Evening chaps, does anyone have any suggestions on where to go to improve your knowledge on potato nutritional requirements over the growing season. Or any suggestions on places to improve overall knowledge? Young, enthusiastic potato farmer here growing <100 acres. Finding it hard to gain experience as it takes almost a year to know if something different you’ve tried is a good or bad decision!
Now that the vote for change has taken place within the farming and supplier communities, where do we go next. Where do we get our information, where do we get our knowledge, who will do our advertising? Ministers still have to decide on the future of the AHDB although it has been made clear that growers are not happy with what they got for their money and want something to change. What is that change? Who will provide this, how will it be funded? Will it be self financed through growers paying for what they use? There are many ways to gain and give knowledge without having to pay a levy. Suppliers and supermarkets can run advertisements, use social media etc to promote potatoes and give out recipes. What do you think is the best way forward for growers and suppliers?
A forum that delivers questions, answers, more questions and lots of ways to improve the way we grow, harvest, store, grade and market our potatoes. Questions or topics such as new equipment, biologicals, chemicals that are in and out and where to go next, money saving tips, storage issues, harvesting, organic growing, best practice in all areas. A group of individuals from every aspect of a potatoes journey from field to store to fork to help others, to give knowledge to everyone that needs it and gain it from others. What better way than from the people that have the knowledge, the growers, the stores managers, the farm workers, the agronomists, the fields person, the agricultural machinery experts, the agri- chemical merchants, irrigation specialists, storage specialists, merchants, buyers, the list goes on. These are the people to deliver the new way to exchange knowledge and show the way forward for potato growers, you. Thank you.
With the UK leaving the EU, withdrawing from the single market and the Government not willing to accept alignment with the EU for any commodity, they left to make their own rules, the sale of seed potatoes to Europe and Northern Ireland is no longer allowed. There are so many ways this could go and ways people want it to go. For now, and the foreseeable future this will be the case.
It is too late for this year’s planting and may take several years to fix as our customers in the EU will have to buy this year’s input seed from elsewhere and may sign two / three year contracts or longer.
Some may say that we should exclude seed and ware coming into the UK from the EU and be self-sufficient, the problem being that industry needs ware / processing potatoes coming in through out the year and…
Until we get a few more members I will add a topic or fact each day to start us off. Potatoes are approximately 80% water and 20% solids, they contain no fat, no sodium and no cholesterol.
Potatoes contain nearly half the daily requirement of vitamin C, more potassium than a banana and around 30% of your daily requirement of vitamin B6.
Potatoes also have a source of magnesium, antioxidants, and resistant starch.
All of the above make them good for you and good for your heart but due to the differences in levels of each variety, the potato is not classed as one of your five a day. It obviously depends how you enjoy your potatoes that decides how healthy it is. A baked potato is the healthiest form with the most amount of resistant starch and nutrients still available. We can then load it with healthy or unhealt…
Welcome to The Potato Forum, The Tattie Forum, The Spud Forum, The Tater Forum, El Foro de Patata, Het Aardappelforum, Das Kartoffelforum, картофельный форум, منتدى البطاطس. The place to ask questions and find answers to all your potato needs. If the answer is not there, ask a question and start a new thread with topics such as Storage, Planting, Sales (or lack of ), Diseases and Disorders etc.
The Forum is also the place for all great potato minds of the world to meet, chat and discuss all the good points and bad points of growing potatoes. Also to right all the wrongs and misconceptions regarding potatoes on the internet.
All About Potatoes is for all levels of potato knowledge. Whether you grow thousands of acres, work on a potato farm, are any part of the sales chain or are looking to grow potatoes in the back garden. We will…
Welcome along to the crazy world of potato growing!
Tell us about you - soil type, rainfall, market, rotation, any livestock etc
It makes sense to utilize what you have and go from there - but start with a broad spectrum soil test
Have you got a potato agronomist?
Here, my potato agronomist is a different person to the one that I use to advise on all my other crops.
I take into account any nutrition available from pre potato cover crops and any muck applied, then top up from there.
Usually Polysulpate in the base, as potashplus. This gives me k, mg, (fortunately we don't need a lot), ca (Calcium is an underrated nutrient in potatoes imo) and sulphur - I use liquid N to top dress, mixed with the pre em herbicide, so it's the best way I have of getting sulphur into the crop. Kieserite another alternative, particularly if you need high mg applying
We then place DAP at planting, and use consortium Z and bugboost in preference to Amistar to defend against rhizoctonia.
As I said, top dress with liquid.
Feel free to ask questions, we all set off knowing nowt!