DEPARTMENTAL ADVICE
A warning orf the need for proper storage of potatoes during frosts was given yesterday by Mr R. P. Connell, fields superintendent of the Department of Agriculture, Christchurch, who said that substantial quantities of potatoes were at present held in store on Canterbury farms. Considering last season’s big acreage, he said, some growers might be inexperienced. Experienced growers knew that when potatoes were held in pits they were protected from frosts mainly by the straw, and that the main function of the soil covering was to hold the straw in position and give protection against rain. Extra straw was therefore more effective than extra soil. It was also important to keep potatoes stored in dry condition. Snow, he said, should be removed from pits before it thawed, and the bottom of the ditch formed round the pit in earthing-up should be below the level of the pit bottom and allow for the escape of water. Potato tubers froze in five to seven degrees of frost, and when they thawed they became moist on the surface and and ultimately collapsed into a watery'pulp. *
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Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24624, 21 July 1945, Page 3
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184DEPARTMENTAL ADVICE Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24624, 21 July 1945, Page 3
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