Increasing potato yield using foliar fertilization to boost growth

. To date, the use of fertilizers has become firmly embedded in advanced crop cultivation technologies, as the main component of obtaining high and sustainable yields. The nutritional regime of plants cannot be optimized only with the help of macronutrients. They also need trace elements that can increase the resistance of plants to adverse growing conditions, diseases and pests. However, the high cost of such fertilizers makes it necessary to develop new more effective and less expensive drugs. Therefore, in modern potato cultivation technologies, much attention is paid to non-root top dressing. As a result of three-fold leaf treatments with the developed fertilizer, the yield increase of potato variety Gulliver was 0.4..


Introduction
The world experience and practice of agriculture show that obtaining high and stable yields of agricultural crops is associated not only with plant breeding, the creation and introduction of new highly productive varieties into agricultural production, but also with the effective use of modern macro-and micro-fertilizers.
It is known that agricultural crops have a selective ability to various trace elements, which take an active part in many vital processes occurring in the plant.So for winter and spring crops, the most important of the trace elements is copper and manganese; for fodder cropsboron, copper and molybdenum; for arable crops -boron, copper and manganese.The need of plants for trace elements increases with a decrease in soil acidity, with a high content of available phosphorus and nitrogen in the soil, with the introduction of large doses of phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers [1,2].Therefore, in modern technologies of cultivation of agricultural crops, much attention is paid to non-root fertilizing, in which the assimilation of nutrients occurs with the help of plant leaves.
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the development of promising chelated micronutrients that are practically non-toxic and highly soluble in water.They do not change their properties in a wide range of acidity and remain accessible to plants for a long time.Trace elements, along with biological molecular systems, provide the most important metabolic processes of intracellular metabolism.Without them, enzymes are not formed, photosynthesis, the formation of sugary and protein substances is impossible [3].

Materials and research methods
Experiment establishment, records and observations were carried out in accordance with the requirements of the methodology of field experiment [1], the methodology of research on potato culture [3] and the methodology of conducting agrotechnical experiments, records, observations and analyses on potatoes [4].The results of the experiment were processed using the method of dispersion analysis of the data obtained by B.A. Dospekhov [5].
The soil of the experimental site was characterized as sod-podzolic sabulous with the following nutritional characteristics of the plowing horizon before experiment establishment: the soil of the site on which the experiment was located had high metabolic and hydrolytic acidity (pH KCl = 4.71; Ng = 3.27 mg-eq /100g of soil); low amount of absorbed bases and degree of saturation with them (S = 3.11 mg-eq/100g of soil; V = 48.7%);high content of mobile phosphorus (315 mg/kg of soil) and low -exchangeable potassium (97 mg/kg of soil); satisfactory humus content (1.91% of humus).The ultimate field water capacity of the soil (UFWC) is 13.3%.At the same time, the research program had the following content (Table 1).The area of the accounting plot averaged -12.5 m2; the repetition of the experiment was fourfold; the placement of plots was systematic.
The foliar fertilization of the studied potato varieties was carried out with an experimental preparation containing nitrogen, boron and copper, the chemical composition of which is presented in Table 2.
Table 2.Chemical composition of the tested fertilizer.

