Marketable Yield of Potato and Its Quantitative Parameters after Application of Herbicides and Biostimulants

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is grown in over 160 countries. Weed competition and environmental stressors during the vegetative growth stage significantly impact crop yields. An experiment was conducted from 2012 to 2014 in Poland to assess the effect of herbicides linuron + clomazone (L+CH) and metribuzin (M) as well as herbicides mixed with biostimulants (linuron + clomazone and algae extract of Ecklonia maxima—auxins and gibberellins (L+CH+E) and metribuzin + sodium p-nitrophenolate, sodium o-nitrophenolate and sodium 5-nitroguaiacolate (M+S)) on weed infestation, marketable yield and yield components of the following three table potato cultivars: Bartek, Gawin and Honorata. In plots where potato had been treated with herbicides and herbicides mixed with biostimulants, a decline in the fresh matter of weeds was observed, ranging from 72.4% to 96.1%, which was followed by an increase in potato marketable yield (from 27.5% to 61%) and improved parameters of S. tuberosum yield components, compared with the control. Linear correlation coefficients indicated that the following characteristics: marketable yield, weight of tubers per plant and average weight per tuber were associated with weed infestation determined prior to potato harvest.

The Impact of Cultivation Management and Weed Control Systems of Very Early Potato on Weed Infestation, Biodiversity, and Health Safety of Tubers

“…A significantly greater number of weeds and their rich floristic composition were found in a warm and dry year than in other cooler and wetter years. These results are consistent with the observations of Gugała et al [ 61 ], Ilić et al [ 62 ], and Zarzecka et al [ 63 ]. The low effectiveness of Racer 250 EC in reducing the dry matter of weeds in conditions of high water deficit in the soil in April could result from the rate of absorption and decomposition of the herbicide active substance in the tissues of individual weed species, as according to studies by and Ilić et al [ 62 ], resistant plants of a given species absorb less fluorochloridon than susceptible forms.…”

“…Afalon Dispersion 450 SC, used in a chemical weed control system, was highly effective in reducing weed species such as Echinochloa crus-galli, Centaurea cyanus, Setaria glauca, Setaria viridisi, and Stellaria media and had no or very little effect on Anthemis arvensis, Polygonum convolvulus, Vicia tetrasperma , and Veronica hederaefolia . Similar effectiveness of this herbicide was achieved by Zarzecka et al [ 63 ] and Kołodziejczyk et al [ 64 ].…”

“…Regression analyses carried out by Pszczółkowski and Sawicka [ 59 ] show that the air-dry mass of weeds is a more accurate measure determining the threshold values of weed infestation in crops. Gugała et al [ 61 ] and Zarzecka et al [ 63 ] were stating that the harmfulness of weeds depends to a lesser extent on their number per area unit than on the biomass produced by them.…”

Soil Microbial Composition and Structure Allow Assessment of Biological Product Effectiveness and Crop Yield Prediction

“…Potato yield has been directly correlated with edaphological and climate variation (3)(4)(5), with management practices (6) and with potato cultivar (7). Interestingly, the same biogeographical patterns have been identified as the main drivers of microbial community composition in potato plants (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15), reinforcing the key role of soil microbiology in potato crop productivity (16).…”

Biostimulants Application: A Low Input Cropping Management Tool for Sustainable Farming of Vegetables

“…The effects of these extracts have shown positive results on crop yield and leaf color of lettuce plants [117], on mung bean germination and plant growth [118], and on growth and nutritional quality of spinach [119]. The application of E. maxima extracts on potato plants also had varied effects including the increase of marketable yield [120] the improved tolerance to abiotic stress and total assimilation area [121] whereas contrasting effects on quality were reported with no effects on dry matter, protein, total sugars and vitamin C content [122] or increasing trends on total and true proteins content being observed [123]. The detailed analysis of the extracts identified new plant growth biostimulants, namely eckol and phloroglucinol [119,124,125], while other plant growth regulators such as abscicic acid, gibberellins and brassinosteroids were also detected in commercial products indicating a hormone-like activity [126].…”