Thanks Hugh, all points taken and agreed. There is of cause a great difference between a financially serviving crop and a smart arse unbelievable and possibly non repeatable one. I am very interested in your use of Corn as a soil builder. There was a feature on someone in Mexico, in the old Permaculture International Journal (now sadly folded), who was recovering totally devastated land in a few years with a dual cycle of corn and legumes. He was taking former rain forest that had been converted to desert and rehabilitating it and getting land less peasants on their own land with his technique. From memory and without looking it up, he was a Permaculturist and connected to a University.
Unfortunately, corn grows here in our high water need period. Gil Hugh Lovel wrote: > Dear Gil, > > Good stuff. > > But I'm not nursing potatoes on high compost stuff. I plant them direct in > spading machine spaded soil and no fertilizer whatsoever. So they have to > get off to a great start on their own. My experience is give them a good > solid boost from the chunck of potato behind them and you can rely on > getting a good yield. I can't afford poor yields. And I can't afford > hauling out compost when potatoes given H2O2 and 500 will get it in gear > like gangbusters without compost given a little hay mulch. So I'm not > talking what wonders can happen, but what wonders can easily, reliably > result in good yields. > > If I were a potato breeder working with tissue samples and cloning in petri > dishes I would be taking it a step further than Kieth Gross, who was, of > course, right on target with what he was doing. > > Best, > Hugh > > >Hi! Hugh, > > > >Thank you for posting how to on spuds. > > > >This may be of interest to the list. > > > >Back in the 1940s or 1950s, a cousin of my mother's, Keith Gross, won the > >Australian record for amount of potatoes grown from one pound of seed potato. > >He was a mixed farmer from Clarendon, Adelaide, South Australia. As I recall, > >he produced 32 CWT from One Pound. He split each eye into four and turned in > >ten inches of well composted cow manure. It was supervised by the Local > >Agricultural Bureau. It stood for many years, but eventually bettered by some > >one in the US. > > > >To check it out I have actually split eyes into four and they will produce > >viable plants. > > > >Gross's ancestry was that of the early migrants from the part of what was then > >Germany and is now part of Poland and may well have had some of the same > >traditional knowledge as RS. > > > >That family was among the best farmers in our area. > > > >Gil > > > > > >Hugh Lovel wrote: > > > >> Planting Potatoes--A Few Tips > >> > >> With smaller potatoes one may plant the whole potato, but with larger ones > >> it is good to cut them up into "sets." Be sure to cut these up so there is > >> a considerable chunk of potato as an energy source to kick off the new > >> plant. Anything smaller than about the size of a grade A large egg is > >> marginal. > >> > >> One end of the potato will have a concentration of "eyes." If one plants a > >> cutting from this end it sometimes will make a bushy plant with lots of > >> little potatoes and no big ones. The opposite end will be where the stem > >> was that fed the development of the potato. This stem scar is NOT an eye > >> and won't sprout. Each set must have at least one eye and maybe it is > >> preferable to strive for two. > >> > >> I spade my potato patch with my FALC spading machine so I have a series of > >> 40 inch wide beds. If it was in grass or rye I do this every week for about > >> three or four weeks, planning on planting around mid April in my region > >> (which I guess is zone 7). Because everyone is buying out the stores for > >> potato seed at this time I make sure to buy seed potatoes early. I store > >> these on the porch so they stay cool and get a little light and do NOT > >> develop spindly, long shoots that break off easily. > >> > >> After cutting my sets I soak them in a bath of hydrogen peroxide using a > >> pint of drug store 3% in 5 gallons of water. Then I give them a dip in BD > >> 500 and lay them out down the bed in a three row intensive pattern. The > >> middle row is 20 inches from each side of the bed and about 2 feet apart > >> per set. The side rows are parallel to each other and twelve inches from > >> the center or eight inches from the edges. But the potato sets are offest > >> 12 inches from the center row so the sets are spaced midway between the > >> sets in center row. This looks like the arrangement of pips on dice for > >> fives. When the bed is laid out I tuck the sets in with the eyes pointing > >> up. Then I unroll a round bale of hay down the bed and try to even out the > >> too heavy spots by spreading them on the too thin spots. > >> > >> After that I do nothing, other than mowing the paths between beds while the > >> potatos are young, until I dig potatoes. > >> > >> I dig potatoes with my spring tooth harrows with its outer feet taken off. > >> I have to make several passes to bring the potatoes all to light. Even then > >> I inevitably miss a few, but it sure beats digging with a shovel. > >> > >> Best, > >> Hugh > >> > >> >Mind sharing how you plant and manage your potatoes? > >> > > >> >I've been very disappointed with my crops the past two years. Doing > >> >great on the freedom from bugs and pretty good on the freedom from > >> >blight (last year I mis-identified a fungal attack for sunscald and > >> >lost a whole row of a variety by responding two late. For whatever > >> >reason, an application of equisetum tea brought the others through, > >> >however. > >> > > >> > > >> >Hugh tells me that he doesn't hill any more. He mulches with old hay. > >> >(Anyone got good tips for unrolling big bales??) I've got lots of old > >> >straw, but straw holds so much water, it kind of worries me to have > >> >it around the spuds. I did lose a crop of spuds one year by apply hay > >> >after the tops had come up: they melted away with fungus withing the > >> >week. > >> > > >> >Woody's suggestion of dipping the cut pieces in a slurry of local > >> >clay and BC has worked very well for us. I don't think we ever have a > >> >cutting that doesn't result in a plant. > >> > > >> >A good geek question for me: my Albrecht report suggests two tons of > >> >lime an acres. The area I want to put the spuds in has not been limed > >> >(the pH is 6.8) and I'd like to lime it after I put the spuds in but > >> >most sources say to not lime a spud patch because it leads to scab. > >> >For myself, however, I can easily suspect that my low yields could be > >> >attributed to not enough calcium-based lime in the soils (Ideas?) > >> > > >> >How do you do your spuds?