Results and discussions
The size of the aboveground mass in many cases are the decisive factors determining the intensity of accumulation and the amount of yield.The productivity of potato plants under normal conditions of growth and development is directly dependent on the capacity of its aboveground mass.
The parameters of plant bush development are related to both general metabolic processes and external soil and climatic conditions.Taking into account the importance of biometric indicators of the development of the tops in the formation of the crop, the biometric indicators of plant development are taken into account in Table 3. Foliar fertilization with the test preparation affected the biometric indicators of potato plant development.It can be noted that, depending on the dose of the drug used on all varieties, the weight of the tops and the area of the leaf surface are slightly higher in the variants with the use of the drug than in the control variant, where the leaf treatment was carried out only with water.On the Gulliver variety, the weight of the tops in the variants with the use of drugs was 0.34...0.39 kg/bush, and in the control variant -0.34 kg/bush; on the Vimpel variety -0.43 ...0.45 kg/bush, in the control variant -0.43 kg /bush; on the Matushka variety -0.34 ...0.39 kg/bush, in the control variant -0.34 kg /bush.
At the same time , the potato yield of the variants with the use of the test preparation was: on the Gulliver variety -20.9...25.8 t/ha, which turned out to be higher than the yield in the control by 0.4...5.2 t/ha, on the Vimpel variety -21.7...24.9 t/ha, which turned out to be higher than in the control by 2.0...5.1 t/ha; on the Matushka variety -16.0... 20.0 t/ha, which turned out to be higher than in the control by 0.1...4.1 t/ha.In the arid conditions of 2022, for all three varieties, the best option turned out to be the option with a foliar fertilization with the tested drug in a concentration of 1:500.The increase in yield relative to the control was significant and reliable.
The size of tubers with the largest transverse diameter according to the standard should be at least 30 mm -for rounded-oval and 28 mm -for elongated tubers [7].The yield structure of potato tubers is shown in Table 5.It can be seen from the table data that the mass of non-commercial tubers with a diameter of less than 30 mm in cross-section is insignificant in comparison with the total mass of tubers.Tubers of the early Gulliver variety are slightly larger than tubers of the Vimpel and Matushka varieties.The marketability of the tuber harvest significantly depended on the conditions of the year and the use of the drug, so the average percentage of commercial tubers in the variants of the Gulliver variety was 93-95%, in the variants of the Vimpel variety -93-96%, in the variants of the Matushka variety -80-84% The main indicators of the quality of potato tubers include: the content of dry matter and starch.These two indicators are closely related to each other and to a greater extent depend on varietal characteristics and nutritional conditions.The content of dry matter in tubers is of great importance.It affects the yield of products and is one of the main indicators of the suitability of potatoes for processing.Many studies have shown that a high content of solids and starch provides an increased yield of finished products [8].The more dry matter in potatoes, the better the quality of processed products (taste, crispy properties, mealiness) [9][10].
It is important to get not only a large potato crop, but also to achieve a high content of dry matter and starch in tubers.This is primarily determined by the biological characteristics of the variety, as well as these indicators can vary significantly from growing conditions.According to Moreover, higher values of starch and dry matter content in tubers of all studied varieties were obtained in variants with foliar fertilization with the tested preparation at a concentration of 1:500.
Non-root nutrition of plants until recently was not considered a mandatory method in the cultivation of agricultural crops.However, at present, the relevance and necessity of its application in agricultural production is a standard technological procedure that, in addition to balanced plant nutrition, allows agricultural producers to obtain high-quality products at the lowest cost.The methodology of economic evaluation of the effectiveness of fertilizer application is based on a comparison of the conditional net income from the use of the drug with the costs incurred for fertilizer.
The approximate cost of the drug is 10,000 rubles for 1.0 liter.The flow rate of the working fluid is 300 l/ha.The main basic costs according to economists for crop processing are 151,200 rubles/ha (Tables 7-9).
To calculate the conditional net income for each variety in the conditions of 2022, potatoes of only the "commercial" fraction (more than 30 mm in transverse diameter) were taken into account.We accepted the conditional sale price of 15 and 25 rubles/kg.Then, after calculating the commodity yield, we determined the amount of estimated revenue for the options at the estimated selling price of potatoes of 15 and 25 rubles/kg.And we received an estimated (conditional) net income from the use of the drug.From Tables 7-9, we can say that for the potato variety Gulliver in the variant of threefold foliar fertilization with a concentration of the drug 1:500 (0.6 l/ha), you can get a conditional net income of 62.3...115.8 thous.rub./ha, for the Vimpel variety 47.2...90.7 thous.rub./ha, for the Matushka variety 33.1 ...67.2 thous.rub./ha.

Conclusion
The conducted studies have shown that non-root treatments of the cultivated crop not only increase the yield, but also increase some of their qualitative indicators compared to the control variant.Moreover, the greatest increase in yield was obtained for all potato varieties at a concentration of the tested preparation of 1:500.According to the results of field tests, the yield increase of potato variety Gulliver was 0.4...5.2 t/ha, potato variety Vimpel 2.0... 5

Table 1 .
Scheme of experiment.

Table 3 .
Biometric indicators of potato plants in the potato flowering phase, average values.

Table 6 .
The content of starch and dry matter in potato tubers, depending on the concentration of the drug (2022), %.

Table 7 .
Calculation of costs and conditional net income for the Gulliver variety depending on the concentration of the drug used in the conditions of 2022.

Table 8 .
Calculation of costs and conditional net income for the Vimpel variety depending on the concentration of the drug used in the conditions of 2022.

Table 9 .
Calculation of costs and conditional net income for the Matushka variety depending on the concentration of the drug used in the conditions of 2022.