Vladimir Petrovich Ushakov
A ton of potatoes per hundred square meters.
Vladimir Petrovich Ushakov is an agricultural engineer by training and devotes a lot of time and effort to experienced gardening. His method of obtaining a high potato yield was widely reported in the media. Two of his books were also published: in 1989, “Should Agricultural Technology Be Smart? (Far Eastern Book Publishing House) and in 1991 “Yields need and can be increased five times in one year” (Moscow “Istok”).
The proposed brochure discusses in great detail the techniques of experimental (reasonable) technology for those who grow potatoes on small plots of land using manual labor. The author, based on experimental data, convinces that abandoning the flawed technology currently used and switching to a reasonable one immediately, in the first year, will give a fivefold increase in yield. In the future, a tenfold or greater increase in yield is possible, although at a slower pace. Ushakov's arguments are more than convincing for every thinking person. The choice of the latter is predetermined.
The book is distinguished by its simplicity of presentation and is intended primarily for gardeners.
FOREWORD
Is it necessary to increase potato yields? I think that many, including gardeners who work on plots of land, will answer this question in the affirmative.
But not everyone has an answer to the question of whether it is possible and, most importantly, how. Despite many efforts to cultivate the land and apply fertilizers, the yield of potato fields is decreasing from year to year. And all why? Yes, because the generally used farming system is flawed, it ignores the laws of nature regarding living matter.
I came to this conclusion as a result of almost forty years of hard work studying a large amount of theoretical material, summarizing the production achievements of many farms in our country and abroad, and my own seventeen years of experience working on my plots using two technologies: generally used and experimental.
In order not to violate the laws of nature, you need to know them. With an acquaintance with them, I will begin to present the basic techniques of experimental agricultural technology, which I called reasonable, according to which the potato yield reaches 1.4 tons per hundred square meters. And this is not the limit!
BASIC LAWS OF NATURE AND HOW WE FOLLOW THEM
There are many laws of nature, and the main ones related to soil fertility were discovered by our compatriot, the greatest scientist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky.
Briefly, these laws can be formulated as follows:
- The soil and its fertility were created and are created by living matter, consisting of myriads of microorganisms and worms; The plant receives all its chemical elements through living matter.
- The soil contains tens of times more carbon dioxide (produced from the respiration of living matter) than the atmosphere, and this is the plant’s main food.
- Living matter lives in a layer of soil from 5 to 15 cm - this “thin layer of 10 cm created all life on all land.”
I think that any sane person understands the deepest meaning of these laws and he is obliged to draw an unambiguous conclusion from them: since the living matter of the soil creates all living things on earth, including you and me, then we are obliged to take care of this living matter, and it will respond well - both fertility and productivity will increase.
What conditions for his life are we obliged to create?
These conditions are the same as for any living organism, no matter where it lives. There are not so many of these conditions - only five: habitat, food, air, water, warmth.
Let's start with habitat. Vernadsky proved that for living matter, which creates all life on land, the natural habitat occupies a layer in the soil from 5 to 15 cm. So what do we do? We are acting criminally: with a plow or shovel we remove living matter from its natural habitat by mouldboard cultivation of the soil deeper than this layer. As a result, most of the living matter dies and stops creating what is included in the concept of fertility - food for plants (humus, carbon dioxide).
Nothing alive without food cannot live, and his food is organic matter, but not “chemistry” - it is only a seasoning for food. Unfortunately, we still overestimate the importance of mineral fertilizers and underestimate the usefulness of manure.
Finally, we must understand that seasoning cannot replace food, since food (organic) contains the main element that is part of any living substance - carbon. Yes, you need seasoning for food - we use salt, vinegar, etc., they stimulate the appetite and help digest food. But it must be strictly dosed: after all, you can under-salt (this is not a problem - “under-salting on the table”) and over-salt (this is a problem - “over-salting on the back”, and the food is thrown away).
Unfortunately, the same thing happens with mineral fertilizers, which we do not know how to handle properly. It is necessary to have a very accurate and constantly updated soil analysis; you need to make a very accurate calculation of what needs to be added to the field; Everything that needs to be contributed must be found and received in a timely manner; and, finally, all this must be entered accurately in terms of quantity, time, and areas of area.
Who can do all this? We are still very far from this, and that is why we experience either “under-salting” - the yield does not increase, or, most often, “over-salting” - we produce an unsuitable agricultural product, for example, with an excess content of nitrates due to the application of a large amount of nitrogen fertilizers; it cannot be eaten - it is poisonous and rots quickly - but it can be stored for a long time.
