Potatoes promise to be plentiful

The potato theme sounded again in the agrarian community of the Chelyabinsk region. The leaders and agronomists of potato growing enterprises of the Chelyabinsk region gathered at the South Ural Research Institute of Horticulture and Potato Growing (YUUNIISK) to discuss the prospects for the potato harvest, to get acquainted with promising varieties of this crop.
A meeting-seminar on studying the best practices of growing potatoes in the Chelyabinsk region was organized by YuUNIISK, which is a branch of the Ural Federal Agricultural Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (UrFARC, Yekaterinburg), and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Chelyabinsk Region.
The seminar participants were welcomed by the DIRECTOR of UrFARC, DOCTOR of Agricultural Sciences Nikita Zezin. He noted the success of South Ural potato growers in growing this strategic crop. First Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Chelyabinsk Region Alexander Zavalishchin summed up the results of the previous season and informed the farmers about the challenges facing the potato farms of the Southern Urals.
- In 2021, the volume of potato production in the region, taking into account households, amounted to 402 thousand tons. Including in agricultural enterprises and farms, 102 thousand tons of potatoes were harvested, the planned indicators were met by 102%, - says Alexander Zavalishchin. - Self-sufficiency in potatoes in the Chelyabinsk region is 129%. In 2022, the potato planting area in the production sector was increased by 95 hectares and occupied 7.2 thousand hectares. There is every reason to expect a potato harvest of at least 110,000 tons in autumn.
As the First Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the region further noted, potato-growing enterprises need to carry out variety change and variety renewal of potatoes in a timely manner, use zoned seeds, and increase the share of sowing with elite seeds. A compensatory subsidy for potato cultivation and unrelated support (per 1 hectare of sown area), as well as a subsidy for elite seed production, are aimed at the development of potato production.
In addition, other subsidies allow potato growers to reimburse the costs of purchasing mineral fertilizers, agrochemical soil surveys and land reclamation.
In the Chelyabinsk region, there is a program of state support for the construction and modernization of agro-industrial complex (“capex”). This subsidy was used by three farms: Agro-Resource LLC, Akbashevsky State Farm, Krasnoarmeiskoye Agricultural Enterprise, where the modernized storage facilities can accommodate 7.2 thousand tons of products. In 2022, a storage facility for a thousand tons will be put into operation at the farm of Abdurakhimov B.Kh. in the Sosnovsky region. Also, subsidies are provided for farmers for the purchase of agricultural equipment, including for the cultivation of potatoes, and subsidies for research and development work.
- The South Ural Research Institute of Horticulture and Potato Growing provides scientific support to potato growing enterprises, carrying out selection of potato varieties, research in the field of seed production. The most important area of ​​breeding is the creation of new highly productive varieties of potatoes, adapted to the local climate, resistant to plant diseases and pests, suitable for mechanized cultivation and combine harvesting, - Alexander Raevsky, HEAD of the South Ural Research Institute of Horticulture and Potato Growing, told the seminar participants. – Today, 73 varieties of potatoes are included in the register of breeding achievements in the Ural region, including 7 varieties of our institute: “spiridon”, “tarasov”, “kuzovok” - they are distributed mainly in households, and nematode-resistant varieties suitable for industrial cultivation , this is "zahar",
An analysis of varietal crops in the Chelyabinsk region showed that over the past two years, agricultural organizations and farms have been cultivating 34 varieties of potatoes. Of these, only 18 varieties are zoned in the Ural region. At the same time, the share of varieties of domestic selection was 16.3%. A significant reserve for increasing the efficiency of the industry is the replacement of non-ranged varieties with adapted varieties of domestic selection. Today, YUUNIISK reproduces potato material in special greenhouses; in 2021, 154,000 mini-potato tubers were grown here, which is enough to ensure the production of 2,000 tons of elite potato seeds in five years. The institute also sold 32.5 tons of seed potatoes of the “elite” and “super-elite” categories of the 2021 harvest to seed farms for replication of seeds, said Alexander Raevsky.
Planting potatoes on production fields in the Chelyabinsk region, despite the wet spring and cool early summer, practically without weeds, Lidia Mikhailovna Smirnova, chief agronomist of the Association of Enterprises for Growing Vegetables in the Open Ground of the Chelyabinsk Region, stated.
The largest potato cultivation area in the region is in Makhmadov's farm - 630 hectares. In JSC SHP "Krasnoarmeyskoye" potato plantings occupy 400 hectares. Large area under potatoes in Argayashsky, Sosnovsky districts.
In the second part of the seminar-meeting, its participants went to the seed-growing and experimental planting of potatoes, which are produced by YuUNIISK in their fields. There, the scientific staff of the institute spoke in detail about the characteristics of the varieties developed at the institute, answered the questions of the farmers. Also on the field was organized a mini-exhibition of equipment for the cultivation of potatoes, intended for use in small farms, including personal subsidiary plots of the population.

Source: Press Center of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Chelyabinsk Region