Screening Of Special Varieties For Baby Potato Production And Matching Of Its Cultivation Techniques

Potato(Solanum tuberosum L)is one of the four major food crops after rice,wheat,and corn in the world.China is the world’s largest producer of potato,this crop has played an important role in poverty alleviation and food security.As a popular consumption trend,"baby potato"are highly sought after by growers,merchants,and consumers.The term"baby potato"generally refers to potato tubers weighing less than 50g.Traditional potato variety selection and cultivation techniques rely on large potatoes,resulting in a lack of specialized varieties and supporting cultivation techniques for producing"baby potato".Based on the needs of the industry,this study carried out the screening of"baby potato"resources and related research on"baby potato"cultivation techniques.It will lay a foundation for improving the production efficiency of"baby potato"and satisfying the consumption demand of"baby potato".The main results of this study are as follows:1.Tuber characters and small tuber yields of 719 potato germplasm resources were investigated,and 70 materials with extremely high or low yield of small potato were screened out.Further,those meterials were then evaluated by small tuber yield,nutrient content,eating quality,specific gravity,and dormancy,9 materials were screened out as potential special varieties for"baby potato"production,they are:HBMS2015,HBMS2170,HBMS4260,HBMS2074,HBMS2242,HBMS2165,HBMS1093,HBMS2099,HBMS1050,HBMS2152.2.Three varieties of Eshu10,Huashu12 and Huashu16 with potential production of"baby potato"were selected,together with the main cultivar Mira,a"baby potato"variety in Enshi,the cultivation experiment was carried out with three densities of 4500,5500 and6500 plants/667m~2.Both total tuber production and"baby potatoes"production increased significantly as planting density increased,and the proportion of"baby potatoes"in the early harvest increased significantly than the normal harvest time.The four varieties,Mira and Eshu10,have more main stems and have advantages in production of small tubers,while Huashu12 and Huashu 16 have fewer main stems,thus,it is necessary to further increase the planting density to improve the yield of"baby potato".