Planting of Cut Potato Tubers in India and Global: Urgent Need of Planter Mechanization to Produce Higher Tuber Yield

Abstract

Potato is a major food crop of the world and mostly grown as edible crop. It stands fourth position in cultivation at global level after rice, wheat and maize crops. Potatoes are traditionally grown by whole tubers; however, they can also be grown by other vegetative organs. During potato planting season it has predicated and seen an acute shortage of seed tubers. The cost of seed tuber alone accounts about 36- 38% percent of total cost of cultivation of potato. Planting of cut tubers is increasing in Asia and other parts of the world day by day to reduce seed cost. Presently, cut tubers were planted through existing planters without considering a tuber sprout eye orientations. This causes tuber decay, germination loss and reduced tuber yield. Development of new and novel planters can overcome the above said problems and will increase the tuber yield. To achieve this objective, a novel potato planter was developed at ICARDirectorate of Weed Research, Jabalpur, which plants the cut tubers by orienting their sprout-eyes in right direction. The planter also increased the tuber yield by 14.5-20% over existing planter.