Predicting potato plant vigor from the seed tuber properties

The vigor of potato plants, defined as the canopy area at the end of the exponential growth stage, depends on the origin and physiological state of the seed tuber. Experiments carried out with six potato varieties in three test fields over three years show that there is a 73%-90% correlation in the vigor of the plants from the same seedlot grown in different test fields. However, these correlations are not always observed on the level of individual varieties and vanish or become negative when the seed tubers and young plants experience environmental stress. A comprehensive study of the association between the vigor and the seed tuber biochemistry has revealed that, while 50%-70% of the variation in the plant vigor is explained by the tuber data, the vigor is dominated by the potato genotype. Analysis of individual predictors, such as the abundance of a particular metabolite, indicates that the vigor enhancing properties of the seed tubers differ between genotypes. Variety-specific models show that, for some varieties, up to 30% of the vigor variation within the variety is explained by and can be predicted from the tuber biochemistry, whereas, for other varieties, the association between the tuber composition and the vigor is much weaker.