Abstract

In Peru, potato cultivation represents 25% of the agricultural gross domestic product yet only 0.2% of the agamic seed used is from certified sources. The use of temporary immersion bioreactors (TIB) has improved the quality of microtubers micropropagated along with savings in costs of production. The current study investigated the agronomic performances of Peruvian Canchan potato microtubers derived from TIB (basic agamic seed 1 and 2) under the low-input agro-technology in the coastal zone of Peru. Following 75 days of growth, plants derived from microtubers produced in TIBs displayed slower vegetative growth than those from conventional tubers. However, at harvest, these differences were no longer apparent as the plants from TIB derived-basic agamic seed 1 and 2 produced the highest numbers of tubers per plant. Although plants raised from conventional tubers produced the highest fresh mass of tubers, significantly more propagules were produced by plants regenerated from basic agamic seed 1 and 2 derived from micropropagation in liquid media. These results demonstrate that much more planting material (seed tubers) can be obtained from microtubers in the field (basic agamic seed 1) than from the conventional commercial seed tubers.

Key words: Agronomic traits, micropropagation, potato microtuber, Solanum tuberosum L.,  temporary immersion bioreactors.