Soil conditioning and seed potato handling are keys to survival of summer planted potato crop

Potato growers in the southern San Joaquin Valley encounter wide variations every year in seed potato piece survival and plant stands of the summer planted (July and August) potato crop. Soil temperatures above 32°C (90°F) and air temperatures of 40°C (104°F) or higher are often present at planting time. The death of planted seed potato pieces may occur if soil temperatures above 32°C prevail for longer than a day. Both soil conditioning and seed potato handling were found to be critical factors in these studies of plant survival under high temperature conditions.