Predicting potato plant vigor from the seed tuber properties

Abstract

The vigor of potato plants is of crucial importance for potato seed producers, who are interested in predicting it at scale by exploiting the dependence of plant growth and development on the origin and physiological state of the seed tuber. In this article we present the results of a three-year long experiment in which we studied six potato varieties in three test fields. We identify a 73– overall correlation in the vigor of plants from the same seedlot grown in different test fields. Similarly, the biochemical tuber data produce plant vigor predictions that correlate up to 70– with the measurements. However, these relatively large data and prediction correlations are mostly due to the strong dependence of the seedlot vigor on the tuber genotype. For five out of six studied varieties, variety-specific cross-field and cross-year vigor predictions produce negligible or even negative correlations when the seed tubers and young plants experience environmental stress. At the same time, for the variety that appeared to be less sensitive to environmental stresses, we obtained cross-field and cross-year vigor predictions correlating up to with the measurements. Analysis of individual predictor variables, such as the abundance of a particular metabolite, indicates that the vigor-enhancing properties of the seed tubers are also variety-specific and that the FTIR spectroscopy data is the most reliable predictor.