Potato productivity depending on variety specialties under cultivating in the right-bank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine

Abstract

In terms of geographical distribution and consumption, potatoes occupy one of the leading positions in the structure of food production in Ukraine. It is also used extensively as animal feed. The versatility of use in diff erent sectors of the economy with potatoes cannot be compared to any crop. Potato is of great importance as a raw material for the production of starch, sugar, molasses, alcohol, glucose and etc. A signifi cant reduction in the commodity production of food potatoe in farms is related to the solution a whole complex of important issues, in particular seed production, agro-technology of cultivation, application of highly eff ective pesticides, availability of agricultural machinery and material-technical support. The difficult ecological and energy situation in modern agriculture proves that it is possible to obtain high and stable yields of all crops only if there are varieties in production adapted to diff erent soil and climatic conditions. Variety is one of the important factors of yield stability and fi xed assets of agricultural production. A variety, as a genotype or a set of very close genotypes, exists in a specific environment and, moreover, interacts with it, encountering complex communication, intensity and time of manifestation, abiotic and biotic factors. At the same time, a connection is established between a variety and an environment that infl uences the formation and manifestation of morphological, economic and biological characters. The aim of the research was to study the growth, development and yield of early ripe potato varieties in the rightbank Forest-Steppe of Ukraine. The article presents the results of studies on the cultivation of early ripe varieties of potatoes. Namely, the germination and survival of potato plants was studied, which amounted to 89.5 and 87.3 % in the Skarbnytsa variety, 90.2 and 88.7 % in the Shchedryk variety, and 88.6 and 86.5 % in the Dnipryanka variety; the number of formed stems per plant is calculated, which is 3.3 in the Skarbnytsa variety, 3.6 in the Shchedryk variety and 2.7 in the Dniprianka variety. The dynamics of the mass increase and the fractional composition of potato tubers are shown. On average, during the research, the average weight of tubers from the bush was high for the Shchedryk variety and amounted to 616.2 g, somewhat less than those for the Skarbnytsa (484,5 g) and Dniprianka (397,8 g) varieties. It was established that the Shchedryk variety had the highest potato productivity in the experiment – 250.3 c/ha, in the Skarbnytsa and Dnipryanka varieties, the yield was 210.0 and 201.2 c/ha, respectively. Key words: potato, varieties, plant survival, tubers weight, productivity.