🥔 Potato

Important points related to Potato.

Potato

  • Botanical Name: Solanum tuberosum
  • Also known as King of Vegetables.
  • Family: Solanaceae
  • Origin: South America (Peru)
  • Area, Production & Productivity during 2008-09:
    • Area: 1.8 million Ha
    • Production: 34.39 million MT
    • Productivity: 18.8 (MT/Ha)
  • Major Producing States (Area & Production): Uttar Pradesh > West Bengal > Bihar
  • Protein content of potato is 1.6 per cent.
  • Solanin content is 5 mg/100 gm of potato.
  • Potato is a poor man’s food/friend because of its cheapest, richest and easiest source of nutrients.
  • The stolen/tuber of potato is an underground stem.
  • Potato tuber is dormant for 8-10 weeks (65-70 days).

Climate

  • Potato favours temperate and cool climate 🥶 with moist 💧 atmospheric condition.
  • Optimum temperature for germination and vegetative growth is 25°C and 17°C, respectively.
  • For tuberization, it requires 17-20 °C temperature.
  • Tuberization stopped ⚠️, when temperature exceeds 30 °C.
  • Cloudy weather, rainy days and high humidity is unfavourable for potato crop.
  • pH: 5 to 6.5.
  • Potato needs long day condition during growth and short day during tuberization.
  • Potato crop favours Alluvial/Sandy loam/Silty soil.
  • Planting time:
    1. Last week of October to second week of Nov.
    2. Hills: Feb to March
    3. Plains: Nov to Dec
  • Selection of seed/tuber for sowing:
    1. Tuber should be pure, viable and readily sprouted.
    2. Tuber sowing surface should be brown.
    3. Tuber should have 2.5-3 cm diameter with 25-30 gm weight.
    4. The cut tuber must have at least 3 buds.
  • Treatment of with 1 per cent thiourea + 1 ppm GA3 for 1 hour to break the tuber dormancy.

Seed Rate of Potato

  • For Round shaped cultivar: 15-18 qt/ha
  • For Oval shaped cultivar: 20-25 qt/ha
  • Advanced Technology: Use of TPS (True Potato Seed)
    • 40-45 gm True potato seed (TPS) is enough for planting 1 ha crop.

Methods of planting

  1. Ridge and Furrow (Most popular method)
  2. Flatbed Method
  • Earthing-up in potato is done when plant height gets 15-20 cm.
    1. In Plains: 30 – 45 DAS
    2. In Hills: 40 – 45 DAS
    • 2nd Earthing is done 2 weeks after 1st Earthing.

Fertilizer Management (kg/ha)

  • N – 180-200 kg
  • P – 100-150 kg
  • K – 100-150 kg
  1. Early duration (90 to 120 days): Kufri alankar, Kufri chandramukhi, Kufri bahar, Kufri jyoti.


2. Medium duration (120 to 150 days): Kufri badshah, Kufri chamatkar, Kufri lalima, Kufri sheetman, Kufri swarna.


3. Late maturing (150 to 180 days): Kufri sinduri, Kufri dewa, Kufri jeevan.

  • In potato, dry matter-rich variety Kufri Frysona developed for making French Fries.
  • The most popular cropping system is Potato-Sunflower-Rice/Maize
  • Most critical stage for irrigation in potato is 25 per cent tuber formation stage.
  • Potato is mainly intercropped with Sugarcane.

Harvesting

  • Harvesting is done when hulms starts yellowing and falling to the ground.
  • Dehulming: Removal of top portion of the plant 10-12 days before harvesting. CuSO4 is used for dehulming of potato.
  • An average yield of potato is 30-35 tonnes/ha.
  • Harvesting of potato should be completed by the end of January before the temperature rise from 30 °C.

Processing

  • It is generally done to avoid browning and rotting of tubers due to moisture.
  • Drying and curing: Tuber heaped under shade in a ventilated place around 15-20 °C for 10 to 15 days.
  • Sorting: Remove diseased, damaged or rough tubers for facilitating healthy tuber grading into sizes of accepted standards.
  • Grading of Potato: done to insure uniform quality of superior grade tubers and to get remunerative returns.
  • Special size with ≥ 8 cm diameter
  • Phool size with 3-5 cm dia.
  • Ration size with ≤ 2.5 cm dia.
  • Seed plot technique (SPT) in potato was discovered by Dr. Puskarnath. Seed plot technique in brief can be described as raising the crop during a period, when aphid population is very low after taking precautions such as use of insecticides against aphids, periodical rouging of mosaic (virus) affected plants and finally dehaulming the crop before aphid population attained the critical level.

Storage Conditions

  • Potato tubers should be stored in ventilated closed room during daytime and opened during evening with maintenance of 4-5 °C temperature & 90-95 per cent RH.


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