Effect of thiourea on dormancy breaking and minituber yield of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.)cv.Agria in greenhouse experiment

摘要

This experiment was conducted for studying thiourea application effect on potato minitubers dormancy breaking in Agria cultivar in greenhouse in 2006. Thiourea solution in three concentration levels as 0,0.5 and 1% arranged in a completely randomizeddesign in three replicates. After dormancy breaking, attributes like days to sprouting, length of the longest sprout and sprout number were measured. Then minitubers planted in pots and days to emergence, main stem numbers and plant height were measured.Tuber number per plant, yield and mean tuber weight was calculated after harvesting. Results showed that thiourea affected all attributes significantly. Applying 1% thiourea decreased days to sprouting date from 60 to 26 days, increased sprout number from 1.8 to 3.1 sprouts, increased sprout length from 1.8 to 4.1 cm, decreased days to emergence from 60 to 29 days, increased stem number from 1.2 to 2.4, increased plant height at least 30.6 cm, increased tuber number per plant from 5 to 9, decreased mean tuber weight per plant at least 22.1 g and increased total tuber weight per plant from 183 to 202 g. Therefore, applying 1% thiourea is recommendable for minitubers dormancy breaking because of its effect on rapid dormancy breaking, rapid emergence andincreasing minituber number per plant and tuber yield in Agria minituber production.