YIELD AND QUALITY OF POTATO (Solanum tuberosum L.) AS INFLUENCED BY DIFFERENT MULCH MATERIALS AND THEIR PERFORMANCE IN AMBIENT CONDITION

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during the period from November, 2014 to June, 2015 to study the yield and quality of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) as influenced by different mulch materials and their performance in ambient condition. Five varieties viz., ‘Asterix’, ‘Lady rosetta’, ‘Courage’, ‘Diamant’ and ‘BARI TPS-1’ and four mulch materials viz., control, water hyacinth, rice straw and rice husk were considered for the study. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Mulch materials may improve the quality of potato. Result revealed that, different potato varieties and/or mulch materials had significant effect on most of the yield and quality contributing parameters studied in this experiment. Among the five varieties ‘Diamant’ produced maximum tuber , marketable and seed potato yield. But ‘Lady rosetta’ showed better quality in respect of dry matter content and specific gravity. Whereas, ‘Asterix’ performed the best on the basis of reducing sugar and sucrose content. Among four mulch materials rice straw showed the best performance when comparing tuber yield, weight of marketable yield, weight of seed potato, dry matter content and specific gravity but not for reducing sugar and sucrose content. Among the twenty treatment combinations ‘Diamant’ variety with rice straw produced maximum tuber yield (33.33 t ha -1 ), maximum marketable yield (29.86 t ha -1 ) and maximum seed potato yield (29.55 t ha -1 ). But in case of quality parameters ‘Lady rosetta’ with rice straw performed the best one showing the highest dry matter (25.14%) and specific gravity (1.343) and ‘Asterix’ with control exhibited the lowest reducing sugar (.123 mg/g FW) and sucrose content (2.323 mg/g FW). In conclusion, ‘Diamant’ with rice straw was the best while comparing yield but ‘Lady rosetta’ and ‘Asterix’ were suitable for processing quality when cultivated with rice straw and control respectively. ‘Lady rosetta’ and ‘Asterix’ also showed superior performance in ambient storage condition upto 40 days after storing compared to other varieties.