Practice of Protecting the Potato Stubs From Diseases and Sprouting When Storage

All over the planet, potatoes are an important staple food crop. However, to maintain the quality of the tubers and increase their availability, it is necessary to store the tubers for a long time, often using industrial scale equipment. In this context, maintaining potato quality is critical for the seed, fresh and processing sectors. The industry has always innovated and invested in improved post-harvest storage. However, the rate of technological change is accelerating and will continue to accelerate. Stricter legislation and changing consumer attitudes are driving increased interest in creating alternative or complementary post-harvest treatments to traditional growth suppression and disease control chemicals. We are considering modern knowledge about the biochemical factors that determine the state of dormancy, as well as the influence of factors before and after harvest on ensuring the quality of potato tubers. In addition, the role of genomics as a future approach to improving potato quality is discussed. It is critical, thanks to more focused industry research, to understand how pre-harvest conditions affect tuber quality and the factors that determine the transition to dormancy, which should create the conditions for achieving sustainable storage.

Comparison of Selected Dimensionality Reduction Methods for Detection of Root-Knot Nematode Infestations in Potato Tubers Using Hyperspectral Imaging

Hyperspectral imaging is a popular tool used for non-invasive plant disease detection. Data acquired with it usually consist of many correlated features; hence most of the acquired information is redundant. Dimensionality reduction methods are used to transform the data sets from high-dimensional, to low-dimensional (in this study to one or a few features). We have chosen six dimensionality reduction methods (partial least squares, linear discriminant analysis, principal component analysis, RandomForest, ReliefF, and Extreme gradient boosting) and tested their efficacy on a hyperspectral data set of potato tubers. The extracted or selected features were pipelined to support vector machine classifier and evaluated. Tubers were divided into two groups, healthy and infested with Meloidogyne luci. The results show that all dimensionality reduction methods enabled successful identification of inoculated tubers. The best and most consistent results were obtained using linear discriminant analysis, with 100% accuracy in both potato tuber inside and outside images. Classification success was generally higher in the outside data set, than in the inside. Nevertheless, accuracy was in all cases above 0.6.

The Spread of the Soil-Borne Pathogen Fusarium solani in Stored Potato Can Be Controlled by Terrestrial Woodlice (Isopoda: Oniscidea)

Fusarium solani, a soil-borne pathogen of stored potato may be disseminated, and thus, the damage caused by the pathogen may be aggravated by the grazing activities of arthropods. To investigate whether terrestrial woodlice contribute to the spread or, instead, to the control of F. solani, we launched a series of pilot experiments. First, a laboratory feeding trial was set up to find whether and to what extent woodlice consume the mycelia of fungal pathogens, namely, Aspergillus niger, F. solani, Macrophomina phaseolina, and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. This was followed by a second set of experiments to simulate storage conditions where potato tubers, either healthy or infected with F. solani, were offered to woodlice. We found that: (1) F. solani was accepted by woodlice but was not their most preferred food source; (2) the presence of woodlice reduced the spread of F. solani among potato tubers. Our results suggest that the classification of terrestrial woodlice as “storage pests” needs re-evaluation, as isopods have the potential to disinoculate infective plant remnants and, thus, reduce the spread of storage pathogens.

Optimisation of Nutrition of Early-Maturing Potato Varieties on Drip Irrigation in the South of Ukraine

Potatoes are an extremely important crop for the nutrition of the population in Ukraine. Its potential is high-up to 100 t/ha of tubers, but the average yield reaches 14-16 t/ha. To obtain significantly higher productivity, it is necessary to improve the main elements of cultivation technology. The main factor of potato production on drip irrigation is the optimisation of plant nutrition, which the authors have taken to study with three varieties of early maturing potatoes. Studies have established that providing plants with nutrients with the selection of varieties can increase the productivity of tubers up to 37-39 t/ha, or increase its level compared to the control to 64.7%. It was determined that the maximum yield is provided by the main application from autumn N32P32K32, before planting N48P48K48 and carrying out three top dressings during the growing season simultaneously with watering with a total rate of N33 and Plantafol 6 kg/ha, starting from the beginning of budding with an interval of 8-10 days. At the same time, tubers are formed with high-quality indicators as they contain a sufficient number of dry substances, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and starch. It should be noted that when optimising nutrition, the intake of all the main indicators of potato tubers compared to the control slightly decreased, namely dry substances and starch. On the contrary, the amount of ascorbic acid increased, especially with top dressing with Plantafol. Varietal features regarding the impact on the quality of tubers are also determined. Significantly more dry substances were found in tubers of the Riviera and Prada varieties, and more starch content was found in Prada and Minerva varieties. Slightly less dry matter and ascorbic acid were detected in Minerva potato tubers compared to other varieties. From the grown crop of tubers of the studied potato varieties, it is possible to obtain up to 4.0 t/ha of bioethanol or alcohol if they are processed

Antioxidant Capacity and Nutritional Value of Potato Tubers (Solanum tuberosum L.) as a Dependence of Growing Conditions and Long-Term Storage

The aim of the study was to assess the interactive effect of the use of bio-fertilizer and organic matter brought into the soil, as well as to limit the use of mineral fertilization on the content of bioactive compounds in potato tubers cultivar ‘Satina’. The test results show a positive effect of the applied bio-fertilizer in all tested variants of organic fertilization (straw, fodder pea, manure) on the level of the tested compounds. Comparing the content of crude protein in tubers from plots where half the dose of mineral fertilization was applied, the use of bio-fertilizer increased the content of this component, especially after using straw. After 6 months of storage, organic fertilization had no significant effect on the protein content, while significant differences were found in tubers fertilized with mineral, in favor of the full dose of NPK fertilizers. The storage time increased the content of tyrosine, leucine, lysine, alanine, glutamic acid, and total AA, and also methionine, aspartic acid, and asparagine, while the content of isoleucine and phenyl-alanine decreased. The highest content of total polyphenols was found in tubers where the plots were covered with pea application, a full dose of mineral fertilizer, and the use of bio-fertilizer. Unfortunately, after 6 months of storage, potato tubers from plots fertilized with peas, especially those fertilized with half the dose of mineral fertilization and without the use of biofertilizer, significantly lost the most total polyphenols. Similar relationships were obtained for the level of chlorogenic acid in tubers, which is significantly correlated with the content of polyphenols, but only organic fertilization in the form of peas significantly increased the concentration of chlorogenic acid. On the other hand, the highest post-harvest antioxidant activity was characteristic of tubers from plots fertilized with manure, with a full dose of mineral fertilization and biofertilizer. During the 6-month storage, there was a decrease in the antioxidant capacity, on average 12.4% for the objects. This may indicate the influence of polyphenolic compounds as well as other antioxidants on the assessed trait.