Even more dangerous is the use of pesticides - herbicides and pesticides; they destroy not only weeds and pests, but also living matter in the soil, the surrounding nature and its fauna on land and in water; pass into agricultural products, and with them into the body of people and animals.
There can only be one thing to control weeds - reasonable technology (I have no weeds on my plots using experimental technology), but to control pests and diseases it is permissible to use only biological control agents; Many different types of them have already been developed, but production has not yet been worked out and established.
You and I have kitchens for preparing food: there are also kitchens for animals - feed shops. So why don’t we have a kitchen for what feeds us—the land? Why do we add unprepared and even liquid manure to the soil? When will we understand that this manure brings negligible benefits and quite a lot of harm?
The following figures can tell you about the “benefits” of unprepared (fresh) manure:
Huge costs are incurred for transporting fresh manure, applying and incorporating it into the soil. However, the introduction of fresh, especially liquid manure causes direct harm. The slurry spilled over the surface of the soil burns vegetation, and makes the soil itself impermeable to air and water, which leads to the death of both the cultivated plant and living matter. This type of organic matter is truly barbaric!
Now about water and air. They reach living matter through the soil, which means it must be loose. It is made loose by worms (which are also living matter in the soil). It has been proven, for example, that “during the summer, a population of 100 worms in the arable layer of soil on one square meter makes a kilometer of tunnels” (see “Agriculture”, 1989, No. 2, p. 52).
But we no longer have such a number of worms and therefore there is no one to loosen the soil (make moves). In our soils there are several of them left per square meter. We killed them with moldboard cultivation and improper application of fertilizers.
And finally about warmth. Living matter begins to work in the spring at a soil temperature of about + 10°C. It is at this time that work needs to be done. The soil temperature should be measured with a thermometer - alas, no one does this.
From all that has been said, we can conclude that in our fields we not only do not create conditions for the development of living matter in the soil, but also, with the farming technology we use, we destroy this living matter. This is where all our agricultural troubles come from.
This technology is extremely vicious, unscientific, environmentally harmful, and uneconomical. It is necessary to switch to reasonable (as I call it) farming technology, which does not have the listed disadvantages and therefore produces high yields of an environmentally friendly product.
SMART TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION OF ITS INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS
From what has been said above about violations of the laws of nature in relation to living matter, it is easy to guess about the initial operations of reasonable farming technology - soil preparation, fertilization, sowing (planting).
Let's start with soil preparation. Since living matter lives in the soil layer at a depth of 5 to 15 cm, this means that the top layer of 5 cm (which Vernadsky called supersoil) can be processed by turning it over - there is no living matter there. Quite the contrary: if there are weeds in the field, then moldboard cultivation should be carried out to this depth (only 5 cm!) - the roots of the weeds will be cut and they will not only die, but also be useful as green manure - green manure.
Anything that is located below the surface cannot be turned over - with a plow in fields and large areas, or with a shovel on patches of land - it is forbidden! The soil below this layer can only be loosened, since living matter cannot be removed from its natural habitat, but it is necessary to ensure the supply of moisture and air to it.
The depth of loosening should be no less than the entire depth of the soil, i.e. 15-16 cm. There will be no harm to the yield (living matter) and from deeper loosening, there may even be a benefit: moisture will be better retained.
Second operation - fertilization - must also be reasonable. Fertilizer must be applied not just to the zone of vital activity of living matter (in the soil layer from 5 to 15 cm), but to the zone of vital activity of the cultivated plant - under grains and tubers when sowing and planting them.
It is clear that this is the most profitable: several times less manure will be required if you apply it in heaps and not scattered, but the main thing is that all fertilizers will be completely converted with the help of living matter into food for plants (humus and carbon dioxide) directly under our plants, and not under the weeds, as happens when manure is scattered throughout the field.
In the latter case, weeds will multiply, and in direct proportion: the more fertilizers (organics) are applied, the more weeds will appear. When applying fertilizers in bunches, there will be practically no weeds, since there will be no food for them.
As a fertilizer, it is better to apply semi-rotted manure (it should contain worms) with a moisture content of 40-60%. There are a lot of organic fertilizers: peat, sapropel, green manure, chopped straw, compost, etc., but none of them can compete with manure. It is both biologically healthier than all of them combined, and more accessible, and cheaper than each of them separately.
