Early potato variety Gold Maya - features and taste

Potato Gold Maya - what kind of variety is it?

Maya Gold is a potato variety native to Peru. If you believe the stories of Americans, this species was grown about 5 thousand years ago. At the moment, the high cost of potatoes is maintained artificially: the goods are imported mainly from the USA and in small quantities.

Ripening time and yield

Mayan gold is an early variety. The ripening period is about 2 months. It has a high yield, and some tubers of this plant can reach a length of up to 60 cm. One bush can produce up to 40 fruits, each of which weighs up to 100 g.

Potato Gold Maya is a very popular variety among Russians

Disease resistance

The Zoloto Maya variety exhibits moderate resistance to nightshade pests. Potatoes are not susceptible to diseases such as powdery mildew, scab, and leaf spot. However, fruits can be affected by potato nematodes, and therefore it is worth taking this fact into account in advance.

Characteristics of tubers

Potatoes of this variety were bred by Scottish breeders. The fruit has an oblong shape, narrowed at one end, making it convenient to hold the root crop in your hand when peeling. The color of the peel and pulp is yellow. A distinctive feature is the bright purple pigmentation at one end.

Potatoes in section

What regions is it suitable for?

The yield of a variety depends on the climate and soil in which it is planted. Mayan gold loves nutritious sandy loam soil, plenty of moisture and warmth.

For your information! The variety is not very suitable for cultivation in the European climate, since it requires milder conditions.

Taste qualities

In Russia, the variety is considered exotic because it is not imported en masse. You can purchase the product in seeds via the Internet, but not every gardener will do this. Potatoes of this variety are rightfully considered a delicacy because they have a creamy, nutty taste that can be compared in richness to ham and champignons.

Note! The skin of this root vegetable is edible. You can cook potatoes in any available way: fry, bake in their jackets, or use them as one of the ingredients in a salad.

Characteristics of Miami Potatoes

Miami is a potato variety that belongs to the mid-early variety of root crop, since the fruit ripens completely 60 - 80 days after planting. The keeping quality of the fruit is quite good, and the presentation is preserved by 90%.

The bushes of the plant are quite strong, the length of the stems reaches 60 cm. The productivity of Maimi is high - up to 20 potatoes from one bush. The size of the fruit is medium or large (small root crops are not found).

Distinctive characteristics of Miami:

• The weight of the fruit reaches 100 g;
• Characteristics of potato shape: oval;
• Purple peel;
• Starchy characteristics: reaches 15%;
• Characteristics of the pulp: not watery and has a purple color with a white edging;
• The eyes of the root crop are few.

Miami is a potato variety with excellent taste and crispness. After heat treatment, the root vegetable retains its lilac color. Potatoes can be used for frying, boiling, making salads, as well as for baking and stewing.

A special feature of potatoes is that you can independently collect the seeds (smooth tubers reaching a length of 6 cm) and plant them.

A distinctive characteristic of potatoes is its ability to reduce cardiovascular diseases, reduce atherosclerosis, diabetes, and also help strengthen the walls of blood vessels and improve vision.

Planting and growing Maya Gold potatoes

Despite their exquisite taste, growing Mayan Gold potatoes is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. If you follow certain rules for care and planting, the bushes will delight you with a rich harvest.

Potatoes must be planted according to a specific pattern.

Preparing for landing

Before planting, you need to prepare the material. About a day before the event, it is worth placing the potatoes in a container with warm water or a nutrient mixture (1 kg of ash per 10 liters of water).

Soil requirements

It is necessary to avoid growing potatoes in an area where this crop has already been cultivated for the previous 2 years. The soil should not be well drained and wet. For planting, you should choose a place not in the sun. It is recommended to add a large amount of manure to the substrate, but not fresh.

Dates, scheme and rules of planting

For planting, you need to choose a place that is not in a draft. Sprouted potatoes should be planted according to a certain pattern: the distance between the bushes should be at least half a meter, and 0.75 m should be left between the rows. Planting material should be laid to a depth of 10 cm.

