Growth and Yield Performance of Potato Grown at Three Elevations in Hawaii: II. Dry Matter Production and Efficiency of Partitioning

Abstract

Field data on the growth and yield of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) are needed for the validation of models of potato growth in tropical environments. A potato genotype ✕ environment experiment was conducted on Mt. Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii, in 1985 at elevations of 91, 282, and 1097 m, and in 1986 at elevations of 91, 640, and 1097 m. The objective was to collect basic data on the effects of environment (primarily temperature) on the patterns of dry matter production and partitioning of the standard north‐temperate cultivats Katahdin, Desiree, Kennebec, and Norchip and the heat‐tolerant clones LT‐I, C14‐343, and CI‐884. Dry weight of plant components and total dry weight per plant (TOT) were measured tuber initiation (T1), T1 + 20 d (T2), and T1 + 40 d (T3). temperatures at 91 m hastened development such that, at T1, TOT was almost 2.0 and 4.0 times greater than at 1097 m for 1985 and 1986, respectively. Overall, tuber dry weight (TU) increased significantly at T2 and T3 as temperature decreased with increasing elevation. Dry matter partitioning to tubers (TU/TOT) generally was highly and significantly correlated with temperature. At T2, 54, 59, 65, and 80% of the variation in TU/TOT for Norchip, Kennebec, Katahdin, and Desiree, respectively, was explained by average minimum temperature from T1 to T2. For the later‐maturing clones LT‐1 and C1‐884, >80% of the variation in TU/TOT also was explained by some measure of temperature during the period T1 to T2, T2 to T3, or both.