Production Practices and Crop Improvement of Potato in the World

INTRODUCTION

• Potato belongs to Solanaceae family with genus Solanum and

species tuberosum.

• It is perrenial crop but cultivated as a annual crop.

• Potato is the modification of stem part known as tuber(it is an

enlarged underground modified stem produced at the end of a

stolon)

• Stem is herbaceous,round and angular pubuscent or

glabrous,green or purplish. Leaves arise along the stem in a

spiral arrangement.

• Root is adventitious arising from the base of a sprout.

• Basically it is a cool season crop.

ORIGIN AND HISTORY

• The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes

around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C.

• In 1536 Spanish Conquistadors conquered Peru, discovered

the flavors of the potato, and carried them to Europe. Before

the end of the sixteenth century, families.

• There are not that many foods that can claim that a pivotal

historical event centered around them. But the potato can. Sir

Walter Raleigh introduced potatoes to Ireland in 1589 on the

40,000 acres of land near Cork. A blight ruined most of the potato

crop in Ireland in 1840and caused major devastation: this event is

known as the Irish Potato Famine. Over the course of the famine,

almost one million people died from starvation or disease. Another

one million people left Ireland, mostly for Canada and the USA.

PRODUCTION STATUS

TOP POTATO PRODUCER IN WORLD(2011)

PRODUCTION IN MILLION METRIC TON

CHINA 88.4

INDIA 44.3

RUSSIA 32.7

UKRAINE 24.2

UNITED STATES 19.4

GERMANY 11.8

BANGLADESH 8.3

POLAND 8.2

FRANCE 8

BELARUS 7.7

TOTAL 374.4

DISTRIBUTION

• China is the world largest potato producing country and nearly

a third of worlds potato are harvested in china and india.

• According to FAO statistics, potato production in developing

countries has increased by 94.6 percent over the last 15 years .

Out of the four major food crops (rice, wheat, potato and

maize), the potato has the best potential for yield increases.

• Potato is worlds fourth largest food crop following rice,wheat

and maize.

CLIMATE & SOIL

• A temperate crop

• Maximum day temp. 35°C & Night 20°C

• Optimum range 15-25°C

• Potato is grown in all types of soils, but light, well-drained sandy loam soils are best-suited. In India, maximum area under potato is in alluvial soils, followed by hill, black and red soils. Potato prefers soils in acidic neutral range (pH 5.5 - 6.0).

FIELD PREPARATION

Land preparation

Potato field must be properly labelled with proper surface

drianage. Six or seven ploughings and planking are required to

make the soil loose, friable and porous.

Seed• Certified seeds should be preferred, small seed potatoes sprouts late

and in smaller numbers, while large seed tubers sprout earlier.

• Tubers should be true-to-type. Medium-sized, 40-50 g in weight, 40-

45 mm in diameter and disease-free tubers should be preferred.

• The seed rate varies according to sowing time. In general, 15-20 q

large whole tubers, 10-15 q medium-sized tubers, 8-10 q small size

tubers and 6-8 q cut tubers are required for 1 ha area.

• It is usually better to buy them individually from a bulk rather then

to buy that packed in plastic.

• Potatoes should not be sprouting or have green coloration since this

indicates that they may contain the toxic alkaloid solanine.

•Already cleaned potatoes should be

avoided since when their protective coating

is removed by washing, potatoes are more

vulnerable to bacteria.

• New potatoes much more susceptible to

damage.

• Buy one that are free from discoloration

and injury.

Potato cultivation :Temperate region

• The temperate regions of Asia include portions of China, Korea,

Turkey, and all of Central Asia. here potato production is second

only to wheat, consumption rates rank among the highest in the world.

• Production systems vary across the temperate zone from diversified,

single cropping to intensive double cropping

• CIP is helping national partners develop varieties resistant to biotic

and abiotic stress, improve farmer-based seed production systems,

develop effective management practices, and influence promote more

durable management of natural resources.

Subtropical lowlands

Through out Asia’s subtropical lowlands (spanning the Indo-

Gangetic Plain in the West and China and Indochina in the east),

potatoes serve as an important complement to cereal-based diets.

• Potato production normally takes place in the short days of the

winter season between harvesting and planting rice. Because Asia’s

winter potatoes are grown with residual moisture .

• The development of an early, heat-tolerant potato—one that can

utilize residual irrigation water—would greatly benefit farmers.

• CIP is working to establish an integrated breeding system to

deliver varieties of early maturing, heat-tolerant potatoes that meet

the requirements of Asian farmers, consumers, and markets.

Highland

In Asia and Africa, it functions as

one of the few crops that farmers

produce for both food security

purposes and income generation.

Given these similarities, the

Highland Potato Program targets

and links research across

comparable agro-eco-regions on

three continents.

