Welcome to the Spud Doctor website, your source for expert potato advice from Dr. Kiran Shetty. This site is your source for potato-related information and advice from one of the industry’s leading experts.

Dear Spud Doctor,
I’ve heard vine killing before harvest is critical to ensure a successful potato crop. Why is it so important and what’s an effective product to use during this stage?
—All-Vined-Up in Pasco, Washington

Dear All-Vined-Up ,
Vine killing, or desiccation, shouldn’t be overlooked. This is the last step that contributes to tuber uniformity, skin set and storage quality. Dense foliage, vine growth and late-season weed development present growers with a less-effective harvest and the threat of disease transmission. If you’re looking for a fast-acting product to solve those problems, consider Reglone^® herbicide in your product line up. Reglone offers a direct and simple solution to the efficacy issue and also aids in reducing the spread of diseases, such as blight and other viruses, by quickly burning down foliage and stems.

Harvest quality is a key factor in determining profit, and growers need a high value product as well as yield. Reglone is an essential tool to help growers like you plan potato harvest. It provides skin set in 14 to 21 days, protecting tubers in storage from moisture loss and reduces the potential for disease transition to other tubers. And when using Reglone, adverse weather becomes less of a worry since it works well in cool weather and is rainfast within 30 minutes of application.

When it comes to burning down potato vines, you can count on Reglone. You can also count on the resources provided by Syngenta, including www.potatoes.farmassist.com. It contains information on the Syngenta potato product portfolio and other news, like weather, market news and resources. Providing growers with tools that help produce a successful crop is a priority at Syngenta, which is why they continue to add valuable information – like their webinars – to FarmAssist. Last year, Syngenta hosted webinars on potato desiccation where a panel of experts discussed Reglone and the benefits of using a desiccant. Those webinars are on FarmAssist for your reference under “Education.”

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