Seedbed preparation and cultivation studies on potatoes

Summary

Omitting secondary, pre-plant tillage after fall plowing Bearden silty clay loam, gave as high Red Pontiac potato yield as any secondary tillage treatment tried in these experiments. Row-matching, a secondary tillage treatment designed to concentrate tillage and planting traffic in the same location, resulted in lower yield than no tillage, in two of three years.

Where weeds were controlled by an effective herbicide, there was no yield advantage to three cultivations over one cultivation.

Specific gravity of potato tubers was lowered by one tillage treatment in 1960. Though this decrease may not be of practical importance, it confirms earlier findings, namely that soil packing associated with tillage may adversely affect potato quality.

Some secondary, pre-plant tillage treatments increased the force required for penetration of a probe and also digger draft in some of the experiments. Clods carried over the digger apron were sometimes increased. It is evident, however, that cloddiness is markedly affected by undetermined relationships of those factors that cause formation of clods, as well as by pre-plant tillage.

It should be emphasized that the results described here apply to Bearden silty clay loam under the climatic conditions of the Red River Valley of Minnesota-North Dakota. Though it is probable that minimum tillage principles are universally applicable, some adjustments may be necessary to fit local soil and climatic conditions.