On 60 hectares, the first early potatoes were harvested in the Stolin peasant (farm) farm of Nikolai Grib. In order not to injure the tubers, they plowed the furrows with a digger and manually harvested. More than 700 tons of selected tubers were sold to the country’s trade network. The first tons of early carrots were sent to consumers. Its plantation occupies over 60 hectares. Next in line is the harvesting of early varieties of cabbage, beets and other vegetables.
In JSC Polesskaya Niva, the harvesting of early potatoes of the Belarusian variety Lileya is on the way. Here it is more than 20 hectares, the farm specializes in the production of elite seeds of this crop. Domestic varieties of different maturation periods are grown on 170 hectares: Breeze, Vector, Zhuravinka, Treasury, Manifesto, Pershatsvet, Zorachka. The resulting elite seed material is supplied to the farms of the district and region.
“Last year, almost 400 centners per hectare was produced by the pershatsvet variety,” notes Elena Bogush, chief agronomist. – After the June heat, thunderstorms passed and watered the earth with moisture. The machine operators processed the plantations from phytophthora, loosened the aisles. The views of the harvest are pleasing. We hope that, as in previous years, we will get at least 3,000 tons of tubers. A modern storage facility has been built for the harvested crop.
Almost one and a half hundred hectares are allocated for potatoes in the farm “Experience KAA”. It is also grown in OJSC “Novaya Pripyat” and KSUP “Berezhnoye”. On the fields of the region, mainly mid-season and late varieties are cultivated. Farms are equipped with specialized equipment for the care and harvesting of this crop. A significant part of the crop is sent to the Russian market.
“In the future, we intend to expand the area under potatoes and vegetables,” Vasily Litvinkevich, First Deputy Chairman of the Stolin District Executive Committee, shares his plans. – A marketing service has been created in the farms, which deals with the markets for the grown crop. For us, potatoes are a real gold mine.
Cultivation of a labour-intensive crop provides an opportunity to create jobs. For the densely populated Stolin region, this is of great importance: potato growing has a future here.
The other day, another district of the Brest region, Luninets, joined the cleanup. They are digging potatoes in the Mostovsky and Shchuchinsky districts of the Grodno region, and they are starting in the Minsk region.
According to experts, young potatoes look a little shaggy, as they do not have a dense cork layer. Perishable, and therefore poorly stored, but this quality plays an insignificant role. Now they buy it not to replenish winter stocks, but in order to cook delicious and fragrant dishes.
Early potatoes are presented on the shelves of many stores in the country. Consumer demand is consistently high, as are the opportunities for agricultural producers. The price in the capital per kilogram reaches 3 rubles, large retail chains offer at a lower cost. By the way, the purchase price in the Stolin district, which has long been assigned the title of a vegetable region, is 1.3 rubles.
- Agricultural enterprises and large peasant (farm) enterprises planted potatoes of different ripening periods on 26.1 thousand hectares, which is 1.3 thousand more than last year. The fields under this crop were increased in the Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk and Mogilev regions. The outlook for the harvest is good, – says Tatyana Gumenyuk, Deputy Head of the Department of Potato Growing, Horticulture, Agrochemistry and Plant Protection of the Main Department of Crop Production of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
Agricultural producers promise to provide the domestic market with high quality natural products for full demand. And we are talking not only about early, but also mid-season, late varieties, which are laid for the off-season period of the year.
