Field · Root crops

🥔 Potato

Change the spot every year. Seed-potato production has a legal break; a home plot follows the Martha guide.

StartFirst step: mark Potato on a parcel.

Sowing

Martha Association: always use certified seed potato, never supermarket potato. Chit for 2–4 weeks. Plant when the soil is at least +8 °C, in a furrow about 10 cm deep, tubers 20–30 cm apart, rows 50–75 cm. Earth up when the tops are 15–25 cm.

Soil and parcel

Martha Association: loose, free-draining soil, pH under 6. Finnish Food Authority (seed-potato production): seed potato may not go on a parcel where potato was grown, stored or handled less than 2 years ago. In practice, 1 year of potato and 2 break years.

Fertilising

Martha Association: an organic fertiliser suits potato. Avoid too much nitrogen: tops grow and the tuber yield suffers. They do not give one kilo figure.

Yield and harvest

Martha Association: early potato about 6–8 weeks after planting. For storage, cut the tops in August–September, lift a couple of weeks later, dry for about a week at +12–15 °C out of light, and store at about +4–5 °C. PETLA: black-scurf sclerotia survive in the field for a couple of years. If you find scurf, grow other crops there for a couple of years.

🔄 In the rotation

Role: Breaks a cereal run. Trans Farm: potato is a good preceding crop for caraway.
Good preceding crop: Not potato straight after potato. Martha Association: change the spot every year.
Good following crop: Other crops. For seed multiplication PETLA says potato at most once in three years.
Gap on the same parcel: Seed potato: at least 2 break years (Finnish Food Authority). Black scurf: at most once in three years (PETLA). Home plot: a 3–4 year rotation (Martha Association).

Plan Potato on a parcel 📖 Read the full growing guide

Other crops

🫛 Pea 🫘 Faba bean 🌼 Turnip rape 🌻 Oilseed rape 🌾 Oat 🌾 Barley 🌾 Spring wheat 🌾 Rye ☘️ Red clover / ley 🌿 Caraway 🌿 Fibre hemp

Sources

Links open public guides. Always check your own contract and parcel advice.

General rotation advice – not a substitute for advice, a contract or the law. Figures come from the sources, not from invention.