Soil cover of tubers and the percentage of green tubers at various inter-row widths

Abstract

In the years 2002, 2003 and 2004, a field trial was conducted involving three inter-row widths (66, 75 and 90 cm) and three potato cultivars (Agria, Bright and Carlingford). Increasing the inter-row width (IRW) increased both the cross-sectional area of the ridge and ridge height measured before the harvest. With an IRW of 66 cm the majority of tubers were located directly under the ridge surface (at a depth of < 5 cm), which resulted in the highest percentage of green tubers among the three IRW values. At the 90 cm IRW, in particular, the vast majority of tubers was distributed deeply in the ridge (at a depth of > 5 cm), thus generating the smallest percentage of green tubers. Compared to the other two cultivars, Carlingford produced tubers distributed at a larger ridge depth and subsequently yielded the lowest percentage of tubers covered with less than 5 cm of soil. On the other hand, Agria had a wider horizontal span of tubers than the other two cultivars.