Effect of cut seed tubers and pre-germination on potato tuber yield

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the important vegetable crops in Senegal with the potential to improve the national food supply and economic benefits to smallholder producers. Experiment was conducted from November 2015 to March 2016 to assess the impact of cut seed tubers and pre-germination on seed tuber storage conditions on potato tubers yield. Four treatments were used for experiment. Pre-plant seed treatments were (T1) 136 whole seed tubers 45-55 g then pre-germinated; (T2) 68 cutted tubers 22-28 g then pre-germinated; (T3) 68 pre-germinated seed tubers then cut 22-28 g; (T) 136 whole seed tubers 45-55 g not pre-germinated (maintained 4 °C). Plants grown from whole and pre-germinated seed tubers had significantly higher yield and more number of secondary stems per plant, when compared to cut and or no pre-germinated seed (P < 0.001). Daughter tubers produced from cut seed resulted in higher small size potato tubers than those from whole seed (P < 0.001). However, no significant difference was found on potato seed emergence. Our results indicated a clear advantage to plant whole and pre-germinated seed potatoes with the aim of producing healthier daughter tubers and increasing yields.Keywords: Seed potato, whole seed, pre-germination, Niayes, Senegal.

Performance of Different Size True Potato Seed Seedling Tubers at Khumaltar

A field study was carried out at Khumaltar-Lalitpur, during 2002-2004 to evaluate and comparethe performance of different sizes of seedling tubers (1-5 g, 5-10 g, 10-20 g and 20-40 g) of truepotato seed (TPS) with whole and half cut seed tubers of Desiree of 20-40 g size at 60- × 25-cmspacing. Percent emergence, plant height, ground cover by foliage, stems/plant, number of tubersper plant, marketable and total yields were significantly increased with the increase in seedlingtubers weight as compared to whole and half cut seed tubers of Desiree. Late blight(Phytophthora infestans L.) disease was quite low in the TPS crops than Desiree. Both wholeand half cut seed tubers of Desiree produced significantly higher average per tuber weight.Uniformity of the tubers harvested from different sizes of seedling tubers was statisticallysimilar and tubers from Desiree were statistically uniform as compared to seedling tubers. Thethree years result suggests that more than 1 g size seedling tubers can be successfully used forpotato production as from the seed tubers of any standard variety.Key words: Desiree; seedling tuber; tuber size; tuber yieldDOI: 10.3126/narj.v6i0.3341Nepal Agriculture Research Journal Vol.6 2005 pp.28-34