EFFECT OF PLANTING DENSITY AND SIZE OF POTATO SEED-MINITUBERS ON THEIR YIELDING CAPACITY

Minitubers of the potato cultivars Spunta and Jaerla, which originated in 1994 from microplants, were used to study the effect of their size and planting density on their yielding capacity, in three experiments conducted in two different regions of Northern Greece.
Four sizes of minitubers (<10, 10–15, 15–20 and 20–25 mm) and four planting densities (10, 20, 40 and 80 plants/m²) were used.

The number of tubers produced per plant and per square meter did not differ between the three larger sizes but were significantly higher compared to the smallest size.
The four planting densities produced variable numbers of tubers per plant, inversely proportional to the planting density.
The number of tubers produced per square meter, however, followed an increasing order as planting density was increasing.
The yield per plant and per square meter showed almost the same trend as the corresponding number of tubers.
The mean weight of the produced tubers did not differ significantly over the different sizes but was negatively affected by the increasing planting density.

It is concluded that the size of seed-minitubers has no significant effect on their yielding capacity, with the exception of the smallest size (<10 mm), which must be considered unsuitable for open field cultivation.
Planting density strongly effects yield, both by number and by weight, and more tubers and yield per square meter are expected in higher planting densities.

I Balkan Symposium On Vegetables and Potatoes

D.I. Karafyllidis, D.N. Georgakis, N.I. Stavropoulos, E.X. Nianiou, I.A. Vezyroglou

Tissue culture, multiplication, microplants, microtubers, tubers/plant, tubers/m², mean tuber weight

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1997.462.150