Planting of Cut Potato Tubers in India and Global: Urgent Need of Planter Mechanization to Produce Higher Tuber Yield

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) family (Solanaceae) is one of the most important food crop and abundantly grown edible crop in the world. Potato is native to the South America, but cultivated all over the world and stands fourth position in cultivation after rice, wheat and maize [1]. Likewise, in India also, the potato ranks fourth most important food crop after rice, wheat and maize and accounts 1.23 percent of gross agricultural production. India is the second largest producer of potato after China with a production of 51.3 million tonnes from 2.14 million hectare area, having an average productivity of 23.96Mt/ha during 201718. During 2016, India produced a 44 million tonnes of potato out of 377 million tonnes of world production, which holds a share of about 11.6% of global production [2]. The potatoes are largely grown in the cooler regions, where mean temperature of the location does not exceed 18 °C during growing season. In India potato is grown in almost all the states, however the Indo-Gangetic plains comprising Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana states shares 80 percent of production from national total production [3]. The state wise production status of Indian states is given in (Figure 1). A clear comparison of the production and productivity of potato within Indian states is briefed in (Table 1). Potatoes are traditionally grown by the whole tubers, but it can also be grown by other vegetative organs such as sprouts and true seeds. Potato plant has a multiplication rate ranging from 1:10 to 1:15. The tuber has buds, also called “eyes”, arranged in a spiral manner, from which sprouts and shoots develop. Tubers of 40-60g are commonly used as seed potatoes, larger tubers are cut into two to four pieces containing at least one eye. The seed is a costly and critical input in potato production and it alone accounts about 36-38% percent of the total cost of cultivation [4,5] in potato production. The situation of increase in seed cost further increases Crimson Publishers Wings to the Research Mini Review