Some of these fertilizers may not be possible to use at all: peat cannot be used on acidic soils - they will become even more acidic; sapropel - lake silt - not so easy to get; We have almost no green manure, straw; composts are difficult and expensive to prepare; they are used only by gardeners working on patches of land and using everything they have at hand: waste, leaves, etc.
Third operation - sowing (planting) seeds agricultural crops with reasonable technology should be carried out simultaneously with the application of fertilizers. Seeds are sown (planted) over piles of manure, previously covered with a 1-2 cm layer of soil.
Now think about how we sow. Many people know our methods of sowing (planting): row, square-cluster, thickened, ridge, bed, etc. All currently used sowing (planting) methods are based on one principle-scheme: where it is dense and where it is empty.
Where it is empty, i.e. the distance between the seeds and then the plants is too great, the ability of the cultivated plant for interspecific struggle is weakened, and therefore the weeds win, taking food from our plants and, consequently, reducing their productivity.
Where it is dense, i.e. the distance between the seeds (plants) is too small, the intraspecific struggle becomes more intense: the seeds (plants) fight for existence among themselves, as a result of which they either die or are exhausted, devoting most of their energy to this struggle and producing meager offspring - low productivity. (These laws on interspecific and intraspecific struggle were discovered by Charles Darwin and they are familiar to everyone who has graduated from high school.)
From the above it follows that when sowing (planting), it is necessary to place seeds over an area at equal distances from each other in all directions in order to eliminate the negative impact of interspecific and intraspecific struggle on the growth of the cultivated plants we grow, and, consequently, on their productivity.
Anyone who knows the basics of geometry will easily understand that this requirement is met by a single geometric figure, in which not only all its sides must be equal to each other (and this can be a square or any polygon), but, in addition, the second must be met the main condition: all the vertices - the corners of such a figure - the places where fertilizers and seeds are applied - must be spaced from each other (both in one figure and between neighboring ones) at the same distances.
Only one figure meets these requirements - an equilateral triangle (Fig. 1). Naturally, the sizes of the sides of this triangle should be different for different cultures. Optimal sizes can only be determined by experiment, and not by chance.
For the crops that I have been farming for 17 years, I can give these dimensions exactly: for potatoes it is 45 cm, for grain - 11 cm, corn - 22 cm. But for vegetables, which I have been dealing with only in recent years, I cannot yet give exact figures. the sizes of the sides of the triangle, and the approximate ones are: for cucumbers - 60-70 cm, zucchini and pumpkin - 80-90 cm, beets - 12-15 cm, carrots - 10-12 cm and garlic - 8-10 cm.
Rice. 1. Scheme of uniform distribution of manure and seeds over the area
I agree: any conclusion must be tested and proven by experiments. This is what I have been doing for the last 17 years - on the same plots, i.e. under the same conditions, I grow various crops using two technologies: generally used and experimental.
Naturally, all work is carried out using manual tools, since there are no machines for reasonable technology, and they are not needed for plots of land of 1-5 acres; Here you can and should use manual labor, which is very useful for the vast majority of those who have their own gardens.
The plots are located in an open, unshaded area. This is of particular importance for gardeners - if you grow crops in shaded areas, it is impossible to obtain high yields: in such places the light energy will not be fully used and the effect of photosynthesis will be low, which will lead to a sharp decrease in yield.
This was confirmed by my experiments; Using experimental technology, I grew the same potato variety in an open area and in a garden (in the shade), on the same soil, and this is the yield I got for the Lorch variety in 5 years (kg/m2):
The difference is 3.5-4.1 times in favor of open plots (plots). Therefore, farmers, especially gardeners, need to know and remember this feature.
EXPERIMENTAL WORK OF THE AUTHOR MANUALLY ON A PIECE OF EARTH
To fully familiarize yourself with the experimental work, I will try to answer three questions sequentially: what is the advantage of the experimental (reasonable) technology over the generally used one, how is it performed, by what and why?
So, I’ll start by answering the main question - about the final results - in numbers; their maximum values are presented in the table:
The table shows that reasonable technology increased the yield compared to the generally used technology for grain crops by 4.8 times, for silage crops by 7 times and for potatoes by 5.5 times. I obtained such yields not in the first year, but when a significant amount of humus had already accumulated in the soils (more than 5% for potatoes).
It is clear that we do not have such soils and therefore readers may have a logical question: what is the yield on plots in the soil of which there is little humus (less than 1%)? The answer can be unequivocal: the difference was and will remain the same - approximately five times superior to the experienced (reasonable) technology. Anyone can verify this.
