Potato mini-tuber production using an Aeroponics System during winter

/in /by

Ngawang and Thubten Sonam

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the performance of potato mini-tuber production using aeroponics technology during winter at National Seed Centre, Paro. Three potato cultivars: Khangma Kaap (KK), Nasephey Kewa Kaap (NKK) and Yusi Kaap (YK) were evaluated in an aeroponics at two different planting times (November and December) using a split-plot design with three replications. The combined analysis, i.e., General Linear ModelUnivariate was performed to test the interaction between planting times and cultivars. The interaction between planting time and cultivars showed no significant difference for any of the plant growth and yield variables. Further, planting time did not influence minituber production for the measured traits of plant height, no. of leaves, root length, number of minituber and minituber weight. However, the main effect of cultivar was highly significant (p < .01) for growth, yield and plant mortality rate. NKK yielded highest (18.39g/plant) in terms of weight followed by KK (9.22g/plant) and YK (8.30g/plant). Plants in NKK cultivar also had the maximum (8) numbers of mini-tuber per plant than KK (5) and YK (3). Maximum (39%) plants mortality was observed in YK compared to the lowest, NKK (16%). This result shows that NKK has better adaptation and is more productive under winter growing conditions than other two varieties. Thus NKK may be recommended cultivar among the three for mini-tuber production through aeroponics during winter. Since, the plants response under aeroponics conditions was cultivar dependent and not planting time dependent, further testing is recommended to select more adaptive cultivars for winter season.

Keywords: Aeroponics; cultivars; planting time; potato mini-tubers; winter

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