Summary
The variation in duration of dormancy within a seed tuber lot was studied over three years by harvesting individual plants of cvs Diamant and Désirée from field plots and by storing the tubers at 18°C. The variation in dormancy within a tuber lot was large (especially for cv. Diamant) and was mainly caused by variation within plants.
For cv. Diamant there was a close negative relation between dormancy and the cube root of tuber weight, whereas for cv. Désirée a relation with tuber weight was almost absent.
The duration of dormancy of a seed lot comprising tubers with a narrow range in weight can be well described by two parameters. It is proposed to maintain the moment of 80% sprouting as the criterion for the end of dormancy of a tuber lot and to characterize the spread in dormancy duration by the time lapse between 10% and 90% sprouting.
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Van Ittersum, M.K. Variation in the duration of tuber dormancy within a seed potato lot. Potato Res 35, 261–269 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02357706
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02357706