Abstract

Plant density affected yield, quality and water use efficiency. Little information describing plant density to optimize yield and quality of potato production is available in the Jordan Valley. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of plant density on the yield and yield components of the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) cultivar “Spunta” grown in the middle of the Jordan Valley. Five different densities of plants (41,600 plants ha^-1 (D1), 56,000 plants ha^-1 (D2), 83,200 plants ha^-1 (D3), 28,000 plants ha^-1 (D4), and 41,600 plants ha^-1 (D5) were randomly distributed over five replicate sites during the growing season from November 2013 to March 2014. Plant height, number of branches, fresh and dry weight of potato plants, tuber number, tuber weight, total yield, specific gravity and water use efficiency of potato plant grown under different plant density were measured. It was found that the productivity of potato increased with increasing plant density, with the highest total, marketable, and non-marketable yields being obtained at densities of 83,200 seeds ha^-1, and the lowest occurring at 41,600 seeds ha^-1, which equated to total fresh yields of 45.1 and 25.3 tons ha^-1, respectively. The highest water use efficiency for marketable yield (11.9 kg m^-3) was obtained at a density of 83,200 seeds ha^-1, whereas the lowest water use efficiency (7.5 kg m^-3) was obtained at a density of 41,600 seeds ha^-1. The specific gravity ranged from 1.04 to 1.08 and the average tuber weight ranged from 77.02 g at a density of 83,200 seeds ha^-1 to 115.84 g at a density of 28,000 seeds ha^-1.

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