Potato J. 38 (1): January - June, 2011 13 Potato J. 38 (1): 14-17, 2011 POSSIBILITIES OF ENHANCING POTATO PRODUCTION IN NON-TRADITIONAL AREAS J.S. Minhas, S. Rawat, P.M. Govindakrishnan 1 and D. Kumar 2 ABSTRACT: Potato cultivation is limited to relatively cooler areas and seasons throughout the world due to photo and thermo- sensitivity of the crop. Attempts to take potato to warmer areas have resulted in drastic reduction in tuber yield or even failure of tuberization. The mean night temperature in large parts of peninsular India are between 18 – 20 O C and climate change is likely to lead to an overall temperature increase of 1-1.5 O C, therefore, heat tolerant varieties which can tuberize and bulk well up to 20 O C night temperature are needed for these areas. CPRI has developed a heat tolerant variety Kufri Surya. In the present study, potential areas for the deployment of this variety were identified by weather simulation studies. Sixteen locations in non-traditional potato growing areas of peninsular India were selected and an estimate of the available number of days in a year suitable for potato crop at different night temperature scenarios, viz. 18, 20 and 22 O C were simulated. The results showed that heat tolerant varieties having 2-4 O C advantage for tuberization were suitable for more number of locations and could grow for a longer duration as compared to existing high yielding varieties. INTRODUCTION High temperature stress in potato lowers tuber yield both through reduction in the assimilate supply and reduced partitioning of assimilates to tubers (8, 11, 7, 12). The major effect of night temperature is on carbon partitioning among various plant parts, with temperatures above 18 °C favouring diversion of carbon towards the above ground parts at the cost of tubers, making the plants grow very tall and reducing harvest index (14). The changes brought about by the high night temperature are because of the disturbance in the hormonal balance, particularly gibberellic acid that increases in shoots thus promoting vegetative growth (4, 1). Spatial and temporal distribution of potato cultivation is determined mainly by temperature. In India about 80% of the potatoes are grown in north-western Indo- Gangetic plains during winter from October to February. About 10% are grown in Himalayas and Nilgiri hills during summer and only 7% in the warmer plateau region during rainy season as well as winter (9). Though, the plateau areas account for 7% of the area under the crop in India, the production from this region is only about 4% and not commensurate with the area. Moreover, there is a huge potential for increasing the area under the crop in this region since in many of the plateau regions potato can be grown in the Kharif season and this would lead to temporal diversification of the crop. Temporal diversification of potato is all the more important in India since most of the produce of the Indo-Gangetic plains is stored in cold stores which add to the energy requirement as well as the cost of the produce. Thus, there is urgent need to develop varieties which would perform well under warmer temperatures so that the Kharif crop becomes economically viable. Many potato varieties developed in India hitherto are not suitable for non-traditional areas or season mainly because of adverse temperature conditions. Therefore, CPRI initiated research on developing varieties for warm temperature conditions and this has led to a new heat 1 Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla - 171 001, India. 2 Central Potato research Institute Campus Modipuram - 250 110, U.P., India. E-mail: minhas.joginder@gmail.com