Abstract
A critical step in profitable post-harvest potato storage management is to cure tubers at appropriate temperatures long enough for rapid wound-healing to prevent disease and defect development, but not too long to jeopardize storage quality. A two-year storage study was conducted in macro-storage totes at the University of Wisconsin Hancock storage research facility to evaluate the effects of higher wound-healing temperatures (15.6 °C, 18.3 °C) imposed for different durations, and compare them to the U.S. potato industry’s standard practice (12.8 °C), on weight loss and frying quality of multiple processing potato varieties during long-term storage. It was found that in the experimental setting of this study, warmer wound-healing temperatures resulted in (1) less weight loss, particularly during the early storage season across varieties; (2) ameliorated senescent sweetening of the Snowden variety; (3) improved fry quality of the Russet Burbank variety; (4) and no apparent disease spread during long-term storage if tubers were harvested healthy out of fields. Overall, no significant difference was found between 15.6 °C and 18.3 °C regarding their treatment effects. Our conclusion is that compared to the current standard practice, higher wound-healing temperatures may have the potential benefits of improving potato storage quality while reducing the economic penalty associated with weight loss for specific varieties, but tubers should be healthy at harvest in order to gain the benefits. Further research is needed to test if those benefits of higher wound-healing temperatures hold true in large-scale commercial storage facilities.
Highlights
Storage is a vital process to ensure year-round supplies for the fresh market and processing potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) industries
A key step of successful potato storage management is appropriate wound healing, the first two to three weeks after harvest during which the potatoes are held at an elevated temperature before final holding temperature is reached [1]
It is clear that compared to 2017, 2018 is a much more difficult year with more extreme weather conditions, such as snowy freezing days in late April that delayed planting, very hot days (> 30 ◦ C) in late May that had severe impact on plant emergence, big rain events (> 2.5 cm) in mid-June that caused a high percentage of nitrogen fertilizer applied at tuber initiation in early June to leach out, and a series of high-volume rainfalls (> 2.5cm) in late August that led to saturated unharvestable soils, enlarged lenticels associated with appearance and disease issues, and tuber quality defects causing economic loss
Summary
Storage is a vital process to ensure year-round supplies for the fresh market and processing potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) industries. A key step of successful potato storage management is appropriate wound healing, the first two to three weeks after harvest during which the potatoes are held at an elevated temperature before final holding temperature is reached [1]. Wound healing can impact potato tuber long-term storability and can be detrimental to end product quality [2,3]. The outmost layer of a potato tuber is the periderm that protects potatoes from weight loss and pathogen attack [4]. The periderm is subject to wounding, which is common during potato harvest and handling. The purpose of wound healing is for the tubers to quickly repair periderm damage under a warm and high-humidity environment. Rapid development of wound periderm is critical to minimize subsequent weight loss or disease spread [6,7]
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