Potato Production Research Articles

Starch intake and changes in dental caries among adults: A longitudinal study in Finland.

To evaluate the association between starch intake (amount and type) and changes in dental caries among adults over 11 years. Data from 1679 adults, aged 30 years and over, who participated in three consecutive surveys in Finland were pooled for analysis. Participants completed a validated semi-structured 128-item food frequency questionnaire at baseline, from which total starch intake (g/day and % energy intake) and the intake (g/day) of seven food groups high in starch (potatoes, potato products, roots and tubers, refined grains, pasta, wholegrains, and legumes) were estimated. Dental caries was determined during clinical examinations and summarized using the DMFT score, which was treated as a repeated outcome. The association between baseline starch intake and 11-year-change in DMFT score was tested in linear mixed-effects models adjusted for sociodemographic factors, behaviors, sugar intake, and health status. The mean DMFT score was 21.9 (95%CI: 21.6, 22.2) in 2000 (baseline), increasing by 0.47 (95% CI: 0.38, 0.56) in 2004/05, and additionally by 0.33 (95%CI: 0.20, 0.45) in 2011. Total starch intake was not associated with change in DMFT. This finding was similar irrespective of how starch intake was expressed (g/day or %EI). Of the seven food groups evaluated, only the intake of pasta was inversely associated with the DMFT score at baseline, but not with the change in DMFT over time. Neither the amount nor the type of starch intake was associated with changes in dental caries over 11 years among Finnish adults.

Meeting the Demand for Different Nitrogen Forms in Potato Plants Without the Use of Nitrification Inhibitors

The preference of potato plants for specific nitrogen (N) form changes with growth stage. Potato plants prefer nitrate N before tuber formation, while they favor ammonium N after tuber formation. However, few studies have focused on N species management in potato production. In this study, 2-year field experiments were conducted from 2020 to 2021 in Inner Mongolia, China, under drip irrigation with four N treatments: (1) CK (no N was used), (2) conventional farming practices (F) (urea was the only N source applied for potato growth), (3) nitrate N supplied before tuber formation and ammonium N with nitrification inhibitor supplied after tuber formation (N-NI), and (4) nitrate N supplied before tuber formation and frequent, low-dose ammonium N applied after tuber formation (Opt). The results demonstrated that, compared with the F, the Opt treatment facilitated potato N uptake, with a 33–40% increase in plant N accumulation, and significantly increased potato growth, which ultimately resulted in a yield increase of 12–20% and an increase of 11–22 percentage units in NUE. In addition, the Opt treatment reduced the soil N residual by ~14% after harvest. Compared with the N-NI, the Opt treatment did not result in a decrease in tuber yield or NUE. Therefore, supplying nitrate N before tuber formation and frequent, low-dose ammonium N after tuber formation can result in a better match between the supply and demand of potato plants for N forms without the use of nitrification inhibitors, improving both potato yield and NUE, which is of substantial agronomic and environmental value.

Study on the excess seeds removing performance of a potato precision seed metering device.

In the potato mechanical planting industry, the high multi-seeding rate and miss-seeding rate are problems that exist in many potato precision seed metering devices. The main potato seeds in China are cut potatoes with different shapes and sizes. However, there is a lack of research on precision seeding technology for cut potatoes, and the adaptability of many existing potato seeding devices on cut potato is poor. The mechanized precision seeding of potato can effectively reduce labor consumption, improve the seeding effect (decrease multi-seeding rate and miss-seeding rate), improve the improve production of potato per acre and improve the quality commodity potatoes. In response to the above issues, a precision seed metering device with novel scoops, which can adapt to various sizes and shapes of cut potatoes, was developed. In this study, the different seed collecting scenarios (SCSs) were constructed. Through the statics and kinematic analysis, the excess seeds removing (ESR) process was divided in to three areas. The kinematic model of seed potato was established to study the influence of different SCSs and sprocket rotational speeds on the ESR performance, and preliminary determined the appropriate sprocket rotational speed range for ESR process. Then, the coupled simulation results of EDEM and RecurDyn revealed that different sprocket speeds and SCSs had a significant influence on the ESR performance. Finally, the bench tests and field tests were conducted to verify the actual performance of the precision seed metering device. The results showed that, with the increase of the sprocket rotational speed, the ESR performance of the device improved, the multi-seeding rate significantly decreased, but the miss-seeding rate increased. High sprocket rotational speed will remove more seed potatoes and cause high miss-seeding rate. The bench tests showed the appropriate sprocket rotational speed for medium and large potato was 35 r/ min. The field tests obtained the best qualified-seeding rate of 91.54%, the miss-seeding rate of 3.08% and the multi-seeding rate of 5.38%. This study can provide theoretical reference for the design of potato precision seed metering device.

