Effects of Natural Diffused Light Storage on Highland Seed Potatoes and Subsequent Field Performance in Lowland.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an essential staple crop in China. Appropriate storage methods and technology are critical to ensure the quality of seed potatoes, which is closely related to the field performance. So far, the diffused light storage (DLS) technique has been widely applied to potato crop. In this paper, two special potato varieties ('Chuanyu 117' and 'Mira') were treated at DLS for 60 days, and the effects of growth conditions on tuber sprouts and subsequent field performance were evaluated. The results showed that the DLS treatment significantly promoted the greening of potato tubers from highland and simultaneously affected the average sprouting rate, sprout length and number of sprouts at different storage stages, which indicated obvious interacting correlations between DLS treatments and potato varieties. Especially for 'Mira', the shortest average sprout length (2.7 mm) was obtained under 40–200 lx light level, while 'Chuanyu 117' had the shortest average sprout length (1.3 mm) under 5–10 lx and its sprout length was also controlled within 2.3 mm under 200–2000 lx. In the cultivation experiment that followed, the potato tubers with 4–6 mm and 2–3 mm sprout length had the highest yield after 90 days and 110 days planting, respectively. Overall, these results demonstrated that for seed potatoes harvested from the highland area followed by storing for 30 days in the lowland, the sprout length can be better controlled at 2–3 mm to obtain short and strong sprouts when stored under 40–200 lx or 200–2000 lx diffused light for 60 days, which is especially suitable in terms of fast field emergence after planting and final tuber yield for the autumn and winter cultivation of potato in the Chengdu Plain. It is also suggested that the DLS technique on seed potatoes could be used in the mixed single and double-cropping areas in Sichuan and other areas with similar geographical and climatic conditions. The findings of this study have several important implications in the storage, transportation, processing as well as seed potato market for commercial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]