IMPROVING SEED POTATOES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 23

IMPROVING SEED POTATOES.

A method of selecting and planting potato seed to improve the yield is being a>d»x>cated in America by Profsssor H. J Webber, of Cornell It is so simple that it could be profitably adopted by small and large farmers alike in Victoria. The importance of obtaining a high standard of seed is perhaps more obvious in the case of potatoes than in most other crops. Professor Webber advocates carefully selecting a large number of ideally-shaped tubers of -neairly the same size from a -variety which the grower knows to be a good producer. Thase selected tubers should be cut into uni-form-sized quarters, and planted in hills a uniform distance apart. The hills should be at least a foot and a-half apart in the rows, in order that there will not bo mixing of tubers in the hill. The small breeding natoh planted with these selected tubers ' can be placed in one cornel of the general ' field, but should be on as uniform soil as possible. In harvesting dig each hill separately, by hand, a>nd lay the tubers of each hill together at the side of the row. After th< patch has been dug the first process should be to eliminate all pcovyielding hills. This the grower can usually j do by going down each row and taking j out the low-yielding hills, so that all the ' remaining; hills are good hills. It then remains to select from theso good yielding -hills those which are tho very best. He should now go over the patch again, row by I row, and pick out from among the good I hills the very best. By best one would not only mean those which are the very highest "in yield, but these which have the largest number of good-sized marketable tubers of regular shape. Some good yielding hills show a. tendency to form irregular tubers, which of course would make the hill useless for selection purposes. As rapidly j as the best hills are selected the 'best 1 tubers from these can be taken out and I preserved separately as breeding stock i tubers. The remaining tubers in, these " gilt-edged" hills can be utilised along with the remaining good hills for planting -the general orop the next year. Tne. •breeding stock seed which represents the , best tubers from ths best hills should be 1 preserved to plant another breeding patch.