A Brief Production Practices and Crop Improvement of Potato in the World

1. Production Practices and Crop
Improvement of Potato in the World

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. • 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.

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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).

8. 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.

20. 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.

21. • 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. • 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.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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.

29. 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.

30. • 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

31. 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.

32. 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)

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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.