Posted by mazemeister on May 21, 2012 at 18:16:22 from (24.187.98.163):
In Reply to: potato hilling? posted by B-maniac on May 20, 2012 at 20:27:05:
commercially:
the closing disks on the potato planter leave a small hill. before the plants are up, this is "dragged off." i think the idea is that extra soil protects from a late freeze. but then you want to get it off to get the plants out of the ground earlier.
without herbicide: cultivate weekly for weed control until canopy closure. as the plants get bigger the cultivator shoes are widened out so as not to disrupt the root system. with herbicide, we would cultivate once to start throwing a hill and kill any weed escapes. that would be three rows of shoes on the cultivator (21 shoes altogether for a 4 row machine).
"hilling" would be as late as possible before the rows filled in. you don't want to be damaging the plants with the tractor or hiller, but if you run too early there will be enough time for weeds to germinate between the rows. the machine for this is just a cultivator with the front row of shoes removed, and the second row adjusted to leave as wide a space as possible. the second row would be "buzzard wing" shoes to throw more dirt. that's what we used anyway. some people use disk hillers. i'd guess the hill would be about 8-10" tall. basically as much soil as you can dig out of the tire track. the idea is to make sure the crop stays buried all season long.
in terms of burying green tissue: that is not the goal, but inevitably some lower leaves will get buried.
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