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A strong early-season potato stand provides opportunity for increased quality marketable yield
As potato growers are working to maximize their yield potential for the 2022 harvest, it’s also time to start thinking about maximizing crop potential for the 2023 season.
Potato plants encounter many threats in the early season, which is a crucial time for establishing plant health. Growers can reduce early-season risk with a management plan that addresses insects and disease at planting. Diseases like Fusarium dry rot and Rhizoctonia can infect seedlings, causing the death of stolons and stems, weakened roots and stunted plant growth. Protecting against diseases with a broad-spectrum fungicide and a neonicotinoid seed treatment, such as Cruisermaxx Vibrance Potato, helps control insects like the Colorado potato beetle, aphids, potato psyllid and leafhoppers, according to Syngenta. Growers can reduce early-season risk with a management plan that addresses insects and diseases at planting.
Enhancing germination, increasing vigor, and improving stand establishment is key to minimizing risk and optimizing marketable yield and quality. Ultimately, getting potato crops off to a strong, healthy start can lead to better tuber distribution and greater uniformity at harvest, both of which are important for marketability and profit potential.
SOURCE: SYNGENTA