When growing potatoes in the home garden, you need to take a lot of care. Watering regularly and ensuring enough moisture throughout your plants’ development will help keep them strong against disease and pests. Regular watering also provides you with an abundant yield of healthy spuds.
However, overwatering causes more harm to plants instead of helping them. A plant’s health can be determined by how much moisture it receives daily.
Therefore, you should know “when to stop watering potatoes” to maintain a healthy yield. Continue reading this article as it is going to help a lot.
Water Requirements For Potato Plant
Potatoes need to be kept in moderately moist soil and weather conditions. Therefore, it is essential to monitor the moisture content on an ongoing basis.
Make sure you don’t let your potato bed become too dry or too wet for good growth; otherwise, they will grow spindly leggy plants with poor yields or even die completely.
Potatoes require a different amount of water at various stages in their life cycle. Mildly moistened soil is best for growing potatoes, but they also benefit from being kept constantly wet to provide them with what’s called “aqueous fertilization.” In addition, watering every couple of weeks will help ensure that your plants grow strong roots.
Watering also helps get enough moisture through their leaves to stay healthy and lush-looking. Your potatoes field benefit from 1-2 inches per week rainfall, or you could make up the difference with pot watering.
Growers should pay attention to when they plant their crops, as it could make all of the difference. Controlling the water needs for your potato crop throughout its essential which is according to the following detail:
- Planting to 30 days – Needs Moderate watering
- 30-60 days – Watering is critical for tuber formation
- 60-90 days – Regular watering is required for tuber bulking
- 90-120 days (before harvest) – Leaves start becoming yellowish and die back. At this stage, watering requirements become low.
Importance of Giving Adequate Water To Potato
There are a few tricks to getting the most out of your potato plants. First, when growing, make sure they have enough water.
Also, give them this gift during specific times so their roots can take advantage. Here are the harms caused to your potato plant if you don’t supply it with the right amount of watering.
- Not providing steady humidity will result in fewer healthy tubers and lumps and cracks on stems from lack of nourishment.
- Potato plants grown in a water shortage will produce fewer and smaller potatoes.
- They’ll also develop defects like knots, lumps, and cracks as the plant grow.
On the other hand, the benefits when the potato is appropriately watered are as follows:
- When growing potatoes, it’s essential to provide them with enough water during the correct times. It will help you get more and better-quality tubers at harvest.
- You can make sure your potatoes are delicious and last longer by growing them at the proper moisture level.
When To Stop Watering Potatoes
You can make sure that your potato plants are happy by monitoring the moisture in the soil, rainfalls and knowing how much water each needs. Then, once your plants start turning yellow and becoming spindly, know that this is the time you should stop watering.
It is the point where the crop is getting ready for the harvest and needs less watering. When potatoes are ready for harvest, the leaves and flowers on their plants will start to die.
It is perfectly normal; this phenomenon is known as “dying back” that allows more sunlight into your potato crops, resulting in higher yields.
Dying back indicates that your potato will not grow any further, and thus they don’t need watering or fertilizing. Leaves and tubes slowly wither, allowing them to fall off. You can pick up your potatoes from the ground and serve them to your table when this occurs.
The days when we worried about our potatoes not being ready for harvest are long gone. Instead, you should start paying attention when the leaves and flowers on your plants start dying back in preparation for storing or cooking spuds!
What Happens If You Don’t Stop Watering Potatoes?
Make sure you know when your potatoes are at their peak, and then stop watering them. Of course, you will want to harvest the crop before that point.
But if it’s too late because of all the excess water they’ve taken in overtime -you’re doomed! The more moisture there is on vegetation like this, the faster things rot down.
One day is all that it takes for excess water to affect your potatoes adversely. The water will cause the potatoes to rot before you can even harvest them.
The potatoes are more susceptible to disease if flooded with water. Some molds and bacteria thrive in wet conditions, damaging crops if you don’t stop watering.
Tuber Quality And Yield Depends On Proper Watering
The quality of potatoes can be reduced by the frequency at which they are watered. Frequent irrigation is known to reduce tuber malformation rates in potato plants. However, the water deficit in the early phase of yield formation can lead to spindled tubers and cracked potatoes.
If this condition is not resolved, it will result in “black hearts.” Blackheart (BH) is a physiologic disorder that occurs in potato tubers in which the internal tissue discolors during storage.
>> Read More Potato’s Topics:
- What To Plant After Potatoes?
- How Many Potatoes per Plant? 5 Things To Know!
- 5 Best Fertilizers for Potatoes – Read this before you buy one
- How to Store Potatoes From Garden? – 10 Tips That Will Help
- How Long Do Potatoes Last?
Conclusion
Good agriculture practices include irrigation as a primary point. For example, growing potatoes in your home garden are easy when you know how much water they need.
- As the leaves and tubers of a potato plant wither, you will know that your potatoes are ready for harvest. It is time you should stop watering your potato.
- It is vital to monitor the moisture content of soil before harvesting potatoes.
- Minimize giving water when there is rainfall.
- Adequate water is essential for potato crops to avoid becoming rot or dried.
A great-looking crop of potatoes is what you can expect to harvest following these watering rules. If you have any gardening questions, please leave them in the comment section below!