A quest for the potato of the future: Characterization of wild tuber-bearing Solanum species for de novo domestication.

The potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a staple food worldwide, but modern potato cultivation relies heavily on the use of pesticides to control pests and diseases. However, many wild Solanum species are highly resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses relevant for potato production. Several of those species have been used in potato breeding to confer resistances which has only been moderately successful. Instead, we propose an alternative approach to utilize the potential of wild Solanum germplasm. Recently, de novo domestication has been suggested to create more resilient crops: Instead of introducing resistance genes into existing crops, domestication traits could be introduced into resistant wild crop relatives to create new crops. Therefore, we selected ten promising species from the 107 known wild tuber-bearing Solanum species for their resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses based on existing scientific literature for experimental characterization looking at tuberization under short and long-day conditions, tuber glycoalkaloid content, starch digestibility and performance in tissue culture. Based on this, the highly pest and disease resistant S. bulbocastanaum was chosen. Our results showed that it produced relatively large tubers, also under long-day conditions and performed exceptionally well in tissue culture.

Comprehensive evaluation of fertilizer treatments on biometric traits and marketable tuber weight across diverse potato varieties

IntroductionThe efficiency of potato production depends to a large extent on the production of quality seeds that meet the requirements of the growing region. The main component of this production includes breeding, which creates the genetic basis of seeds. The process of establishing patterns between the amount of fertilizer application (“Aquarin 12,” “Bona Forte,” “Osmocote Exact High K”), their type, and biometric characteristics of potato plants of the studied varieties “Guliver,” “Beauty of Meshchera,” and “Grand” was explored.MethodsDuring the experimental studies, the methods of variation statistics, the technique of field experiment with the corresponding transformations to achieve normal distribution, and subsequent dispersion analysis were used.ResultsThe results of the research on the evaluation of potato structural elements depending on the plant nutrition system of the studied varieties testify to the expediency of using nutrient solutions in potato cultivation irrespective of their type. In addition, it has been established that increasing the concentration of the nutrient base solution from 75 to 125% of the nutrient formula improves the quality indicators of minitubers, namely the content of starch, sugars, dry matter, crude protein, phosphorus, specific gravity, and ash content, which can contribute to obtaining high-quality potatoes.DiscussionThus, the use of morphological and physiological tools in closed ecosystems is informative for predicting key agricultural characteristics of potato plants. Additionally, integrating organic amendments and biofertilizers, as supported by other studies, could further enhance nutrient uptake and plant health, especially under conditions of low irrigation.

Influence of improving selections on potato productivity in original seed nurseries in Karelia conditions

In potato seed production, selections contribute to maintaining varietal typicality, increasing yields and improving the quality of seed material. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness of improving selections in the first field generation of potatoes under conditions of variability of meteorological factors during the growing season of plants. In the process of crop reproduction, the yield indicators of the super-super elite of three varieties of the early ripeness group (Latona, Impala, Red Scarlett) are reflected during the selection in the first field generation. Using cluster and step-by-step discriminant analyses, three groups of productivity of vegetative offspring were identified for each of the above varieties: I – maximum, II – average, III – minimum. In the experiment, they were used as experimental options for control – offspring without selection. Against the background of the absence of reliable deviations in the number and weight of tubers in the experimental variants from the corresponding controls, a tendency to increase production was revealed.

Characterization of virus species associated with sweet potato virus disease in Costa Rica and riboprobe development for its rapid detection

AbstractSweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a crucial crop for food security and economic stability in many regions, including Costa Rica. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and genetic diversity of two major viruses associated with sweet potato virus disease (SPVD) in Costa Rica: sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) and sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (SPCSV). A total of 50 leaf samples displaying typical viral disease symptoms were collected from major sweet potato‐growing regions. Using multiplex reverse transcription (RT)‐PCR, SPFMV was detected in 82% of the samples and SPCSV in 52%, with a coinfection rate of 48%. Genetic analysis revealed that SPFMV isolates belonged predominantly to phylogenetic group B, while SPCSV isolates clustered with the West African (WA) strain. The low genetic diversity within these viral populations suggests a limited number of initial infection events followed by local spread. Riboprobe technology was evaluated as an alternative to RT‐PCR for virus detection. While the riboprobes for SPFMV demonstrated sensitivity comparable to RT‐PCR, the SPCSV riboprobes showed slightly lower sensitivity, particularly when using crude leaf extracts. Despite this, riboprobes offer significant advantages in terms of cost and ease of use for large‐scale screening. Our findings underscore the need for robust diagnostic and management strategies to control SPVD and highlight the importance of continuous monitoring and research to mitigate the impact of viral diseases on sweet potato production in Costa Rica. These insights contribute to the global understanding of SPVD and support collaborative efforts in plant pathology research.

