Glasshouse Evaluation of Drought Susceptibility in Four Commercial Potato Cultivars in Southern Africa

Glasshouse Evaluation of Drought Susceptibility in Four Commercial Potato Cultivars in Southern Africa | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Glasshouse Evaluation of Drought Susceptibility in Four Commercial Potato Cultivars in Southern Africa Maipato Margaret Mota, Christell Van der Vyver, Cecile Bester, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7764015/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is a cool-season crop highly sensitive to abiotic stresses, with drought emerging as one of the most significant yield-limiting factors for yield. A glasshouse trial was conducted to evaluate the drought response of four commercially grown potato cultivars in southern Africa - BP1, Up-to-Date, Hertha and Mondial - under four water regimes: control (80% field water capacity), mild (60% field water capacity), severe (40% field water capacity), and extreme stress (30% field water capacity). Morpho-physiological traits, biomass, and yield components were measured, alongside stress tolerance indices (Stress Tolerance Trait Index, Stress Tolerance Index, Yield Index, Relative Stress Index, and Tolerance Index). The experiment was carried out with a completely randomised design, replicated four times per variety. The results indicated that reduced water availability had a significant impact on all measured traits. The most severe reductions occurred under the 30% FWC treatment. Among the four cultivars, BP1 exhibited the highest drought tolerance (Stress Tolerance Trait Index = 72.03%), followed by Mondial, Hertha, and Up-to-Date. These findings provide critical insights into varietal performance under water stress and support the selection of drought-resilient potato genotypes for cultivation in southern Africa. Solanum tuberosum drought stress morpho-physiological yield Full Text Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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