Articles
EVALUATION OF NEW CULTIVARS OF POTATO (SOLANUM TUBEROSUM L.) IN RELATION TO TIME OF SOWING AND HARVESTING
The management practices for field potato production may be location specific or may vary from soil to soil, state to state and agro-climatic zone to zone.
Therefore, this paper focuses the significance of timeliness of cultural operation particularly the time of sowing and harvesting of new cultivars of potato under the sub-tropical condition of Punjab (India).
During 1988–89 and 1989–90, experiments were conducted at the Vegetable Experimental Farm, PAU, Ludhiana on the sandy loam soil having 8.1 pH, available N 235 kg, P 18 kg and K 325 kg/ha in randomized block design with four replications.
Treatments consisted of seven new cultivars and three standard varieties (Kufri Chandramukhi, Kufri Badshah and Kufri Bahar). It was observed that out of the seven new genotypes, two cultivars, i.e.
RG-1197 and JP-132 produced 258 and 252 q tubers/ha during 1989–90 when harvested at 75 days after sowing and proved significantly superior in early bulking habit.
Statistical analysis further indicated that at 90 days of harvest, JP-132 was evaluated significantly a superior cultivar during 1989–90 in comparison with all other cultivars in respect of yield (403 q/ha), followed by cultivar MS/80–758 (370 q/ha), whereas RG-1197 proved to be a better genotype during both the years (1988–89 and 1989–90). The role of other certain factors aiming at optimising potato production per unit area of time has also been discussed in the light of local demands, cold storage facilities and marketing possibilities including processing units.