Monitoring of Greenhouse Gas Emission Drivers in Atlantic Canadian Potato Production: A Robust Explainable Intelligent Glass-Box

In this research, a novel explainable multi-level ensemble learning framework has been developed to accurately monitor the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission drivers of the Maritime potato crop system i.e., Carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and water vapour (H2O). For this purpose, alongside the GHG emission drivers, the hydro-meteorological and soil properties information was collected from three Canadian sites, two in Prince Edward Island (PEI) and one in New Brunswick. This advanced framework includes a transparent multi-level pre-processing module and a Runge-Kutta optimizer (RUN), integrated with an eXplainable gradient-boosted decision Tree (GBDT) machine learning (ML) technique. The preprocessing scheme meticulously selects the most effective input combinations from the hydro-meteorological and soil properties datasets using hybridization of Boruta-GBDT for feature selection, Best Subset Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (BSLR), and Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS). The optimal combinations were then analyzed using the GBDT-RUN and compared against two algorithms: LightGBM coupled with RUN optimizer (LightGBM-RUN) and classical GBDT. The explainability of the primary model was enhanced using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). Model validation employed various metrics, such as the correlation coefficient (R), squared deviation (SquD), and a range of sophisticated statistical graphics. Results demonstrated that the GBDT-RUN model exhibited superior performance in monitoring GHG emissions (CO2|R=0.8431, SquD=17.1759, WASPAS=1.88E-07; N2O|R=0.8431, SquD=17.1759, WASPAS=1.88E-07; H2O| R=0.8431, SquD=17.1759, WASPAS=1.88E-07), outperforming both LightGBM-RUN and classical GBDT. Furthermore, the explainability analysis identified dew point and soil temperature as the most influential factors in the CO2, N2O, and H2O emissions scenarios.

Comparison of Growth Characteristics and Seed Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Productivity According to Artificial Light Sources in Raising Seedling of Stem Cuttings and Potato Cultivar

Comparison of Growth Characteristics and Seed Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Productivity According to Artificial Light Sources in Raising Seedling of Stem Cuttings and Potato Cultivar

Detection of Viruses and Elimination of Sweet Potato Feathery Mottle Virus in High-Yielding Varieties of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas) from Ethiopia

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam.) is a major source of food in many parts of Ethiopia. In recent years, viral diseases have become the main threat to sweet potato production in Ethiopia. Previous virus survey studies carried out from 1986 to 2020 reported eight viruses infecting sweet potato in Ethiopia. Consequently, obtaining and multiplying virus-free planting materials have been difficult for farmers and commercial multipliers. This study was conducted to detect viruses infecting the five sweet potato varieties used as source plants and compare the virus elimination efficiency between meristem cultures from untreated and heat-treated mother plants and production of virus-free sweet-potato-planting materials. Seven common viruses were tested for, using grafting to Ipomoea setosa, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) before and after elimination procedures as screening and confirmatory methods. The sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) elimination efficiencies of meristem cultures from untreated (grown at 25 ± 1 °C) and heat-treated (grown at 39 ± 1 °C) potted plants of sweet potato varieties were evaluated and compared. Sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) was detected in 12 of the 15 source plants tested. Triple infections of SPFMV, sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (SPCSV), and sweet potato virus C (SPVC) were detected in one of the fifteen plants. This study reports the detection of SPVC for the first time in sweet potato plants from Ethiopia. The cutting of meristems from heat-treated plants further increased the percentage of virus-free plantlets by ca 10% to ca 16%, depending on the plant variety. Elimination efficiency also seemed to vary among varieties: the greatest difference was observed for ‘Tola’, and the least difference was observed for ‘Guntute’. The present study provided protocols for detecting viruses and generating virus-free sweet-potato-planting materials in Ethiopia.

