Effects of Planting Depth and Variety on Container Produced Potatoes

Abstract

Food security has become a crucial issue because of climate change, reduction of arable land, increasing population and frequent occurrence of natural disasters. The solution for many space-starved Zimbabwean gardeners is to grow their potatoes in sacks. However, there is a growing concern on this production method as possible yields are claimed to be as high as 30kg per plant yet some experienced container potato producers have had yields below 0.5 kg per plant. A study aimed at improving the yield of container produced potatoes through establishing a suitable planting depth and identifying better performing cultivars of potatoes grown in sacks was done. A Randomized Complete Block Design was used with 3 varieties (Amethyst, BP1 and Pimpernel) and 3 planting depths (10, 15 and 20 cm). Results for this work reveals that days to emergence, number of leaves, number of branches, stem diameter and stem length were significantly influenced by planting depth. Earliest days to emergence (8.56) was at 10cm while the lowest number of leaves was observed at 20cm and number of branches (11.44) was highest at 15cm. The largest stem diameter (0.744cm) and stem length (55.1cm) was at a planting of 15cm and 10cm, respectively. The varietal treatments were also significant for number of leaves, number of branches and stem length. BP1 produced largest tuber size (37.4mm) and more percentage sellable tubers (82.6%) while Amethyst gave the highest yield (492g). BP1 and Amethyst varieties might therefore be better choices for producing potatoes in a sack while Pimpernel did not produce well under these conditions.

Effect of Planting Depth on Vegetative Growth, Yield and uality of Potatoes

“…On potato, results showed that significant increment in potato tuber fresh weight at 10 cm and 15 cm depth of Agria variety in compared with the other variety (Draga) which did not have any response (Laei et al, 2012). Also, a research paper showed that the diameter of tuber was influenced by planting depth and potato variety (Tanyaradzwa et al, 2015). In another study bout the effect of planting depth, it was found that planting depth at 20 cm produce high significance in total yield and marketable yield than other treatments (Kumar et al, 2015).…”