Patent ID: 7565767

Claim:
An arrangement for improving the yield of potato crops, comprising: a bed for multiple rows of potato plants; a plurality of pairs of parallel and adjacent rows of potato plants in the bed during an immature plant canopy phase having an inter-row gap between the rows in each pair of rows spaced from one another sufficiently to provide a fluid permeable agronomic soil corridor between the rows in each pair of rows configured to provide a supply of water to a root zone of each row within each pair of rows of potato plants while maintaining aeration within and above the agronomic soil corridor to reduce excessively wet conditions adjacent the canopy and having a solar light corridor provided between adjacent pairs of rows to provide increased solar energy to the potato plants; and a fluid delivery line with intermittent emitters provided between the rows within each pair of rows of potato plants beneath a soil surface of the bed in the agronomic soil corridor; wherein the inter-row gap defining the fluid permeable agronomic soil corridor provides substantially unsaturated hydraulic communication between the emitters and a circumjacent root zone.