Vol. 27 No. 3 (2013): Special issue on "Grapevine nursery"
Articles

Effect of mulching and plant density on out-of-season organic potato growth, yield and quality

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  • G. Caruso,
  • D. Carputo,
  • S. Conti,
  • C. Borrelli,
  • P. Maddaluno,
  • L. Frusciante
G. Caruso
Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Università, 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
D. Carputo
Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Università, 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
S. Conti
Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Università, 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
C. Borrelli
Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Università, 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
P. Maddaluno
Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Università, 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
L. Frusciante
Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Università, 100, 80055 Portici (NA), Italy.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/ahsc-18438
Categories

Published 2013-09-30

Keywords

  • Biodegradable mulch,
  • plant leaf area and dry matter,
  • production,
  • Solanum tuberosum L.,
  • tuber vitamin C

How to Cite

Caruso, G., Carputo, D., Conti, S., Borrelli, C., Maddaluno, P., & Frusciante, L. (2013). Effect of mulching and plant density on out-of-season organic potato growth, yield and quality. Advances in Horticultural Science, 27(3), 115–121. https://doi.org/10.36253/ahsc-18438

Copyright (c) 2013 G. Caruso, D. Carputo, S. Conti, C. Borrelli, P. Maddaluno, L. Frusciante

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

Research was carried out on potato (Solanum tuberosum L., cv. Spunta) growing in the field in the Campania region (southern Italy) in 2007 and 2008, adopting organic farming practices, in order to evaluate the effects of two mulching treatments (black biodegradable film and bare soil) and six plant densities (12.5, 10.0, 8.3, 7.1, 6.2 and, as a control, 5.3 plants per m2) on growth, yield and quality of “new potato” winter-spring and summer-autumn crops. Only in the case of the summer-autumn crop cycle, mulching resulted in a higher yield, plant dry matter and leaf area compared with the bare soil control, while in both crop cycles this latter treatment induced a delay in harvest. The winter-spring cycle gave a higher production of 40-70 mm tubers, while the summer-autumn cycle resulted in a higher vitamin C content. For the winter-spring crop cycle, the plant density of 8.3 plants·m-2 resulted in the highest yield for food-use tubers, whereas the highest production of seed tubers was obtained with a density of 12.5 plants·m-2. The plant density of 8.3 plants·m-2 also resulted in the highest plant dry matter and leaf area. For the summer-autumn crop cycle, the 10 plants·m-2 density gave the highest production of 40-70 mm calibre tubers, as well as the highest plant dry matter and leaf area. In this cycle, the 6.3 plants·m-2 density resulted in the highest production of 70-80 mm calibre tubers. In terms of cost effectiveness, the choice of biodegradable mulching could save the expense of manual weed control and, in the case of the summer-autumn crop cycle, it is also associated with a higher yield. Overall, tuber yield increased with plant density but the final production was also affected by the crop cycle. This may depend on the different environmental conditions and duration which characterized each cultural cycle and, therefore, affected the vegetative development of organic new potatoes.

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