Pros and cons of the variety

Like other potato varieties, Miami has positive and negative characteristics. One of the key positive characteristics of Miami is the possession of organic lipids that affect the heart and arteries. In addition, potatoes contain many vitamins.

pros

1. The root vegetable is rich in vitamins;
2. Beautiful appearance;
3. High yield Miami;
4. Low percentage of starch contained in potatoes;
5. Rapid fruit ripening;
6. Resistance to late blight;
7. Sweet taste;
8. Excellent productivity;
9. Variety in preparation.

Minuses

1. Needs regular treatment against Colorado potato beetles and potato midges;
2. Photophilous.

How to properly care for the variety

Caring for the Mayan Gold potato is no more difficult than caring for other early varieties. Most people then want to buy the seeds of this plant again, because they were pleasantly surprised by the result.

Features of watering

Watering depends on weather conditions and terrain. In the central and northern parts of the country, it often rains often, so you can forget about this procedure for a while. If there is no precipitation, you will have to water quite often.

For your information! It is recommended to water potatoes three times a season: after germination, after the first buds appear and after flowering. If this is not enough, then you can arrange drip irrigation.

Feeding and fertilizing

The first feeding should be carried out a month after planting. It is required to add urea, sulfate, and superphosphate to the substrate, which must be dissolved in irrigation water.

Fertilizing can be applied a month after the first shoots appear.

Hilling and weeding

Hilling should be done twice with an interval of 3-4 weeks. It is recommended to do this for the first time when the bush reaches a height of 20 cm. Before hilling, it is recommended to water the plant. This should be done either early in the morning or in the evening.

Growing and care

The variety requires at least 2 hillings. The earth is raked in an embankment to a height of 70% of the length of the bushes. The first time they hill up when the stems are 12-15 cm long, the second time - after 20-25 days. The surface of the beds is loosened and the weeds are removed at the same time.

Water during drought with a frequency of 1 time every 10-14 days. Enough moisture is poured - the ground should be saturated to a depth of 40 cm. With frequent rainfall, watering is not required. Potatoes need water during the growing season and flowering; as soon as the buds fade, moisture is stopped.

Feeding scheme:

Diseases and pests: how to fight

Gold Maya potatoes are susceptible to small worms that are invisible to the eye - potato nematodes. To avoid such a misfortune, it is recommended to sow green manure to clean the soil. The same crop should not be planted for several years in a row in the same place. It is also recommended to treat the soil with heterophos, thiazone or urea.

If you first taste the ready-made Maya Gold potatoes, you will want to grow them later because they have a rich and unique taste. However, caring for this plant is not that difficult, so there should be no problem growing it.

Features of cultivation

The Miami variety is planted in the spring in the 2nd or 3rd decade of May, when the soil has warmed up a little (the ground temperature should reach 10 degrees Celsius).

Where to Grow: Miami potatoes are fairly easy to grow in temperate zones. The variety produces a large number of fruits even with traditional agricultural practices.

Soil preparation

1. Before planting, it is necessary to saturate the soil with minerals - fertilize the soil. It is necessary to prepare the soil for planting potatoes in the fall.
2. The land is cleared of weeds and tops. The cleaned soil is saturated with minerals and dug up. With the arrival of spring, it is recommended to dig up the ground again.

Planting scheme

It is necessary to plant potato tubers after vernalization has been carried out in advance. Root germination takes about 20 days. The variety is planted in 6-7 bushes in one row. The acceptable distance between bushes is 30-35 cm, and between rows - up to 60 cm.

Care

The Miami variety requires regular care. Necessary:

• loosening the beds,
• watering,
• soil hilling,
• mulching,

• fertilizing the soil,
• clearing beds of weeds (weeding),
• regular treatment of bushes against potato midges and Colorado potato beetles.

Loosening

Loosening of Miami beds is carried out 10 days after the sprouts appear. The following loosening is carried out every 2 weeks (14 days).

What will loosening give?

Loosening helps get rid of weeds and unwanted soil crust that prevents the sprout from breaking through the ground. Loosening promotes the supply of oxygen to the roots and rapid warming of the land.

