COMPLEX SYSTEM OF POTATO PROTECTION FROM WEEDS, DISEASES AND PESTS
Authors:   Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Batsazova Taisiya Mamatovna 
Published: October 2024

Potatoes are among the crops that are heavily affected by diseases. To a large extent, this is due to the peculiarities of the biology of the potato plant. In the conditions of the North Caucasus region, the probability of the spread of late blight and various viral diseases is high. In addition, potatoes, like other crops, high-yielding varieties are most sensitive to climatic factors, their potential yield cannot be realized if they are not resistant to extreme conditions. In the southern regions of Russia, including in the Republic of Alania, such limiting factors should include, first of all, high summer temperatures and rather long dry or long rainy periods during the growing season of potatoes. Under the influence of high temperatures during the formation and growth of tubers, prolonged hot weather causes metabolic disorders, a decrease in yield; weakened plants are more affected by viral, viroid and mycoplasma diseases. In this regard, the most urgent issue is the identification of drought-resistant varieties and hybrids. In recent years, along with the immunological characteristics of varieties, more and more attention has been paid to their qualitative consumer properties, therefore, resistance to diseases, pests and weeds should be combined with the main economically useful qualities - yield, starchiness and others. The weed control system in landscape farming should be considered as an integral part of the management of the entire agricultural system. To build a weed control system, it is necessary, first of all, to know the actual and potential contamination of the object under examination (plot, field, crop rotation). The analysis of factors shows that one of the main reasons is a strong contamination of potato plantings with the floral composition of perennial, annual cereal and broad-leaved weeds, infestation with pests and diseases. Weeds, pests and diseases, having complex biological features, are characterized by strong adaptability to potato cultivation conditions, high competitive ability, harmfulness and on this basis reduce the yield of tubers, their quality in the absence of a scientifically-based comprehensive system for protecting plantings from them. In this regard, potato plants are characterized by low competitive ability compared to weeds, pests and diseases, and vulnerability to them, which necessitates the integrated use of protection methods at all stages of crop cultivation technology. At the same time, it is advisable to direct the agricultural technology of culture cultivation to create favorable conditions for the growth and development of potato plants, the dominant component of agrophytocenosis, increasing its competitive ability against harmful objects and reducing their harmfulness. Agroecological assessment of the conditions affecting the clogging of potato plantings, their infestation with pests and diseases allows us to note that this is facilitated by a decrease in the material and technical base and financial capabilities of agriculture, violation of farming systems, crop rotations, established technologies, lack of monitoring of the species composition of weeds, weak implementation of the results of scientific developments