I started planting potatoes in a plot where there was less than 1% humus in the soil, using two technologies. Here are the results in numbers for the last five years: according to generally used technology, the yield ranged from 0.7 kg per 1 m2 in the first year to 0.8 kg in the last, and according to reasonable technology, accordingly, from 3.5 to 5.7 kg. As you can see, a more than five-fold difference persists immediately, from the first year of testing two different potato technologies.
However, it is not only quantity that is important, but also quality: in particular, the average weight of tubers. If the average weight of a tuber on a plot using the experimental technology was 76 g (more in some years), then according to the generally used technology its average weight is only 18 g. These are essentially not food potatoes, but fodder and industrial potatoes.
It takes time to increase soil fertility. Please note that only reasonable technology increases fertility, annually increasing the humus content in the soil by 0.5%. With the generally used technology, the humus content on my plots did not increase, although it did not decrease, since I annually add 6-8 kg of manure per 1 m2 to them (on plots using reasonable technology - up to 3 kg per 1 m2).
My work confirms many other things that are useful for all of us. Apart from manure, I did not add anything to my plots - neither mineral fertilizers nor pesticides.Therefore, the product turned out to be environmentally friendly and the potatoes, when stored under the floor in bins made of boards, of course, did not rot at all.
So, to the question: “what is the advantage of intelligent technology?” I answered, I think, in sufficient detail.
Now I’ll tell you how the work was done. This is especially important for those who grow potatoes on plots of land.
Soil preparation. In the spring, I begin preparing the soil for planting when its temperature at a depth of 10-12 cm is not lower than +8... + 10°.
Depending on the quality of the site, I use different techniques: if it is virgin soil or fallow land with a thick grass cover (I started the first year this way), then I cut the turf to a depth of 5-6 cm with a bayonet shovel, carried it out of the site to its border and placed it in a stack. (After complete rotting of the grass and roots, after 2 years, the cut layer was returned to the site and scattered evenly over it.) Then the entire site was loosened with a garden fork. This must be done so that the soil does not turn over, and the resulting lumps are broken with a blow of a fork.
If there is no turf on the site, but there are weeds, then I cultivated the soil with an ordinary hoe to a depth of 5-6 cm, and then loosened it with a garden fork. The hoe cuts the roots of the weeds and embeds them into the soil. I used this technique only for the first two years - in subsequent years, there were no weeds in the area where reasonable technology was used, and therefore, when preparing the soil, only loosening was carried out with garden forks to a depth of at least 15-16 cm.
After loosening the entire area, its surface is leveled with a rake. All other spring technological operations: marking, applying manure and planting tubers are carried out on the same day.
The site is marked with specially made markers.It is clear that each crop must have its own marker - after all, the distance between the corners of the triangle is different for different crops (see Fig. 1).
The structure of the marker is clear from Figure 2. A wooden frame made of slats, conical wooden fangs-fingers are fixed at the bottom so that they form an equilateral triangle with a given length of its side; At the top, in the center, there is a handle for the marker’s hands. After marking, small holes form in the soil.
Rice. 2. Marker for marking the area
Application of manure. In place of the first hole formed by the marking, a hole is dug at the beginning of the site with a compressed shovel. Digging is done to the depth of the spade bayonet (15 cm). Manure is poured into the resulting hole - it must be in the soil layer at a depth of 5 to 15 cm (where living matter lives), and therefore the holes must be dug to a depth of 15 cm. This rule is the same for all crops.
To obtain high yields, only semi-rotted manure should be applied. There must be worms in it; the more there are, the better the manure.
The amount of manure depends on the quality of the soil, the type of crop, as well as the amount of manure available and its quality. Here the principle “you can’t spoil porridge with butter” applies: if there is manure, then there is no need to spare it, especially on very poor soils.
I poured 500-700 g of manure into the hole. Its humidity should be about 50%, which is easy to determine: at such humidity, a handful of manure squeezed in the palm will retain its assumed shape, but it will easily collapse even with weak pressure or touch with the other hand.
Now I’ll tell you about how I prepare manure for the experimental plot.When a crust formed on the surface of the liquid manure that the tractor driver poured out to me near the site, I used a crowbar to punch holes in it to the very bottom, 15-20 cm apart. Through them, air entered the living matter, which is not present in the liquid; there is only food and water in excess. (But nothing can live without air.) As a result, after 1-1.5 months, a fairly large number of worms appeared in the manure.
