Journal of Experimental Agriculture International

Potato is a major global food crop, rich in carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, and ranks fourth after rice, wheat, and maize. India is a leading producer with high productivity, and while mainly grown in rabi season, it is also cultivated in kharif in plateau regions like Odisha and others. A field experiment was conducted on “Standardization of cut and whole potato tubers production technology” at research station, ICAR-CPRI-AICRP, Dharwad (Karnataka) during the Kharif season of 2020, 2021 and 2022. The experiment was planned with four treatment in five replications under Randomized Block Desig. Finding enough ideal 40–50 gram seed tubers is difficult because they only make up 20–25% of the total harvest. Under the circumstances, farmers must either buy more seed or cut larger tubers into smaller pieces to optimize their planting efficiency. The maximum plant emergence percent (95.75 %), highest growth parameters viz., plant height (58.78 cm), number of shoots (4.74), number of leaves (79.09) per plant, plant spread N-S (38.81 cm²), E-W (31.80 cm²) and yield parameters viz., fresh haulm yield (17.48 t ha-1), total tuber yield (17.97 t ha-1), dry haulm yield (1.88 t ha-1) and dry tuber yield (3.11 t ha-1) were recorded with treatment T₄ (whole seed tuber with 20 cm spacing). However in contrast to above results, maximum harvest index (51.27%) found with cut seed tuber at 20 cm spacing (T₃). Economic parameter viz., Highest cost of cultivation (117576 ha-1) was recorded in T₁ and T₄ treatments but highest gross return (270600 ha-1) was recorded in T₄. Highest net return (158424 ha-1) and benefit cost ratio (2.60) was recorded with cut tuber at 20 cm spacing (T₃). The results indicate clear advantages of planting whole seed tubers at 20 cm spacing compared to cut seed tubers with 10 cm spacing for growth, yield and quality of potato tubers. Therefore, the utilization of whole seed tubers at a spacing of 20 cm is advocated, while cut seed tubers have also demonstrated comparable results concerning with growth and yield parameters, and thus can also be recommended for farming communities.