4.1. K and Mg Fertilization and Potato Yield
Averaged over all treatments and years of our experiment, tuber yield was 3.24 kg/m
2 and comparable to values reported for other fertilization experiments with potatoes [
28,
29], albeit on different soil types (Cambisol), but with some important soil properties, like SOC content, pH etc., being relatively high and fairly similar to the respective properties in our study. The tuber yield in our experiment was higher than in most K fertilization treatments in experiments performed in Egypt [
18], an important potato producer.
Some researchers reported increases in potato tuber yield, resulting from increased K fertilization [
20,
28,
29]. Our finding that an increased rate of mineral K fertilization had no effect on potato aboveground phytomass and tuber yield does not agree with such results and strongly suggests that increasing K fertilization rates above those optimal for the area is not economically beneficial for potato production. The same can be concluded about doubled Mg fertilization rate, as the latter resulted in a rather marked decrease in the tuber yield.
The result that Mg fertilization produced maximum tuber yield at a 5 g/m2 fertilization rate, combined with a K rate of 10 g/m2, suggests these fertilization rates are optimal for the soil type (Phaeozem). The increased rates of both nutrients (15 g K/m2 and 10 g Mg/m2) resulted in rather lower tuber yields, i.e., had negative effects, apparently due to the elements’ imbalance. Therefore, such fertilization cannot be proposed as an economically reasonable one.
The finding that potato tuber yield was strongly dependent on the year of study seems to implicate weather conditions, confounded with accumulation of poorly soluble MgO, which was applied as fertilizer. Amazingly, despite the fact that the 2018 potato growing period was markedly (26 days) shorter (due to some experiment setting-up logistics) compared to the other two years of the experiment, its weather conditions (
Table 1)—with the same average air temperature, narrower temperature fluctuation range, substantial precipitation amount (equaling that of the 26-days longer growing periods in the subsequent two years of the experiment) and higher relative humidity—altogether resulted in the maximum (as compared with 2019 and 2020) tuber yield of 877 g per plant, grown on a microplot of 0.25 m
2, which translates to 3.51 kg/m
2, or 35.1 t/ha. The fact that the aboveground phytomass produced over the shorter 2018 growing period was the same as the one produced over the much longer period next year also implicates weather conditions as the main driver of potato growth and development under sufficient mineral nutrition, as was the case in our study. Strictly speaking, this finding is not new in itself, but strongly suggests enhanced belowground translocation of photosynthetic assimilates for tuber formation and bulking under an apparently beneficial combination of nutrition and weather situation in 2018. It is noteworthy that, despite the fact that the average cloudiness was about similar in the three growing periods of the study, it was slightly lower in 2018; the difference could have led to the increased, albeit by only a little, amount of photosynthetically active radiation at the plants’ development stages, which are crucial for tuber development—resulting in stimulating photosynthesis, product translocation belowground and tuber bulking. Overall, belowground potato production was apparently determined by some weather factor(s), not explicitly accounted for in our experimental fertilization setup. Interestingly, the recently reported results of a potato fertilization study [
30] showed a difference (2.76 vs. 3.48 kg/m
2) in tuber yield between the two consecutive years of the experiment with rather different meteorological conditions—the year with increased precipitation being beneficial for tuber yield. The difference in tuber yields between these years (1.2 vs. 3.1 kg/m
2) was also reported for an experiment conducted in Poland [
31]. Thus our results, with an increased tuber yield in 2018 with a higher mean daily precipitation, agree with the cited studies. Moreover, recently reported results from a potato mineral fertilization experiment, performed in another region of Russia [
32], showed a very drastic difference between wet and dry years on potato tuber yields (3.6–4.6 vs. 0.9–1.4 kg/m
2, respectively). The fact that this decrease occurred in the control plot with no fertilizers implicates meteorological conditions as the sole driving factor, as in, study weather conditions were confounded by fertilizer application; fertilizers were applied in the year with favorable weather conditions, and the next year, when no fertilizers were applied to study their aftereffect, happened to be meteorologically unfavorable for potato growth and production.
In our study, the result that aboveground potato phytomass was higher in 2020 as compared to 2018, proved that weather conditions in 2020, together with sufficient mineral nutrition, facilitated aboveground plant organ growth, whereas tubers had the opposite yearly pattern. Moreover, the factor of years was combined with accumulation of poorly soluble MgO, especially at double fertilization rate. This apparently increased plant-available Mg content in soil, causing imbalance with potassium, and, in its turn, relatively accelerated aboveground phytomass growth and development. The latter is confirmed by our finding that the ratio of aboveground phytomass to tuber mass was markedly higher during the third experimental year, at the double Mg fertilization rate.
Notably, the maximum tuber yield (900 g per plant, or 3.6 kg/m
2) in our experiment was obtained during the shortest growing period, under the addition of 10 and 5 g/m
2 of fertilizer K and Mg, respectively. Such tuber yield was 2.1 times higher than Russia’s average potato yield for the same year, i.e., 2018 [
12]. This result from our study corroborates an earlier conclusion about the optimal fertilizer K rate for the area being 10 g/m
2 [
22], but primarily draws attention to the need to get a better insight into the interrelationship between seeding dates, potato phenology (in respect to tuber setting) and regional weather pattern changes. In the south of West Siberia, where our experimental site was located, global climate change has prolonged and shifted growing seasons autumn-wise, and increased sums of growing degree days and precipitation [
33], which altogether resulted in a tendency for increased plant production across the south of West Siberia in the past several decades. The further anticipated increase in regional plant productivity [
34] promotes studies on the growth, development and yield of conventional staple vegetable crops under changed weather patterns during the growing seasons.
