Enhancement productivity of Potato plant using electromagnetic pulses

Abstract

Potatoes are a very important vegetable crops in Egypt both for local consumption and for export. Potato crop is suffering from destructive bacterial wilt disease called brown rot. Control of that potato brown rot has proven to be a serious task. Chemical control was tried without much success with risk of hazardous effects on Human and environment. Recently, a new study indicated that the exposure to 1.0 Hz positive electric fields for one hour caused significant inhibition in bacterial growth causing brown rot. However, the environmentally friendly new method Raises the importance to study the effect on healthy potato plants. In this work the effects of 1.0 Hz electric field on the physiological properties of healthy potato (Solanum tuberosum L.). plant is studied. Lab and field experiment were done to test the effect of 1.0 Hz Electric field. the Lab exposure done on (Spunta) in clay and sand soil, Results indicated significant increase in shoot, root, and tuber weights and lengths and increase of plant and tuber N, P, K+ and Ca2+ content along with total chlorophyll, carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, ascorbic acid and anti-oxidant enzymes. However, no change in tuber per plant number was detected. The second experiment were done on two potato varieties (Spunta and Almond) in a clay soil. the experiment showed similar results but tuber weight of almond showed slight increase but not significant unlike Spunta which showed more increase of tuber weight the both varieties demonstrated increase of tuber carbohydrate content and yield. It can be concluded from the present findings that the new technique of treatment of this pest is a safe modality, environmentally friendly without residuals after treatment and can increase the productivity of healthy plant.