Knowledge

Potato is a food crop in many countries of the world, where it is the first alternative to grain crops in solving the problem of food. Potato in Egypt is at the forefront of export vegetable crops Potassium is one of the determinants of the yield and quality of potato crop. Potassium works on:

• Potassium helps to increases transfer of sugars from the leaves to tubers besides its physiological role in regulation of photosynthesis.
• Has an important role in photosynthesis process and increase vegetative growth.
• Increases efficiency of plant absorption of water and nutrients.
• Increased resistance of potato plants to insect and fungal diseases especially leaves Blighters.
• Increase the weight and size of tubers and improve their quality.
• Increases the resistance of plants to environmental stress factors (high temperatures - frost - drought - salinity).

Potatoes crops with high consumption of phosphorus and has many physiological effects on potato crop, including: -

• Increases the number and size of tubers and yields.
• Stimulate root growth and distributions, and increase tuberization percentage.
• Includes synthesis of many nucleic acids and proteins.
• A major source of energy in the plant.
• Has an important role in the formation of carbohydrates.
• Increases plant resistance to frost and drought.

The most important physiological effects of calcium on potato yield

• Increases vegetative and root growth.
• Increases resistance of potato plant to fungal diseases such as blights.
• Increases yield, weight and tubers size.
• Increases hardness and quality of tubers.
• Increased storage ability of tubers
• Increases resistance of tubers to physiological disorder.