How Water Affects The Potato Quality

gardeningabc (53)in #gardening • 7 years ago (edited)

EFFECTS OF WATER AVAILABILITY ON QUALITY

The two most important factors that determine the quality of a potato are the concentration of the dry matters and the size distribution of the tuber.

The first factor (Dry matter concentration) can vary from 10 to 25 percent. The concentration generally increases with the duration of growth such as length of the growing season, variety, average temperature during the growing season and the availability of water especially at the end of the growing season. The concentration is maximum at the time of harvesting.

If a plant receives too little water the dry matter concentration goes very low. Whereas a moderate drought at the end of the growing season usually leads to an increase of the dry matter concentration.

Dry soil conditions at the end of the growing season lead to higher dry matter concentrations of the tubers. This can be an advantage where tubers are produced for the processing industry. These industries usually prefer higher ranges of solids to for the production of chips and crisps. Growers sometimes are encouraged by these industries to grow high concentrations of solids.

On the flip side, higher dry matter concentration is not welcomed in the fresh potato market. If you are growing for this kind of situation, an additional final watering may increase the tuber water content and the total fresh weight of the crops and thus their market value.

The tuber size distribution of a potato crop depends on the yield and the number of tubers per square meter, which in turn depends on the number of stems per square meter and the number of tubers per stem. The stem number is independent of the water availability during the growing season as it is determined by factors prior to emergence such as variety, tuber size and the physiological age of the seed tubers.

The number of tubers per plant is even more difficult to steer in practice than dry matter concentration. In general, larger seed tubers lead to more stems per plant, and moist soil conditions generally lead to increased tuber numbers per stem.