ANBAR JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES

Abstract

This study was conducted in the field and cold storage unit, Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, University of Baghdad, during Autumn 2004 and spring 2005, two sizes (20-35) mm and (40-55) mm were used, the types of nutrient solution (grow more, grow plus, king life) were sprayed twice, the first after 45 days from planting and the second after 21 days from the first sprays.
After the harvest, curing was done and the potatoes tubers were kept in bags with 5 kgs for the experimental unit with 3 replicate, CRD were used. All the treatments were stored at 4 + 2 o C for 3 months. Reconditioning were used for the potatoes taken from the cold store.
The experimental results shows that no significant differences due to the seed sizes in the percentage of weight loss in the first season, while the smaller seed size enhanced the weight loss up to 4.88% as compared with the large tuber seeds which reduced it to 3.99 %.
Spraying with grow more increased the percentage of weight loss up to 4.42% as compared with spraying with grow plus which reduced this percentage to 3.66% for the first season. In the second season, spraying with king life increased this percentage up to 5.97% as compared with spraying with grow more which reduced this percentage to 3.41% at the end of store period.
There is no significant differences due to tuber seed size and type of nutrient solutions used in this study on the percentage of decay.
There is no significant differences due to the tuber sizes used in this study in the number of sprouted eyes in the first season. The small size tubers increased this percentage up to 61.1% in the second season as compared with large size tuber which reduced this percentage to 57.1 %.
The control treatment significantly increased the percentage of sprouted eyes up to 46.9 % as compared with the treatment with grow plus while reduced this percentage to 37.7 % in the first season, while in the second season treatment with grow more increased the percentage up to 69.2 % as compared with control which cases a reduction of this percentage to 50.7 %.