Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.)

Summary

In the area of potato production, targeted research solving concrete and actual problems of potato producers runs on Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. In the last few years, we were focused on the production of new potatoes designated for early harvest, and we were focused on capitalization of yielding and qualitative characteristics of colored potato variety. These findings were further utilized and transferred to the system of organic farming. Firstly, we watched the influence of organic farming on yield and quality of tubers. Ecological ways of cultivation had strong negative influences on yield (decrease of 36%). From qualitative characteristics, organic farming increased the content of polyphenols by 10.2%, decreased the content of nitrates by 11.0%, and decreased the content of reducing sugars by 22.0%. We also evaluated the possibilities and impacts of mulch on potato cultivation. The mulch on top of ridges affected the temperature of soil (it increased the temperature by 0.2–0.6 °C under black mulching nonwoven fabric, and it decreased by 0.5–0.8 °C under herbal mulch). The mulch also affected soil humidity (herbal mulch decreased the soil humidity) and adjust weed infestation (20 to 92% lower), soil erosion (95% lower), the occurrence of Colorado beetle (the number of larvae was 22.8% lower with herbal mulch and 88.7% higher with mulching textile), and late blight in potato vegetation.