Producción de semilla –tubérculo de papa- mediante técnicas de la multiplicación acelerada y mini tubérculos bajo condiciones de campo

Abstract

Seed production -potato tubercle- by means of techniques of accelerated mul tiplication and mini tubercles under field conditions. This research was carried out in Arteaga, Coah., México in the spring-summer season of 1998 with the objective of obtaining information about four potatoe varieties (Alpha, Allantic, CEW and Norteña) estab lished in the field with three different tubercle seed production systems (mini-tuber, lateral shoot cut, and juvenile shoot cut) using a split-plot arranged in a a complete randomized block design with four replications. Results indicate that, with regard to production in g/m2 and ton/ha, the Atlantic variety was superior (4,543 g/m2 and 45.43 ton/ha) to the other three varieties. For the production techniques, minitubers had the highest yield. For number of mini-tubers/m2, the Norteña and Atlantic varieties were the most productive ones with an average yield of 77.31 and 76.27, respectively. It was also found that the mini-tuber system expressed the highest production (97.40) as compared to the acceler ated multiplication technique. Of the total mini-tubers produced by the four potato vari eties with the different systems, indicate that the largest number of mini-tubers harvested were between 35 and 44 mm in diameter. With respect to the multiplication factor, the highest index varieties were the ones established by the lateral shoot cut (1:95.3) and with juvenile shoot cut (1:57.15) between 140 and 195 days. So it may be concluded that the highest efficiency system for potato tubercle-seed production at the lowest cost was the mini-tuber technique. However, if the farmer does not have enough starting mate rial or time, the best option would be the accelerated multiplication techniques that present superior multiplication indexes and can generate a high enough quality tubercle-seeds at a lower cost than those obtained by the mini-tuber system.