Two New Hybrid Varieties of Potato By ICAR to Benefit Processing Industry & Hilly Areas

-- (28 September 2005)

The processing industry requires a potato variety with better tuber specific gravity at the time of harvest, tuber dry matter content, chip colour and reducing sugars and Chipsona-3 is significantly better in all these quality parameters. The new variety is free from all internal and external defects. Currently, only two indigenous processing varieties have been notified in the country and release of this hybrid variety will provide an additional processing variety to the industry.

The Kufri Chipsona-3 hybrid is easy-to-cook, has excellent flavour with best aroma when boiled or baked and is free from discoloration after cooking. There is no cracking, no hollow heart and no deformation, which are encountered in existing varieties. The hybrid maintains excellent processing qualities even after six months of on-farm storage at intermediate temperatures, thus providing raw material to the processing industry for almost round the year.

The hybrid variety, identified for North Indian Plains, gives significant higher yields at 333 quintal/hectare than the earlier varieties of Kufri Chipsona-1 (278 q/ha) and Kufri Chipsona-2 (272 q/ha). It has high tuber dry matter with excellent chip colour and produces acceptable quality chips after storage at 10-12 degree Celsius up to 180 days. Both under laboratory testing and on-line testing in Industry, the hybrid had more than 20% dry matter, excellent chip colour and very low Undesirable Colour of chips than the existing processing varieties. Its round-oval shape makes for low peeling losses and it is highly resistant to late blight. The variety gives highest dry matter yield of 94 q/ha, thus flakes industry would be able to manufacture international quality flakes with high recovery using this variety.

Because of these characteristics, Chipsona-3 can be used both for processing (chips and flakes) as well as table purposes. The higher yields coupled with late blight resistance can make the hybrid an apt replacement of the popular cultivar Kufri Bahar in West-Central Plains. With higher dry matter content, the farmer will have an option to sell the produce the chipping industry or flake industry or in ware market depending upon the demand and profitability.

Another new hybrid variety ‘Kufri Himalini’has been identified by ICAR for commercial cultivation in hilly regions. In this region, late blight in potato crop has become more frequent and intense in last few years and the resistance to late blight was found eroding in existing varieties Kufri Jyoti and Kufri Giriraj. To overcome this, the new hybrid variety has been developed which has higher level of resistance to late blight.

It has medium maturity of 110-120 days and is also adapted to sub-tropical plains, which is an additional feature of this hybrid. It provides a yield advantage of over 10% over Kufri Jyoti and Kufri Giriraj in the plains and its keeping quality is better than all the cultivars developed so far for hill regions. It has been recommended for cultivation in North-Western and North-Eastern hills of the country during summer season.

Release of this hybrid for commercial cultivation in hilly regions would provide an alternative to old cultivars which have succumbed to late blight. High degree of resistance to late blight would reduce the risk of crop failure besides cutting down the cost on fungicide sprays.

These hybrid varieties were identified in recently held Meeting of All India Coordinated Potato Improvement Project (AICRP) at Udaipur. With the objective to initiate independent breeding programmes and to develop potato varieties suitable for different regions, the meeting recommended that region based breeding programmes would be carried out at Bhubaneshwar, Deesa, Hisar, Jorhat, Kalyani, Pantnagar and Srinagar centres.

Varietal improvement had been the most important activity of AICRP (Potato) since its inception. During last 56 years, 38 varieties have been released and most of these varieties have been bred for higher yields.

India is the 3rd largest producer in the world with a production of about 23.12 million tones from about 1.27 million hectares with 18.2 t/ha productivity during 2003-04. The major potato producing states are UP (8.8 mt), West Bengal (7.6 mt), Bihar (1.5 mt), Punjab (1.4 mt), Gujarat (0.74 mt) and Madhya Pradesh (0.62 mt) and they jointly contribute about 90% of the total potato production of the country. West Bengal tops in potato productivity with 24.7 tones/ha followed by Haryana with 24.6 t/ha, Gujarat with 23.9 t/ha and Uttar Pradesh with 20.9 t/ha.

Although, India contributes about 7.6% to the total potato production in the world, the per capita consumption in the country is much less than many of the countries. Less than 1% of the produce is processed in the country and our export share in the world potato trade in 0.45%.