Mulching

Mulching of the soil should be carried out in the fall after the land has been cleared of other fruits. During this period, it is recommended to saturate the soil with the necessary minerals.

Hilling

Hilling up of the soil is carried out after applying fertilizer (during the growing season, nitrogen compounds are usually used, and during the budding period, potassium chloride and superphosphate are used as fertilizer. The variety requires only two hilling procedures.

What spoils the taste of potatoes?

At the same time, the use of ash (or phosphorus-potassium fertilizers) alone is not effective. Without nitrogen, other mineral compounds are almost not absorbed by plants. But the scab pathogens will be happy: with an excess of ash, the tubers are guaranteed to be covered with scab scabs. And excess iron or aluminum will cause suberization of the vascular system of the tubers, and when cleaning them you will see dark brown strands close to the surface, especially in the stolon part.

Diseases

An unbalanced diet also contributes to the development of various diseases, which also impair the culinary qualities of tubers.

• With glandular spotting, the starch content decreases sharply.
• Bacterial ring rot makes the tuber tissue glassy.
• Tubers may become rubbery to the touch due to anthracnose or pink late blight.
• Late blight rot makes the tuber flesh pink when cut, and then completely black.
• With watery rot, the gray or brown flesh will give off a strong odor of herring brine.

Lack of oxygen

The nutritional balance can be disturbed not only on light soils. For loamy, heavy and floating soils this is also a problem. Here, the aggravating factor is the lack of oxygen in the soil, which results in suffocation of the tubers. The pulp becomes loose, with an alcoholic odor.

And watch the plants, they can tell you a lot!

How to get rid of nitrates in potatoes

Excessive nitrogen nutrition, while pleasing us with the appearance of plants, leads to a sharp accumulation of nitrates in tubers. You, of course, have heard this word; they have been scaring us with it for a long time. But let’s not talk now about the diseases they cause.

We are now discussing the taste of potatoes, but with an excess of nitrates they become bitter and salty.

Many people are concerned about whether it is possible to reduce the amount of nitrates? Can.

— If you use nitrogen and organic fertilizers without fanaticism.

— If you use microfertilizers: zinc and lithium, for example, reduce the nitrate content in potatoes, cucumbers and corn.

It should be borne in mind that the nitrate content in tubers increases:

• late planting and early harvesting (young potatoes contain more nitrates than mature ones),
• damage to potatoes by various diseases,
• planting it in shaded places or thickened,
• excessive liming of the soil,
• frequent watering.

Solanine in potatoes

Let's get back to taste. Everyone knows that greened tubers cannot be used for food. But they are poisonous not because they are green. This color has chlorophyll, and it is completely safe for humans.

Dangerously high levels of solanine, a colorless substance with a bitter taste.

• The worst thing is that it is not destroyed by heat treatment.
• Solanine accumulates not only in the light, but also in the dark during tuber germination.
• The more time passes from the beginning of the appearance of sprouts, the more solanine in the tubers.

Therefore, you need to use the remains of planting potatoes for food carefully, cutting off a thick layer when cleaning. In normal tubers, the concentration of solanine is not of concern. Moreover, it is solanine that gives the tubers a specific potato taste, which has a tonic effect on the human body. According to the tasting results, the most delicious were potato varieties that contained no more than 5–10 milligrams of solanine per 100 grams of mass.

How to preserve the taste of potatoes?

The last aspect regarding taste is the storage conditions of the potatoes. During storage, biochemical processes continue in the tubers and they ripen. As a result, the taste changes.

Our mass tastings have shown that some varieties improve their taste during storage (for example, Novosibirsk Lina ), others (for example, Adretta ) become less tasty by spring. Perhaps the difference in the duration of the resting period plays some role.

Hypothermia

Long-term storage at low temperatures (from 0 to +1 ° C) causes hypothermia of the tubers . At the same time, the starch in them turns into sugar, the potatoes acquire a characteristic sweet taste, which can be reduced if such tubers are kept at room temperature for several days. The reverse process will occur in them - part of the sugar will again turn into starch. But an irreversible increase in the amount of sugars leads to darkening of the potatoes during cooking.