Investigations into the opportunity for spatial management of the quality and quantity of production in UK potato systems

Abstract

Effectively adopting site-specific crop management is dependent on there being production variation within the system. There has been very little published material on yield variation in potatoes and almost none on tuber quality. A review of literature and a systematic survey of 13 potato fields in the UK was performed to better understand within-field variability in potato quantity and quality attributes, including stem density, total yield, marketable yield and tuber size distribution. Non-spatial and spatial statistical analysis of manual and sensor observations was performed on the survey data. Ware production fields exhibited more structured spatial variation in quality attributes (tuber size distribution and % marketable yield) rather than yield attributes. Seed production systems were inversed, with more structured spatial variability in yield attributes than quality attributes. Manual and sensor yield data exhibited a similar level of spatial variation, however the spatially denser sensor data indicated a nested effect with a large amount of short-range variation that may be management related. Both quality and quantity parameters showed sufficient magnitude and range in variation for site-specific management to be considered. The results presented here provide a baseline for spatial variation in both potato quantity and quality to inform future work, particularly for work considering spatial management or spatial modelling in potatoes.