If, in addition to fresh (liquid) manure, I also had rotted manure (humus, there are no worms in it or very few), then I mixed them in a 1: 1 ratio and added this mixture.
But it also happened that I didn’t have manure, then I prepared and added compost, i.e. a mixture of various organic waste (grass, leaves, tops, kitchen waste, etc.). The compost was prepared as follows: all the waste was spread out in a layer 20 cm thick in the form of a bed 1.5-2 m wide, the bed was watered with water from a watering can and covered with film. Every 2-3 days, opening the film, loosened and watered, and then covered it again with film.
I continued this work for three weeks. During this time, a huge number of worms appeared in the compost - without them, organic fertilizer would be of negligible benefit, since worms, like microorganisms, not only process organic matter into food for plants (carbon dioxide and humus), but also perfectly loosen the soil.
Landing. Semi-rotted manure (vermicompost) will continue to rot in the pits, releasing a considerable amount of heat that can damage the tubers, and therefore I covered this manure with a 1-2 cm layer of earth. I placed a potato tuber weighing 50-70 g on top. a little more, but this gives a slight increase in yield, and there is no point in increasing the weight of the seeds, but it is better to use large potatoes for food.)
The tubers must be sprouted; I take them out from the underground a month before planting. Each planting tuber should have at least 5-7 sprouts up to 0.5 cm long - this ensures 100% germination and increases productivity. Such potatoes ripen 1-2 weeks earlier.
The tuber is covered with soil taken from digging a neighboring hole. In this case, the soil does not need to be turned over, but carefully moved from the shovel so as not to remove living matter from its natural habitat.
In this order, I carry out the work on the entire plot, after which I level it with a rake so that there is a 5-6 cm layer of soil above the potatoes.
Care. I hill up potatoes once a season, about a month after planting. By this time, the tops reach a height of 20-25 cm. I hill up the bushes with a ripper (with 4 teeth, 10 cm wide; Fig. 3) so that most of the tops are covered with soil, and the tops of the stems no more than 7 cm long remain on the surface.
There were no weeds on my plot, so I didn’t do any weeding (whereas in the plot where potatoes were grown using generally used technology, there were weeds, and I hilled them twice). Weeds (woodlice) appeared only after the potato vines had turned black and lodged; they were removed along with the tops during harvesting.
Rice. 3. Inventory for work using reasonable technology
Cleaning. The potatoes were harvested after all the vines had died and turned black. Together with the woodlice, I put them in the compost pit. Depending on the variety, I harvest potatoes from mid to late August - the most favorable time: there are no autumn rains yet.
During the cultivation of potato crops, I tested 25 varieties.The Belarusian pink variety produced the highest yield—11.1—11.5 kg per 1 m2, the lowest—Kristall, Sineglazka and Lorch—about 8.5 kg per 1 m2, that is, the difference was 30%.
Thus, my experiments have shown that the following main factors increase productivity:
- reasonable technology - 5 times,
- better soil - 2.5 times,
- the best variety - by 30%.
On decrease in yield affected not only by weather conditions, but also by the quality of the sites. The figures given are the results on an experimental, unshaded plot. For comparison, I carried out work using reasonable technology in areas located in the garden. Here the yield was much lower than in the open area.
So, if the Lorch variety gave a yield of about 8 kg in an open plot all years, then in the garden in the same years - about 2 kg per 1 m2, and for other varieties even less. As a result, the closed plot gave, under equal conditions, a yield on average four times less (much depends on the degree of shading), which should be taken into account primarily by gardeners and potatoes in their gardens.
Work carried out by me on an area of 150 m2, confirmed the reasonableness of the technology considered and the possibility of its widespread use now in small areas. To do this, very little is needed: simple tools, a small amount of good manure, knowledge of the work-operations that make up reasonable technology, and, of course, the desire to carry them out.
Those who clearly understood the content of reasonable technology and accurately applied it to themselves immediately began to receive significantly higher potato yields - the same as I get. They reported this to the media and to me in their numerous letters.
I wish you success!
Please familiarize yourself with a similar technique by another agronomist V.I.Kartelev, who gets the same results.
In the Tver region they harvest a ton of potatoes per hundred square meters
In the Tver region, a ton of potatoes per hundred square meters is harvested, despite the drought. A unique technique from a Kashin agronomist.
Meet me. This is Vladimir Ivanovich Kartelev - a professional agronomist and owner of his own personal plot, and also the author of a unique method of growing vegetables and other crops (60 items), which allows you to get a good harvest in any weather conditions.
