| dc.description.abstract | English:
Sweet potato consumption in Norway has steadily increased since the early 2010s. Currently, nearly all sweet potato being sold in Norwegian stores are imported from countries in far-away parts of the world. Recent developments by various Scandinavian initiatives have proven that a local sweetpotato production is possible, and with the right adjustments; a high yielding crop. Selecting good hybrids that maximize yield and/or have other positive properties in a colder climate is imperative if sweet potato production in Norway is to be a successful operation. In this experiement, I will try to grow four different sweet potato varieties under the same conditions in south-eastern Norway,and uncover any differences and similarities between them regarding yield per plant, amount of tubers and individual tuber weights.
Four different sweet potato hybrids were planted in pairs in a randomized order on two plots divided in two planting rows each (day 0). The plants were measured one from each pair manually three times during the growing season: at week 4, 7 and 10. Shoot length (cm), number of nodes on the longest stem, number of shoots on each plant, and leaf area (cm2) on third lead from top of longest stem, were measured. Leaf area was registered with the iOS app ‘LeafByte’. Water was given as needed, and high-potassium fertilizer was given before planting and at four points under the growing season. The sweet potato tubers were harvested at 16 weeks, or 112 days after planting. For each plant, total tuber weight, number of tubers (Ø 0,5 cm), and the four largest individual tubers (g) were measured.
Of 81 planted slips, only 45 survived the first weeks. ‘Rosa’ was excluded from statistical analysis because it only had one surviving plant. Of the three varieties that had viable survival rates for use in the analysis, ‘No. 5‘ had significantly higher yields and number of tubers compared to the two other hybrids, ‘Mira’ and ‘Brandgul’. These two hybrids had no significant difference between them.
The ‘No. 5’ hybrid appears to be more successful in the experiment, but because of the differences in condition of the slips pre-planting the actual difference between yield from initially healthy slips is uncertain. Additional experiments are required if this is to be uncovered. | en_US |
