Evaluation of agronomic technology for raising true potato seed transplants for the production of potatoes compared to the use of tubers

Abstract

The study investigated the possibilities of the use of TPS transplants as planting material for potato production. The study showed that 70% soil, 15% horse manure and 15% sand produced vigorous seedlings which were ready for transplanting after 35 days from sowing in the glasshouse. Seedlings needed a longer period out in the nursery bed. The use 01 cattle manure did not produce the same effect. Seedlings raised without manure addition were too poor to be transplanted. In the field, the survival of the transplants was depressed by warm weather, cutworms, crickets, beetles, grasshoppers and damping off pathogens. Transplanting seedlings singly was agronomically more beneficial than clumping them. Using seedlings with covered roots was non-significantly better than the bare rooted ones. Increasing the number of seedlings and narrowing row width had the effect of increasing the stem density and total yields. CIP 80021:~ had higher yields than CIP 678019. TPS seedlings grew more slowly and attained a Lower ground cover cornpared to the clonal seed tubers. Total fresh tuber yields ranged from 17.8-58.3 t/ha for TPS and 13.8--32.4 t/ha for the clones. The TPS Transplants had a longer maturity period and tended to produce many small tubers.