73-year-old Vladimir Ivanovich lives in the village of Volzhanka, Kashinsky district, together with his wife. The pensions are small, and therefore they are fed with everything that the garden gives them for a whole year. On Kartelev’s personal plot there is just so much: potatoes - Russian people can’t live without them, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, beans, peas and even sunflowers. All this vegetable variety is located on 12 acres, 8 of which are devoted to potatoes. And it seems that the area of the garden is not very large, but the Kartelevs share the harvest with a large, numerous family: children and grandchildren. There's enough for everyone!
Last year, the tables in the agronomist’s house were bursting with abundance. From one hundred square meters he received 600 kg of large potatoes and 800 kg of cabbage, each head of cabbage weighed 8-10 kg. And this year he expects... more, despite the drought. What is the secret of the unprecedented harvest that gardener Kartelev boasted, a TIA correspondent found out.
Drought, scorching sun and a couple of drops of rain—that’s all the residents of the middle zone saw during this dry summer. In the Tver region, farmers sounded the alarm and said that 30% of the crop was lost, especially potatoes. And in agronomist Kartelev’s garden there is a riot of greenery and an equally riot of harvest.
Vladimir Ivanovich Kartelev is a scientist, professional agronomist, and soil scientist. He graduated from the Leningrad Agricultural Institute, postgraduate studies at the All-Russia Flax Research Institute (Torzhok, Tver Region), and worked on farms in our region. For 40 years of his life he has been conducting experiments on the land, looking for the best way to grow and get a good harvest. And he succeeded, Kartelev boasts. He developed his own farming method.
— The uniqueness of my method lies in 3 points: there is no digging, I grow potatoes and 60 other crops without any tillage: sunflowers, corn, fodder root crops, legumes, beans, strawberries and all vegetables. This is more than 60 crops. Nobody does that anymore! Two crops in our country are grown in the south without tillage - winter wheat and potatoes. And all other crops are grown everywhere according to the old method with the obligatory plowing and digging of the earth. And we grow without any digging or plowing.
The second point is that I use excellent fertilizer, which Russia is very rich in. I studied at the institute, at the Graduate School, but never encountered anything like this. What kind of fertilizer is this? This is grass, our ant grass. That's all fertilizer - better than manure. Well, the third point is the use of Baikal bait.
Vladimir Ivanovich’s herb is a super remedy for everything and everything! It fertilizes the soil well, protects against weeds, and plus it retains moisture well for a very long time.
According to Kartelev’s method, there is no need to plow or loosen the soil. You make holes in the ground, fill it with freshly cut grass, then put seeds there, water it, cover it with soil, and cover it with grass on top.That’s all, the scientist assures, you don’t even need to water anymore! According to him, he didn’t even water the potatoes this year, only the cabbage and then once, everything else “lives” on its own. Surprisingly, the technique works.
This year, he collected 12 buckets of fruit from a small bed of tomatoes. There are too many cucumbers to count, he says. The wife has already closed 40 three-liter jars and distributed them to relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances.
The method of the Kashin agronomist is in demand among local residents and visitors. So, last year, a summer resident from Moscow, Galina Bagdyan, planted 1.5 buckets of potatoes in a small plot of 4 by 3 meters. And I received a centner!
“I’ve been planting potatoes for almost 15 years now, and I’ve never had a chicken egg bigger than it.” They always planted in the usual way: they dug and hilled. That year, Vladimir Ivanovich suggested that I plant potatoes using his method on a small 3 by 4 plot. I agreed. And can you imagine? I showed this harvest to everyone at home in Moscow, 750 grams of potatoes each. And this year, however, it’s not 750 grams, because there’s drought and the ground is dust, but there are still potatoes. And now I have 5 bags from this field. FIVE bags, can you imagine!!! Here's to a dry summer!
Whether this is true or not, we decided to check it personally. Vladimir Ivanovich armed himself with a shovel and dug up four bushes with potatoes in front of us. To our surprise, large, even, healthy tubers fell from everyone. Joyful Kartelev said that this year he will definitely collect a ton from every hundred square meters!
It is worth noting that last year the Tver innovator’s method was somewhat different: instead of freshly cut grass, he put hay in the hole. Therefore, the harvest was smaller - 600 kg per hundred square meters. This year the grass is green, and therefore, the agronomist is sure, even in such a drought, the harvest will be much richer.
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August 20