ASSESSMENT OF OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF INTER-ROW SOIL LOOSENING IN ORGANIC POTATO CULTIVATION
The paper presents an improved design of a row sub-soil cultivator/loosener for a set of technological operations on ridge plantings of potatoes in organic farming, including the loosening of row spacing. It also shows the results of a pilot study of dynamics of soil state variables before and after the above operations. The distribution of average values of soil penetration index and moisture content along the full depth of the inter-row spacing was considered. The most favourable soil conditions were found under the sub-soil loosening of rows to a depth of 20 and 30 cm. The tendency of increased biological yield with deeper soil loosening between the potato rows was noted.