dense peel reliably protects root crops from impacts;
• is practically not affected by scab, mosaic, cyst-forming nematode and potato cancer.

It is worth noting some of the disadvantages that gardeners have to deal with when growing varieties:

• suspends howling during a drought period;
• zoned only for regions with a temperate climate;
• likes sunny areas, so it will not be possible to grow a good crop on shaded soils;
• prefers light and fertile land enriched with oxygen;
• does not tolerate frost;
• low starch content makes it unsuitable for mashed potatoes.

Sante potato variety is unpretentious, so given all its advantages and disadvantages, you can achieve a good harvest. It is not recommended to grow a crop on heavy soils and in regions with a harsh climate, because all the efforts made will not bring the desired result.

Planting potatoes

planting after frost

This variety is quite heat-loving, so you need to plant it when the frosts pass and stable warm weather is established. According to scientists, the Variety Sante is not prone to degeneration. But experts recommend updating the seeds every 5-7 years. They are taken from the most productive crops that are not affected by disease states and pests. This material is collected separately, carefully dried, sorted and stored separately.

Soil preparation

Since the autumn, you need to decide on the choice of site. It should be sunny and protected from drafts, well-drained, fertile and saturated with oxygen. The best predecessors of nightshade are legumes, cabbage, phacelia or radish.

The earth is deeply dug up, weeds and their roots are selected from it, nitrogen fertilizers are applied. Do not overdo it with nitrogen, otherwise the tops will begin to grow rapidly, and the growth of tubers will slow down. If the soil is not fertile, make humus or bird droppings.

Planting potatoes

You need to plant the seeds at the time the spring frosts have passed. It is recommended to do this in the first decade of May, when the soil warms up well.

Before planting, the seed material is germinated.To do this, it is spread with one ball in a room or a greenhouse. In dry air, tubers are sprayed with water. The potato is considered ready for planting when the sprouts reach 1 cm.

A little ash or humus is laid out in holes made at a distance of 30-40 cm. The pits are shallow – up to 10 cm. They are placed at a distance of 60 cm from the row.

Care for potatoes

Potatoes must be constantly taken care of: water, loosen the ground, dig weeds, fertilize and spud, remove pests in a timely manner.

Crop care rules:

1. 6-7 days after sowing, the ground must be raked or raked and the weeds removed. If the soil quickly overgrows, the event is repeated after a week, but loosened carefully so as not to damage the sprouting shoots.
2. After the formation of rows, the earth around the plants must be loosened up with a hoe.
3. A culture 17-20 cm high should be spudded, this will protect it from frost.

All these measures should be carried out comprehensively. Neglecting at least one of them will affect the quality of tubers and yield.

Watering

The plant needs to be watered regularly

Potatoes of this variety require moderately and permanently moist soil. If the weather is dry, you need to water it.You can solve the problem using the drip irrigation system: the soil will always be moist, but it will not be eroded with water.

With manual irrigation, at least 3 liters of water are poured under each bush. To prevent the formation of crust, after 24 hours the soil near the plant needs to be broken up with a hand hoe.

Excessive watering can cause the development of the “black leg” disease state, and the tops of the plant in this case are affected by the Colorado potato beetle or aphids.

Fertilizer

The introduction of complex mineral and organic fertilizers is a prerequisite for a high yield. Potatoes require a lot more nutrients than crops. Moreover, the root system is poorly developed, and at the beginning of the growing season, the plant weakly assimilates nutrients from the soil. Therefore, gardeners conduct not only root, but also foliar top dressing.

Sante must be fed the root method three times: during seedlings, bud formation and during flowering. The best top dressing for the plant is ash or bird droppings.

The first top dressing is performed with bird droppings: 200 g of droppings are taken on a bucket of water. The second time using a mixture of ash and potash fertilizers: a glass of ash and 2 tbsp. l potassium sulfate per 10 liters of water. During flowering, the culture is fed with infusion of 2 tbsp. l superphosphate and 200 g of manure in a bucket of water.

500 ml of this product is poured under each bush.

Foliar top dressing is carried out during the budding period. The plant is sprayed with Imunotsitaf and Epin Extra.

Pest Control

The main enemies of the Sante potato variety are Colorado potato beetles. Experienced gardeners spray the seed with the Prestige solution and protect the culture from pests in this way.

If it was not possible to treat the seeds in spring, biological and chemical methods are used to control Colorado potato beetles. Pests, their larvae and eggs are collected and burned.

If biological methods of control have not yielded a successful result, the culture is treated with insecticides Confidor-Maxi, Dantop, Mospilan. The last treatment should be carried out no later than a month before the harvest.

Description of other pests and measures to control them:

1. Stem nematode – it affects tubers, white friable under the skin are formed spots. As a result, the peel dries, begins to lag behind the pulp, dark spots with a metallic tint appear. The middle of the potato remains healthy, but microorganisms penetrate through the damaged peel and the process of decay begins. During storage, healthy tubers become infected from the sick and the crop disappears. A preventive measure is planting a crop in one place no earlier than 3-4 years later and using healthy planting material.
2. Potato moth – affects plants in the nightshade family.Her caterpillars eat tubers, making moves in them. They can bite stems and eat leaves. They fight the pest with insecticides.
3. Wireworms and the bear eat the tubers of the plant. To prevent their reproduction, the earth must be deeply plowed in late autumn or early spring, liming acidic soil. Wireworm larvae should be selected from the soil.

Timely measures taken can protect plants from possible pests. It is necessary to constantly monitor the health of potatoes and to identify their pests and diseases on time.

Characteristics of the Sante variety, namely immunity to many painful conditions and unpretentiousness in care made Sante potatoes popular among summer residents and gardeners . On light and fertile soils, bring culture high yields. Those who tried to grow this potato once will never give it up again.