Financial Determinants of Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Irish Potato Production in Ol Kalou Sub County, Kenya: Application of Multinomial Logistic Regression

Irish potato is a significant source of food and income for many households worldwide. The demand for the crop has steadily increased around the globe. Kenyan Irish potato farmers have the potential to produce about 30 tonnes per Ha. However, small-scale Irish farmers in the country realize low output ranging from 4-8 tonnes per Ha due to limited uptake of agricultural technologies. This study aimed to analyze the financial factors influencing the uptake of agricultural technologies in Irish potato production in Ol Kalou Sub County. The agricultural technologies under investigation were chemical fertilizer, certified seeds, fungicides, and farm machinery. Production and innovation diffusion theories guided the study. Descriptive cross-sectional research design was used to obtain data from a study population of 21,942 smallholder Irish potato farmers in Ol Kalou Sub County. A multiple-stage sampling technique was employed to give a sample size of 385 respondents small scale Irish potato farmers, where data was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire. Data collected was analyzed using multinomial logistic regression through SPSS version 28 and STATA version 17. The model indicated that off-farm income, access to credit, and production risk had a positive and significant influence on adopting agricultural technologies. Conversely, production cost had a negative and significant influence on the adoption of agricultural technologies, while the availability of subsidies had no significant influence. The Marginal effect analysis showed that the availability of off-farm income increased adoption by 22.00%, the increase in credit increased adoption by 2.00%, the availability of mitigation measures of production risk increased adoption by 19.00%, while the increase in production cost decreased adoption by 7.00%. The study concluded that off-farm income, credit facilities, production risk and cost of production influence the adoption of agricultural technologies. The study recommended that the government should develop policy regulations such as diversification of income, grants that reduce production costs, credit incentives, and crop insurance.

ASSESSING POTATO CULTIVATION TECHNIQUES IN PAKISTAN: AN ANALYSIS OF EXISTING METHODS AND IDENTIFIED GAPS

The potato is an important crop in vegetables. It is grown in sandy to clay-loamy soil in the winter season. Potassium and vitamin C are abundant in potatoes. Both governmental and private agriculture extension services actively educate farmers about suggested techniques for producing potatoes and offer guidance on how to implement these practices. This study aimed to investigate the discrepancy between accepted and advised potato production technology techniques. Pakistan's primary potato hub is Okara. Tehsil Okara was selected randomly from 3 tehsils (Okara, Depalpur, Renala Khurd) of district Okara. A random sampling was carried out for 120 Okara potato growers, the study's key data were gathered through a field survey. According to the survey, most farmers were aware of the suggested potato production technology and many had already embraced it. However, a sizable portion did not follow the advised guidelines. Therefore, to get a high yield of potatoes per acre, it is necessary to strengthen the efforts of extension services and implement more advanced advice. Extension activities must be adjusted to farmers' needs.

Analysis of Stress Response Genes in Microtuberization of Potato Solanum tuberosum L.: Contributions to Osmotic and Combined Abiotic Stress Tolerance.

Wild Solanum species have contributed many introgressed genes during domestication into current cultivated potatoes, enhancing their biotic and abiotic stress resistance and facilitating global expansion. Abiotic stress negatively impacts potato physiology and productivity. Understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating tuber development may help solve this global problem. We made a transcriptomic analysis of potato microtuberization under darkness, cytokinins, and osmotic stress conditions. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis identified 404 genes with high confidence. These genes were involved in important processes like oxidative stress, carbon metabolism, sterol biosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, and nucleosome assembly. From this network, we selected nine ancestral genes along with eight additional stress-related genes. We used qPCR to analyze the expression of the selected genes under osmotic, heat-osmotic, cold-osmotic, salt-osmotic, and combined-stress conditions. The principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that 60.61% of the genes analyzed were associated with osmotic, cold-osmotic, and heat-osmotic stress. Seven out of ten introgression/domestication genes showed the highest variance in the analysis. The genes H3.2 and GAPCP1 were involved in osmotic, cold-osmotic, and heat-osmotic stress. Under combined-all stress, TPI and RPL4 were significant, while in salt-osmotic stress conditions, ENO1, HSP70-8, and PER were significant. This indicates the importance of ancestral genes for potato survival during evolution. The targeted manipulation of these genes could improve combined-stress tolerance in potatoes, providing a genetic basis for enhancing crop resilience.

