[Crops 101] How to Sow & Harvest Potatoes

In this tutorial, we focus on potatoes: from planting to harvest, we guide you through every step.

What Is Special About Potatoes?

• Pigs can be feed with potatoes
• In the mood for chips? Process your potatoes at the potato processing plant!
• Potatoes can also be processed into potato soup at the soup factory
• Plant them from March to April
• From August to September, potatoes are ready to harvest

What You Need For Potatoes

We’ll cover the necessary equipment in this chapter - feel free to skip ahead to the growing guide if that’s what you’re looking for

• You need a tractor with front loader attachment to operate tools and transport resources.
• You need a pallet fork to transport your resources.
• You need a subsoiler to prepare your field for planting.
• You need a potato planter and seeds. You can use potatoes from a previous harvest for refilling. 
• You need a fertilizer spreader, fertilizer, and lime. These things are optional, as they are only needed to increase your harvest. 
• You need a hoe to prevent weed from growing and spoiling your harvest.
• You need a special potato harvester.
• You need a trailer to collect and transport your harvest.

Let’s Get To Work!

If tool handling proves difficult, here’s some support that might help:

How To Operate The Machinery

1. Align your vehicle: Drive your vehicle next to the tool you want to use. Press the designated button to connect. 
2. If necessary, fill your machine with the required resource (seeds, fertilizer): Place the machine you want to fill next to the required resource and press the designated button to refill.
3. Drive to your field and use the machine: Just unfold the machine or vehicle, lower it (if needed) and you are ready to go!

Step by Step: How To Plant Potatoes

With this step-by-step guide, your harvest of potatoes is safe:

1. Applying Lime: Fill lime into your fertilizer spreader and cover your field.
   
   
2. Plow your field: Switch to your subsoiler and prepare your field for planting.
   
   
3. Planting: Prepare your potato planter and commence planting potatoes.
   
   
   
4. Fertilizing: Maximize your crop yield by fertilizing twice during two distinct growth phases of your plants.
   
   
   
5. Weeding: Get rid of weeds as soon as they show up. They mess with your yield and get tougher to kill the longer you wait. Use a hoe. Otherwise, you’ll need a sprayer to deal with them later.
   
   
   
6. Harvest: The fun part starts now: use your potato harvester and start harvesting.
   
   
   
7. Selling or keeping potatoes: With your trailer full of potatoes, you need to decide: Sell it at a selling point, produce them into soup or chips, or feed them to your pigs? The choice is yours to make.
   

Processing Potatoes: Products

Well Done!

Take care of your machinery and don't forget to clean them sometimes. Head back to the Academy for more tutorials. Keep on farming!