Under the highest rates of K and Mg fertilization in our study, Mg concentration in tubers was increased by 13%, averaging 0.41 g Mg/kg of fresh tuber mass. In 2018, the Russian potato supply was estimated at 101 kg/capita/year [
33]. The same supply, but with an increased Mg content, as in our experiment, translates on average into Mg intake increase, equivalent to 4% of recommended daily dietary allowance for Mg [
35]—which in the long run, especially considering the pattern of decreasing nutritional value of many foods [
10], might be beneficial for human health.
Food reward is derived not just from nutrient content, but from sensory qualities as well [
36]. As Mg affects plant chlorophyll content and the production and use of carbohydrates—also being involved in the activity of a large number of enzyme systems that are particularly important in the metabolism of carbohydrates—changed Mg content in potato tubers may be associated with changed carbohydrate content. The latter, it its turn, may affect tuber sensory qualities, especially taste. However, we performed neither sensory nor sugar/carbohydrate content assessment of the tubers obtained in our study, as we did not expect small increases in tuber Mg concentration to have any sensory manifestations. Yet, we have currently come to believe that the absence of sensory testing is something of a drawback in our study, and that sensory assessment of foods—especially the staple ones like potato and important vegetable and fruits—should be indispensable in any research involving yields and its properties.
4.2. Soil Exchangeable K and Mg Content
The soil exchangeable K content at the start of the experiment (102 mg/kg soil) was on the borderline for inviting K fertilization [
37], and increased by 60% on average over all years and K and Mg fertilization treatments. This increase is undoubtedly associated with K application, and it might be safe to implicate that soil cation exchange complexes, as part of the added fertilizer K, was adsorbed by clay or organic matter surfaces, although it is not possible to discriminate between soil K and fertilizer K.
As for soil exchangeable Mg, its content before the start of the experiment (7.3 mg/kg soil) fell below the range graded as sufficient for crop supply, urging for the use of fertilizer. However, the increase at the end of the experiment, strongly related to Mg application rate and soil exchangeable Mg content, can most likely be attributed to the very poor solubility of MgO when added as fertilizer—retaining a substantial portion in its original form and hence having a cumulative effect on soil exchangeable Mg content.
The fact that soil exchangeable Mg content under both rates of Mg fertilization was substantially lower in 2018, as compared with the other two years, implicates the following factors: (a) Mg uptake by potato plants, (b) weather conditions of the year and (c) the fact that it was the first year of the experiment; addition of poorly soluble MgO each year at the beginning of the growing season most likely had cumulative effect on soil exchangeable Mg [
38]. Since in 2018 we did not measure total Mg concentration in potato phytomass, element removal from soil could not be estimated; however, as potato phytomass (aboveground + tubers) was not markedly increased when compared with the phytomass produced during the following two years of the experiment, it could be safe to assume that removal of Mg from the soil by potato plants was not the major cause of decreased soil exchangeable Mg, although the weather, despite a much shorter 2018 growing period, was altogether more beneficial for potato growth and production, and might have stimulated relatively higher Mg uptake by plants. At the same time, although the sum of atmospheric precipitation during the 2018 growing period was close to or the same as that seen in other years, its much shorter duration resulted in a higher mean daily precipitation (2.1 vs. 1.4 mm/day)—most likely enhancing Mg leaching from soil and depleting the exchangeable Mg pool [
23].
Interestingly, we found that variations in soil exchangeable K and Mg contents at harvest, i.e., approximately three months after fertilizer addition into soil, was mostly determined by fertilization. As Mg was added in the poorly soluble form of MgO, the finding does not seem surprising, as much of MgO may have remained in the same form in the soil with a not very acidic pH (6.01), and so not be leached or removed by plant production. Moreover, addition of Mg fertilizer in a poorly soluble form can affect soil Mg status for several years after [
38]; in our study, where MgO was added every year, its effect on soil exchangeable Mg most likely aggregated. However, K was added as a highly water-soluble KCl that immediately dissolves in soil solution, and then, proceeds further on to sites/zones/agents of its fixation, uptake and leaching. Therefore, after three months when K weathering, translocation and transformation occurred, the strong association of soil K exchangeable content with fertilizer application implicates soil cation exchange complexes in sequestering fertilizer K. We chose poorly soluble MgO as a fertilizer in order not to confound the effect of Mg with the effect of a cation in a highly soluble Mg salt. However, in case of different solubility of chemical compounds added as fertilizers, and hence differential immediate phase distribution of added elements, the effect of fertilizer interactions is more difficult to interpret. Thus, the mode of the fertilizers’ release into soil, along with balancing their composition and amount, is important for assessing interactions among nutrients in affecting crop yields.