Mother plant and pre-basic seed potato production in Thailand

O. Wongmetha, A. Puekpong, S. Jarintorn
Potato is an important economic crop in northern and northeastern Thailand. However, seed potatoes are expensive, with high production costs and they are often infected with diseases. The objective of this study was to develop and improve the method of seed potato production in Thailand to increase the yield and quality of the seed potatoes that are produced. The study evaluated mother plant production in soil compared with a hydroponic system with three replications. The height of mother plants in the soil medium in the rainy and in the cool season (33 and 31.1 cm, respectively) was significantly higher than that in the hydroponic system. Moreover, the number of apical cuttings 36 m‑2 area in the rainy and in the cool season (9,084 and 6,165 shoots, respectively) and the number of times of harvest of the apical cuttings (8 and 5 times, respectively) were significantly higher than that in the hydroponic treatment. The soil medium system in the rainy season gave a unit cost of 4 baht shoot‑1 while it was 5 baht shoot‑1 in the cool season. In addition, a comparison of seed production using stem node cuttings in an aeroponic system was carried out with five treatments and four replications. In the cool season, two node cuttings (one node above and one under a foam layer) gave 415 tubers 2.4 m‑2 area. The yields between the two and three node cutting methods in the 2.4 m2 area were not different in the cool season (3.00-3.64 kg) or in the rainy season (4.75-5.75 kg). In summary, the soil medium system was shown to be an appropriate technique for mother plant production in both the cool and rainy seasons. Both two node cuttings and three node cuttings for pre-basic seed (G0) production were shown to increase tuber number, and were easy, rapid, and flexible to use under aeroponic conditions. Furthermore, these methods provided more security for control of phytosanitary quality, and reduced unit cost.
Wongmetha, O., Puekpong, A. and Jarintorn, S. (2021). Mother plant and pre-basic seed potato production in Thailand. Acta Hortic. 1312, 379-384
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2021.1312.55
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2021.1312.55
mother plant, pre-basic seed (G0), production, cultivar, potato
English

Acta Horticulturae