Molecular Soil Biology 2025, Vol.16, No.6, 306-313 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/msb 310 5 Yield and Yield Component Measurements 5.1 Total tuber yield After harvest, border rows and sample rows were removed first. All tubers in the net plot were then dug out and weighed. The weight was converted to fresh tuber yield (t/ha). In a 7-variety test in the central highlands of Ethiopia, the variety Belete had a total yield of 32.8 t/ha, while the local variety Nech Abeba produced only 13.8 t/ha. This shows that, under the same management, yield differences between varieties were more than 2.4 times (Tessema et al., 2020). In a 21-variety trial in eastern India, yields ranged from 21.8 to 35.5 t/ha. The medium-maturing variety Kufri Arun and the early-maturing Kufri Pukhraj both produced more than 33 t/ha (Das et al., 2021). In the present study, total yield of each variety was measured under three irrigation levels. Analysis of variance was used to test the main effect of irrigation and the interaction between variety and irrigation. 5.2 Yield components Ukrainian studies found that early-maturing varieties typically produce about 8.8 tubers per plant, mid-maturing varieties produce around 7.7, and late-maturing varieties give about 8.9. The average tuber weight is 55.9 g for early-maturing, 85.6 g for mid-maturing, and 109.6 g for late-maturing varieties (Yatsenko and Yatsenko, 2025). When larger seed potatoes were used, the commercial yields of Belete and Gudanie varieties increased to 39.13 and 38.63 t/ha, respectively. In contrast, local varieties planted with smaller seed potatoes produced only 12.12 t/ha (Asnake et al., 2023). 5.3 Water-use efficiency indicators When irrigation is reduced to 75% of the usual level, water usage during the growing season goes down by about 25%, saving roughly 80mm of water per hectare. This leads to an 18±4% increase in crop water use efficiency (Mora-Sanhueza et al., 2025). In the Hexi Oasis, a combination of plastic film mulching, drip irrigation, and regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) is used. Cutting back on water during tuber formation causes a small yield drop of around 7.16%. However, water productivity goes up by 7.53%, and irrigation efficiency improves by 13.18%. But if water is reduced later in the growing season, the yield decline is bigger, and the improvements in water efficiency are less noticeable (Pan et al., 2025). 6. Results 6.1 Yield response of potato varieties under different irrigation regimes A study in Chile found that using more water (T2, 130% of T1) led to a much higher yield compared to the low water treatments. The moderate water deficit treatment (75% of T1) still gave a similar yield to full irrigation, even though it used 25% less water. This shows that after a certain point, using more water doesn’t always result in a bigger yield (Mora-Sanhueza et al., 2025). In the Hexi Oasis irrigation area, full irrigation at 65%~75% of field capacity (FC) gave the best photosynthesis rate and dry matter accumulation. But when mild deficit irrigation (55-65% FC) was used during the seedling and tuber formation stages, the yield was 42,963.97 kg/ha, which was close to the full irrigation yield, and it saved water too (Li et al., 2025). 6.2 Interaction effects between variety and irrigation regime The interaction between variety and irrigation often means that different varieties lose yield at different levels under the same reduced irrigation. Based on this, varieties can be grouped as “stable” or “sensitive” to water stress. When water shortage occurs during the tuber formation stage, plant height, transpiration intensity, photosynthetic rate and water use efficiency are all closely related to the yield of individual tubers. The correlation coefficient is between 0.65 and 0.95. At the mature stage, the aboveground biomass shows a significant negative correlation with the tuber yield instead. Researchers screened varieties such as "Challenger", "Sifra" and "Tyson", and believed that they had good drought resistance throughout the growth period (Zhang et al., 2025). When diseases, high temperatures and drought occurred simultaneously that night, the output of this type of variety dropped significantly. The European varieties grown in Cameroon have a yield of only 0.72~3.33 t/ha. The varieties are relatively sensitive to water shortage and diseases, and have insufficient stress resistance (Tatah et al., 2023).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==