Physical Quality Characteristics of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Tubers as Influenced by Cultivar and Plant Spacing in Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Haramaya and Hirna during the main cropping season of 2013 to determine the appropriate plant spacing for potato cultivars in relation to physical tuber quality characteristic. The treatments consisted of five seed tuber spacing between ridges and seed tubers (75 cm x 30 cm, 60 cm x 30 cm, 60 cm x 25 cm, 50 cm x 25 cm and 45 cm x 20 cm) and four potato varieties (Bubu, Badhassa, Zemen and Chiro). The experiment was laid out as a randomised complete block design with three replications. All physical quality attributes of potato responded significantly (P < 0.01) for the main effect of variety and spacing. At Haramaya, Bubu had the higher geometric mean diameter (46.76 mm 3 ) and surface area (6958 mm 2 ) of tuber than the other varieties. Tuber sphericity was higher for Bubu (85.28%), Badhasa (86.54%) and Chiro (82.26%). At both locations, wider spacing of 75 cm x 30 cm, 60 cm x 30 cm and 60 cm x 25 cm gave the highest geometric mean diameter and tuber surface area. However, narrow spacing of 45 cm x 20 cm and 50 cm x 25 cm resulted in the higher sphericity of tuber. Keywords : Inter and intra row spacing , Solanum tuberosum L., variety, geometric diameter, sphericity, surface area DOI : 10.7176/JAAS/52-06