Harvesting, storage and processing of potatoes

First, harvest at the right time. The storage potato should be harvested when the dry matter accumulation is the most and the tuber is fully mature. The spring potato should be harvested in the first and middle of June, and the autumn potato should be harvested in the first ten days of November without frost. No matter spring and autumn potatoes, if there is a rainy day before harvest, they should be harvested after the soil is properly dried. Just unearthed tubers, the skin is relatively tender, should be hung on the ground for 1-2 hours, wait until the potato skin surface is slightly dry before collection. But you can't bask in the sun for a long time in summer, so you should store it in a cool place in time after harvest. The tubers with pathological changes, injuries, insect bites, rain, freezing, opening, too small and pockmarked epidermis should be strictly selected during storage.

Second, pre-storage treatment. Foliar spraying with 0.2% penicillin could inhibit potato sprouting during storage within 2-4 weeks before harvest. If it rains within 48-72 hours after spraying, you should make up the spray.

Third, storage conditions. ⑴ temperature: the temperature should be kept at a high temperature of 15-20 ℃ in the first 10-15 days of storage. After the tuber epidermis formed a cork protective layer, the temperature should be controlled at 3-5 ℃ for storage. ⑵ humidity: the suitable relative humidity for storage is about 90%.

Fourth, storage mode

1. Indoor storage: choose a well-ventilated warehouse with a dry site, generally storing potato pieces in baskets and stacking them indoors; in some places, potato pieces are directly stacked on indoor bamboo buildings or floors; others use bags to load potato chunks, stack or hang them on the floor. These methods are simple and easy, but it is difficult to control germination. If combined with drug treatment, the storage effect can be improved. The method of covering and shading can also be used to restrain germination, which is ideal for the storage of potatoes harvested in rainy season. Put a number of bamboo ventilators in the potato pile to facilitate ventilation and heat dissipation. In order to improve the utilization rate of space, it is best to store it indoors with nylon woven bags, or packing and stacking with baskets and woven bags.

2. Cellar: in the warm areas of the south, choose the indoor or outdoor shed that is dark, cool, ventilated and dry, and grow a square cellar with bricks, leaving holes in the pool wall for ventilation and heat dissipation, covered with fine sand 10-15 cm above. Just a little compaction. The northwest area often uses well cellar or kiln cellar for storage. The storage capacity of these two cellars can reach 3000-4000 kg. Because only the pit mouth ventilation is used to adjust the temperature, so the heat preservation effect is better. However, it is not easy to cool down at the initial stage of entering the cellar, so attention should be paid to the pre-cooling before entering the cellar.

No matter storage or cellar, attention should be paid to strengthening ventilation at the initial stage. It is mainly ventilated when the temperature is low in the morning and evening, or by exhaust fan. After several weeks, there is no need for too much ventilation, depending on the temperature in the potato pile, so that the temperature in the potato pile is close to the external minimum temperature, but not less than 0 ℃. At the beginning of potato storage, it should be checked every 2 weeks or so to get rid of rotten tubers. From now on, it will be checked every other month or so.