Using Biochar to Improve Soil Fertility and Productivity of Drought-Tolerant Sweet Potatoes in Thanh Hoa Coastal Sandy Soil

The coastal area of Thanh Hoa province has a large proportion of sandy soil and is suffering negative impacts from climate change that affect crop productivity. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of biochar to improve the soil fertility and productivity of drought-tolerant sweet potatoes. The effect of biochar contents on the productivity of three sweet potatoes VC 04-24, KL C3, and VC 68-2 in the coastal sandy soil area of Thanh Hoa province was examined. The results indicated that the yield of sweet potatoes was the highest when applying five tons of biochar per hectare, equivalent to using 10 tons of manure. With the same biochar content, the productivity and other factors related to the product quality of these sweet potatoes such as the number of tubers per plant and the average mass of tuber were the highest. In detail, the estimated commercial productivity of VC 04-24, KL C3, and VC 68-2 were 25.46, 24.92, and 21.76 ton/ha, respectively. With the least significant difference at the probability of 0.05% (LSD0.05), the VC 04-24 and KL C3 showed high productivity. The economic efficiency of the sweet potatoes-growing model at Hai An commune, Tinh Gia district, Thanh Hoa province showed that the productivity of the model was 24 tons/ha, higher than the actual productivity of the control model (20.2 ton/ha). The productivity and the economic efficiency of the model were 18.8% and 31.38% higher than those of the control model, respectively. In addition, the test results showed that using 5-6 ton/hectare of biochar can improve the physical and chemical properties of soils.

Determinants of Marketing Channel for Tomato, Onion, and Potato (TOP) Producers in India: Evidence from the Large-Scale Household Survey

Determinants of Marketing Channel for Tomato, Onion, and Potato (TOP) Producers in India: Evidence from the Large-Scale Household Survey

An effective unsupervised domain adaptation for in-field potato disease recognition

Accurate disease recognition through computer vision is crucial for the intelligent management of potato production. Popular data-driven classification methods face challenges including limited labelled data and poor model portability. Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) addresses these challenges with a novel learning strategy. However, the complex field environment introduces a significant domain shift problem due to varying conditions. Existing UDA methods usually concentrate on aligning global data distribution and employ a single structure for disease feature extraction, thereby limiting their efficacy in true field environment. To tackle this challenge of potato disease recognition, the Multi-Representation Adaptive Network (MRSAN) based on subdomain alignment is presented. MRSAN effectively aligns feature distributions across diverse data by minimising distribution differences among relevant subdomains. Simultaneously, the multi-representation extraction method captures finer details from various perspectives in the disease images. The combination of these two approaches efficiently mitigates the adverse effects caused by various interference factors in field environment. Based on the acquisition conditions of light variation and disease progression, two field potato disease image datasets are created, containing five and six kinds of potato leaf disease, respectively. Extensive transfer experiments are conducted on the two datasets. MRSAN achieves average classification accuracies of 87.03% and 80.06% on the datasets for the corresponding transfer tasks, outperforming the other compared methods. This not only validates the effectiveness of MRSAN but also demonstrates its robust ability to generalise across changes in regard to light variation and disease progression.

Supply and Demand of Processed Potato Products in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda: Variety Requirements of Processing Companies and Implications for Trait Prioritization for Breeding

AbstractThe potato processing industry in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda is expanding rapidly. This study assesses the current situation and outlook of the local industrial potato processing sector and the alignment of the industry’s variety requirements with the priorities set by breeders. Currently, potato processing companies in the three countries use both varieties selected locally from public international germplasm and varieties introduced by Dutch seed companies, and their suitability for processing is discussed as well. Overall, the processing industry pays high attention to traits affecting processing efficiency and consumers’ acceptance while breeders, in spite of being aware of the characteristics required for processing varieties, are more focused on traits related to production and disease resistance. As the processing sector develops further, breeders will have to pay increased attention to the progressively stricter requirements of the industry, striking the right balance between farmers’ and processors’ variety requirements. While their opinions on the farmers’ acceptability of processing varieties diverge, breeders and industry agree about the challenges represented by the limited access to quality seed and poor business linkages between value chain actors in securing the supply of varieties suitable for processing. Based on these findings, it is recommended to pay more attention to both the development of dual-purpose varieties and the strengthening of the potato value chain through the improvement of business linkages between seed producers, farmers, and processing companies.