NUTRIET MANAGEMENTNT

• Potato being a shallow-rooted crop, requires high nutrients. It

needs 120-150 kg N, 45 kg P205 and 100 kg K2O /Ha. The

response to NPK depends not only upon the fertility status of

soils but also on variety, cropping system and source of

nutrients.

Weed Control

• Weedicides like linuron or simazine (0.5 kg/ha) applied as pre-

emergence spray are effective. Lasso @ 2 litres/ha can also be

used.

• CIP is developing more nutritious, pest- and disease-resistant

varieties, introducing agricultural practices that conserve

natural resources, and implementing participatory market

approaches to increase incomes and promote sustainable

development.

INTERCULTURE & IRRIGATION

• Potato being shallow rooted crop and needs frequent irrigation

at the dry conditions. The critical stage for water requirement

are pre-planting, stolonization, initiation of tuber formation

and tuber development.

• Experiment Station research and grower experience found out

that sprinkler irrigation could reduce sugar ends and improve

tuber grade.

• Under irrigation leads to losses in tuber quality,market

grade,total yield,contract price.

• Over irrigation leads to erosion,disease suseptibility,nitogen

leaching.

• The time of harvesting is very important in potato. The

development of tubers continues till the vines die. Potatoes are

harvested when desirable size is obtained with fully ripe vines.

Care should be taken to save the tubers from injury while

harvesting.

• If harvesting is delayed, it is best to leave the soil dry and

irrigate the field lightly at the time of harvesting.

• It is never advisable to harvest tubers in wetland.

• The late-sown crop in plains should be harvested latest by

April-end to avoid high temperature and charcoal rot infection

in tubers. After harvesting, tubers should be surface dried and

kept in shade in heaps for 10-15 days.

HARVESTING AND POST-HARVEST MANAGEMENT

STORAGE

• Potato being a semi perishable commodity and needs proper

storage facility. The potatoes are stored in pits,diffused light

storage rooms,thatched mud wall rooms,etc up to the month of

june-july.Potato are stored at 2.2 to 3.3 degree celsius and 75-

80% RH.

Non-availability of quality seed tubers, high seed cost, virus

infiltration in seed tubers causing degeneration of seed stocks and

problems of long distance transport of seed from seed-producing

areas have led to the development of true potato seed (TPS)

technology of crop production. This technology envisages the use

of botanical seed or TPS for crop production. It has gained

significance because unlike seed tubers, TPS can be produced in

all parts of the country providing extra light for 4-5 hours

depending upon climatic condition. It can be easily stored over

long periods of time. Disease transmission by TPS is negligible

and it provides cheap planting material. About 100-120 g TPS is

enough to raise a seedling crop for one hectare or if the

commercial crop is to be produced using seedling tubers, the

produce of 40-45 g TPS is enough to plant one hectare crop next

year. They also provide better disease resistance because of high

heterogeneity in the population.

TRUE POTATO SEED (TPS)

CROP IMPROVEMENT

• International Potato

Center,based in Lima

Peru holds an ISO-

acridated collection of

potato germplasm.

• One wild potato sps

S.fendleri found in texas

is used in breeding for

resistant of nematode in

cultivated potato.

• Hexaploid solanum

demissum source of

resistant to devastating

late blight diseases.

CHALLENGE OF IMPROVEMENT

• Potato seedbeds need to be fine, friable, non-compacted, free-

draining and structurally stable. Around 70% of the potato area in

England is grown on soils with high risk of structural degradation

and, owing to the wide-scale adoption of de-stoning machinery,

degradation has increased.

• While soil type can vary considerably across fields, even in

uniform-textured fields there remains large variability in natural

water content and bulk density at planting which will affect the

seedbed produced if cultivation takes place at a fixed depth.

Reducing the depth of cultivation slightly can often reduce

compaction.

• The soil nitrogen supply (SNS) is likely to be modified greatly by

timing and depth of cultivations, soil water content and rooting

activity.

PHYSIOLOGICAL DISORDERS

• Non-parasitic diseases which are the result of physiological

imbalance caused by unfavourable environmental conditions

are mentioned as below.

• Internal brown spot

• Black heart

• Hollow heart

• Chilling injury

• Freezing injury

DISEASE

• Late blight

• Bacterial wilt

• Potato black leg

• Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata)

•Potato tuber moth

•Leafminer fly (Liriomyza huidobrensis)

•Cyst nematodes (Globodera pallida and G. rostochiensis

PESTS

REFRENCE

• Huaccho, Luisa, and Robert J. Hijmans, 1999. A Global Geo-

Referenced

• Database of Potato Distribution for 1995−1997 (GPOT97).

Production Systems

• and Natural Resources Management Department Working

Paper No. 1.

• International Potato Center, Lima, Peru.