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Potatoe seeds

Objective:

To determine whether ozone treatment has any negative or positive effect on seed potatoes and the effect on yield.

Tests were done by the University of Pannon’s Potatoe Research Center. The potatoes were produced by Solanum Kft., they were 35-55 mm SE, first degree tubers.

Treatments:

Time: Approximately 7 months after harvesting at the beginning of April 2010

Varieties (types): White Lady SE, Rioja SE from Keszthely, healthy Tubers. Rioji I, Tubers with 100% maval-fusarium from Berzenc.

Treatment: Untreated, 12 hour and 24 hour Ozone treatment with Mi-HiTech Kft.’s Ecozone Ozone Generator

Planting: Last week of April 2010, each variety 2 x 10 tubers

Factors examined: number of sprouts, number of tubers, yield size

Harvest: First week September2010

Results, Sprouts:

pannon sprouts

In the case of the White Lady, 12 hour ozone treatment increased significantly the number of sprouts. The increase was 3.1 sprouts. 24 hour treatment also increased the number of sprouts by 1.1 but was less effective. The optimum treatment is surpassed by the 24 hour treatment.

In the case of both Rio types, 12 hour ozone treatment did not significantly grow the number of sprouts (0.4 and 0.9 sprouts/tuber) but statistically this is not significant. The longer treatment made the Kesthely tubers exterior look healthier but reduced the number of sprouts. In the case of the Berenc tubers which had a fusarium pathogen, the treatment had a greater effect than with the healthy potatoes. The 12 hour treatment increased the sprout count by 0.9, but the 24 hour treatment significantly increased the sprout count by 1.5 per stem.

Potatoe seed count:

pannon potatoe seed count

Ozone treatment has different affects by variety of potatoe seeds. For the White Lady the 12 hour treatment produced 6.3 more potatoes seeds, the optimal treatment time was surpassed by a 24 hour treatment where the poatoe seed count decreased by 0.4 .

Yield per plant:

pannon yield per plant
As can be seen from the table yield increased for all the varieties due to the Ozone treatment, but the 24 hour treatment decreased the yield for the White Lady by 77 grams. 

Conclusion:

The 24 and 12 hour treatment did not have a negative effect on sprout production. In the case of the healthy White Lady tubers the stem count was reduced somewhat due to the longer treatment. In the case of the fusarium infected Rio from Berenc, the Ozone had a more positive effect than the White lady and in the case of 24 hour treatment the yield improved significantly while decreasing the White Lady’s yield somewhat. Rio yield increased by 140 grams versus decreasing it by 77 grams for the White Lady. In the case of the White Lady the shorter Ozone treatment was more effective increasing yield by 15 grams, but not increasing it significantly.

The increased sprout count also increased the number of tubers.

The positive effects of the Ozone treatment should be experimented on potatoes when they are in storage and on a larger sample size say 4 x 40 pieces and maybe 1-2 more varieties.













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