Vine Kill: Also known as desiccation, many growers chemically (labeled herbicide application) or physically (rotobeating or chopping) defoliate potato vines once optimum marketable size of tubers has been achieved. This allows the tuber skin to set and mature and helps minimize skinning prior to digging. This technique provides benefits including efficiency in harvest, better control over harvest timing, skin set to reduce harvest injury, and reducing impact of diseases like late blight. Vine killing halts the translocation of nutrients and sugar accumulation from the leaves, triggering the conversion of tuber sugars to starch for storage. Vine killing also weakens the juncture of the tuber and stolon, making tubers fall from the plant more easily. If vine killing is used, harvest of tubers should occur at 2-3 weeks after vines are completely dead. Harvest before this and tuber skin may not have had adequate time to set, while harvesting later increases the chance for rotting organisms to attach the crop in the ground. Care should be taken to monitor this period and harvest at the optimum time to minimize mechanical damage and breakdown. See Table 14 for further postharvest information. 104 2022 Vegetable Crop Handbook for Southeastern United States