Mulching Improves the Soil Hydrothermal Environment, Soil Aggregate Content, and Potato Yield in Dry Farmland

Mulching could effectively improve the soil hydrothermal environment, improve changes in the soil structure, increase entropy, and conserve soil moisture to solve the problem of grain reduction caused by perennial drought in Northwest China. Thus, a two-growing-season field experiment (2020–2021) with five treatments (PM1, biodegradable plastic film mulching; PM2, plastic film mulching; SM1, straw strip mulching; SM2, crushed corn straw full mulching; and CK, no mulching as the control) was conducted to investigate the effects of different mulching materials on the soil hydrothermal environment, soil aggregate distribution, stability, and tuber yield of rainfed potato farmland in Northwest China. Over two growing seasons, mulching planting, on average, increased (p < 0.05) the soil moisture at the 0–200 cm depth by 9.0% relative to CK (SM2 (11.6%) > SM1 (10.3%) > PM2 (8.6%) > PM1 (7.0%)). The mulching treatments significantly regulated the soil temperature during the whole growth period, in which plastic mulching significantly increased the soil temperature of the 0–25 cm soil depth during the whole growth period by 2.1 °C (PM2 (2.1 °C) > PM1 (2.0 °C)); meanwhile, straw mulching significantly reduced the soil temperature by 1.4 °C (SM2 (0.9 °C) > SM1 (0.6 °C)). All mulching treatments improved the soil macroaggregate content and soil aggregate stability in all soil depths from 0 to 40 cm, with increases of 31.4% and 27.1% in the mean weight diameter (MWD) and 22.6% and 21.2% in the geometric mean diameter (GWD) compared with CK, respectively. Straw and plastic mulching significantly increased the fresh tuber yield by 12.5% and 12.6% compared with CK, respectively. The increases were greatest in SM2 and PM2. Crushed corn straw full mulching is difficult to sow and harvest; therefore, straw strip mulching could improve the soil hydrothermal environment, increase production, and provide an environmentally friendly technology for dryland potato production.

Nitrous oxide emissions and yields from potato production systems as influenced by nitrogen fertilization and irrigation: A meta‐analysis

AbstractPotato (Solanum tuberosom) is a globally significant crop in relation to the scale of its consumption, being the third most consumed worldwide. The overall sustainability of global agriculture is increasingly of concern, specifically in relation to increasing anthropogenic emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from nitrogen fertilizer additions to croplands and its contribution to climate change. Against this backdrop, a meta‐analysis of 119 experimental comparisons from 18 studies—spanning 19 study sites in 10 countries—was employed to investigate the impact of irrigation, cumulative water input, N fertilizer application rate, soil pH, and soil texture on cumulative N2O fluxes and tuber yield in potato production. Compared to non‐fertilized controls, N2O emissions from fertilized potato production decreased by 34% when irrigation provided 61%–90% of total water input (corresponding to averages of 321–473 mm). Likewise, N2O emissions increased by 53% with 200–475 mm seasonal water input and by 37% with N fertilization rates of 101–200 kg N fertilizer ha−1. Furthermore, soil pH between 7.1 and 7.5 reduced emissions by 6%, while medium‐textured soils showed an increase of 2%. Conversely, tuber yields from fertilized potato production were comparatively maximized under 31%–60% of water input as irrigation (7%) and 751–1025 mm cumulative seasonal water input (28%). Alongside 201–300 kg N fertilizer ha−1 (97%), soil pH of 7.1–7.5 (48%), and in coarse‐textured soils (49%). Overall, these findings underscore the importance of considering irrigation and N fertilization options specifically in optimizing potato production for reduced N2O emissions and enhanced tuber yield.

Resource Use Efficiency and Constraints Faced by Potato Growers in Kannauj District of Uttar Pradesh, India

In the present paper, an attempt has been made to examine Potato cultivation in different categories of farmers in Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh. Primary data was collect through personal interview by pre-structured and pre-tested schedule; the data was collect for the agricultural year 2022-23. A sample size of 100 farmers, marginal (61) Small (29) Medium (10) were interviewed form 5 village of Kannauj block in Kannauj district select the farmers by using the proportionate allocation method, with the data analysis, the result found that average holding size 0.84, 1.84 and 3.91 ha. in respect of marginal small and medium farm, respectively. In the case of potato, returns to scale of marginal, small and medium size group of farms were 0.8989, 0.8525 and 0.8280, respectively. Returns to scale in all three categories of the farms were found less than unity. It indicates the production of potato is characterized by decreasing returns to scale on each farm situation. Another factor of production i.e. manure and fertilizer was found significantly associated with dependent variable at 1% level probability in all farm situation. The problem related with hired human labour and technical knowledge was notice at I and II rank by the sample farmers (i.e. Unavailability of machines and tractor and Lack of improved varieties).