Effects of saturated hydraulic conductivity on volunteer potato (Solanum tuberosumL.) tuber survival

Abstract

In situ observations were conducted at eight fields in the Tokachi region of the northernmost island of Japan to assess the effects of soil physical conditions on the survival of volunteer potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tubers. Statistical analyses revealed a positive correlation between the survival rate and the lowest value of saturated hydraulic conductivity to a depth of 0.5 m, except for data from one field where potato tubers were killed by low temperatures below -3°C during winter and from another field with poor drainage despite high soil permeability to 0.5 m in depth. Incubation experiments indicated that potato tubers survived in saturated soil at 0 and 6°C, which respectively matched soil temperatures during the snowmelt period and 1 week thereafter. This result suggests that potato tubers can survive prolonged exposure to moist surface soil caused by large amounts of snowmelt water during the spring snowmelt period. The incubation experiment results also indicated that potato tubers were killed in saturated soil at 15°C. This temperature was almost equal to the average air temperature during the period when volunteer potato tubers were sprouting in the field. Therefore, this result implies that the potato tubers will be killed after a substantial amount of rainfall during the subsequent warm period at poorly drained fields.

Promotion to Farmers of Snow Compaction (Yuki-Fumi) on Winter Wheat to Control Volunteer Potatoes without Depending on Chemical Materials

“…Soil frost control has been established as a major volunteer potato control technique and has been implemented in >5,000 ha in Hokkaido (Hirota & Kobayashi 2019), and an information system that allows farmers to view the simulation of the SFD response to snow plowing has been established. Soil frost control is also increasingly used to improve soil physical and physicochemical properties (Iwata et al 2015, Yoshimura 2018). However, snow plowing is not possible in wheat-growing fields because removing snow damages wheat stems and leaves.…”