Description of the Picasso potato variety, its characteristics and yield

The Picasso potatoes are developed in Holland. This late-ripening variety is popular with Russian gardeners. The product has excellent technical characteristics and consumer properties.

Picasso is often planted in small vegetable gardens. It is unpretentious, resistant to major diseases. Even the Colorado potato beetle is not attracted to the plant.

Gardeners affectionately call potatoes Little Red Riding Hood, Ivan da Marya, Matryoshka, Ryabukha. In 1995, the variety was included in the State Register of Vegetable Crops of the Russian Federation. Recommended for cultivation in the Central and Central Black Earth regions.

What attracts gardeners

The Picasso potato variety is often found in summer cottages. The gardeners appreciated it. They are especially attracted by unpretentiousness and productivity.

Description of the variety:

• belongs to the group of late ripening (it takes up to 140 days from germination to lodging of tops);
• the skin is dense, yellow with pink blotches;
• a large number of very deep eyes;
• the pulp is dense, creamy or creamy;
• high, spreading bush;
• the color of the tops is bright green;
• up to 20 tubers in the nest;
• tuber weight from 70 to 140 g;
• starch content up to 12%.

Picasso potatoes keep well due to their low starch content. The dense peel allows you to transport the crop without loss. Marketability of Picasso - 95%.

The potato is distinguished by the uniformity of the tubers. The weight and size in the nest are almost the same: there are no small ones. Gardeners observing agronomic standards receive up to 300 kg of tubers per hundred square meters.

How to use the crop?

Picasso is a table variety. Due to the low starch content in potatoes, various dishes are prepared from it. Gardeners boil, fry, bake potatoes. Tubers do not crumble when exposed to heat. Some people note the special taste of the puree made from Picasso.

How to plant correctly?

The characteristic of the variety promises a high yield of tasty tubers. But without observing the rules of agricultural technology, the result cannot be achieved. Growing conditions:

1. The soil should be prepared in the fall. Dig up the ridges, pick the weeds.
2. Potatoes prefer neutral or slightly acidic soils. On acidic ones, lime, ash or dolomite flour should be added. Alkaline - treat with sour peat.
3. The soils must be well structured. They must pass air and moisture well. On heavy soils, sanding is carried out, on light (sandy and peaty) - claying.
4. To enrich the land with nitrogen and improve it, it is recommended to plant the site of the proposed planting with green manure. Mustard, phacelia, rye, oats will do. Mustard and phacelia do not need to be dug up in autumn. During the winter, they will rot under the snow.Dig up rye, oats after regrowth by 10-15 cm and incorporate them into the soil.
5. In the spring, a week before planting the tubers, nitrogen fertilizers should be applied. Humus or mature compost will do. Consumption rate: bucket per square meter of the ridge.
6. After planting the tubers, additional nutrition will be required. It will be provided by the introduction of the mineral complex according to the manufacturer's instructions.

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Description and rules for performing hilling potatoes in a fan manner

Picasso does not require prior germination. It is enough to warm the potatoes in the sun for a week. To accelerate the development of plantings, the seed is recommended to be treated with any stimulant: Epin, Potassium humate.

With a lack of seed fund, it is permissible to cut the tubers into pieces with 2-3 eyes. The operation is carried out with a knife treated with alcohol or potassium permanganate. Air dry the cut site. Then brush with brilliant green or sprinkle with activated charcoal.

It should be planted after the ground warms up to 9 degrees Celsius. Planting pattern: 45 cm between rows, 70 - between bushes. On light soils, it should be deepened by 9-10 cm, on loams - 6-7 cm.

Folk omen: it's time to plant potatoes if there is a penny-sized leaf on a birch tree. At this time, there is enough moisture in the soil, the return frosts have already passed.

How to care?

Picasso is an unpretentious vegetable. But it is necessary to follow the rules of cultivation. How to proceed:

1. If the mineral complex was not introduced during planting, the first time to feed after the growing tops of 10 cm. The second feeding is done before flowering.
2. Simultaneously with top dressing, hilling should be carried out.
3. Remove weeds regularly.
4. Picasso gets by with the minimum amount of moisture in the soil. But in severe drought, watering is required. The soil should be 10-15 cm wet. It should be repeated once a week. After irrigation, be sure to loosen the ridges.
5. A signal of potato ripeness is drying and lodging of tops.

Some gardeners mow the tops a week before harvesting. This helps to ripen the underground parts of the plant. But Picasso does not need such a measure: the outflow of nutrients from the tops to the tubers occurs naturally.

Tubers should be dug out in dry, sunny weather. Gardeners use a pitchfork: they hurt the crop less.

Potatoes should be left in the sun for 2-3 hours to dry and disinfect: these tubers are better stored.

Correct organization of the cellar will allow to avoid losses during storage. It must be whitewashed and well ventilated. The temperature should be kept around 5-6 degrees Celsius.

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Description of potato varieties Forty days, growing, when to dig

What is sick?

Picasso is a disease resistant variety. It is not affected by fusarium, scab, X and Yn viruses. But late-ripening potatoes are not resistant to late blight. To protect against misfortune, preventive measures should be taken: observe the turnover of vegetable crops, remove plant residues after harvesting, and process the soil.

Potatoes should not be planted next to tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, strawberries and garlic. These plants oppress each other.

Gardeners' opinions

Gardeners from different regions share their impressions of the variety. Peculiarities of Picasso are in its unpretentiousness. It gives excellent yields in the middle lane and southern regions.

Summer residents of hot regions plant the variety very early (in March) or very late in (late June). A good harvest is obtained in both cases.

The gardeners conducted a study. Two equal plots of land were allocated. They were equally prepared for Picasso's landing. Germinated tubers were planted on one (stolons were 0.5 mm long). Tubers heated in the sun for a week were simultaneously placed on the second plot.

In the first section, seedlings appeared 4 days earlier. On the second, the sprouts were stronger. The potatoes quickly gained green mass. The care was the same.The harvest from the two sites was almost equal.