A New Heat Tolerant Potato Variety Kufri Lima Suitable for Early Planting in North-Western Plains of India

Kufri Lima is an early maturing, heat tolerant and disease resistant potato variety with ovoid tubers, white-cream smooth skin, eyes shallow and pale cream flesh. It is resistant to PYX, PVY & moderately resistant to root knot nematode, susceptible to late blight. Kufri Lima is tolerant to hopper and mite burn under heat stress conditions. The produce of Kufri Lima is suitable for table purpose as the variety produces attractive, tubers without any deformities like cracking or hollow heart. The variety produces high tuber yield with high tuber dry matter.


INTRODUCTION
The elite CIP clone 397065.28 (CP4054) developed at International potato center (CIP), Lima Peru in 1997 was brought to India in 2007 under ICAR-CIP collaborative programme on potato crop improvement. In India, the advanced clone was evaluated for early planting conditions. A collaborative study was initiated at Shamgarh, Karnal, Haryana during 2008-16 to identify its suitability for semi-arid, agro-ecology of Haryana under AICRP trials. Being elite advanced clone, it was not bred in India, it was released directly from clone. Kufri Lima is high yielding varieties for early heat tolerant regions for early planting conditions in Indian plains with good keeping quality for table purpose.
To meet the needs of the increasing population of the country, the production of potato in the country has to be increased to 122 million tons by 2050 and the productivity from 23 tons to 35 tons per hectare (CPRI, 2015). To meet this production target there are plenty of challenges ahead for India in general and Haryana in particular. These include seed potato production under climate change scenario, the development of climate smart cultivars for the changed climate and increase in productivity by making quality seed available to the farmers.
Further, Haryana required potato varieties with qualities of early planting, heat tolerance and virus resistance, in order to fit in the ricewheat crop system in non-traditional warmer districts of Haryana. The early harvest of short duration varieties would allow better market prices to farmers as well.
The heat tolerance and disease resistance are the very important criteria for the new varieties to sustain the production for future needs of India. Hence, studies were initiated at Potato Technology Centre, Shamgarh, Karnal, Haryana in collaboration with International Potato Centre (CIP), Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI) to identify suitable varieties for semi-arid, agroecology of Haryana for creating better income opportunities for the farmers. Experiments were planned at PTC, Shamgarh with the objective to select robust, early heat tolerant and virus resistant potato varieties and to strengthen institutional capacity for quality seed production at farm-level and participatory multiple-environment selection of climate smart varieties to cater to the needs of the farmers of Haryana. Karnal had been always a very important district to evaluate the suitability of Kufri Lima in northern plains. There is need to extend the potato cultivation in the non-traditional districts of Haryana with heat tolerant early bulking varieties hence a project under RKVY for quality seed potato cultivation has been working for past two years, and Kufri Lima had been found a suitable for production of seed for Kufri Lima, as this has been one of the preferred variety by farmers since long.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Under AICRP one of the districts selected was Karnal for evaluating suitability of CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) for heat tolerance and disease resistance at Haryana. This clone from CIP was evaluated in the early Rabi season from 15 September onwards with the early heat tolerant check varieties like K. Surya after primary trial evaluation in warmer district Ladol of Gujarat. Under AICRP, replicated yield trials with controls were conducted during 2011-17 at Karnal, Haryana along with 2 other districts like Ladol, at Gujarat and Burdwan at West Bengal.
Since the study emphasise to find the suitable varieties for non-traditional areas of Haryana the trials, evaluations and results discussed are from AICRP (All India coordinated research project) trials conducted at PTC Karnal, Haryana. In AICRP, replicated yield trials with controls were conducted during 2011-12 and 2012-13 at Karnal along with the on-farm trials conducted during 2013-14 Karnal, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016. The CP4054 (Kufri Lima) performed well at all the locations than the control.
Tubers: Tubers (5-7), ovoid, skin white-cream, eyes shallow, eyebrows normal, flesh cream, texture mealy. Sprout: Sprout red purple, shape conical, pubescence at sprout Early bulker (80DAP) but best at Medium (90 DAP) Agronomic features: The following norms are recommended Planting time: 15-20 days early planting than main season crop with Seed rate of 35-40 q/ha, Seed size: 40-60 gram with Spacing of 60 x 20 cm in a Normal regional fertilizer application using 50% N at the time of planting and 50% N at earthing up. Plant protection is achieved by Imidacloprid 200 SL, @ 0.3ml/litre or Thiamethoxam 25WGm, @0.5g/litre (seed crop only).

Yield Performance of Kufri Lima
The AICRP Trials were conducted from 2011-17 before it could be released as variety for which the yield of marketable tuber and total tuber yield were taken the criteria's to evaluate for already existing similar varieties for heat tolerance and early bulking like Kufri Surya, Kufri Bahar and in few instance with Kufri Badshah.

Evaluation of CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) clones dehaulmed at 75 days
The mean performance of CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) was compared with Kufri Surya, Kufri Bahar in years 2016-17 the total tuber yield was recorded under AICRP again showed a remarkable difference (Table 4) for on-form trial at 75 days. This indicated CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) superiority in mean total tuber yield increase was 21.26 % more than Kufri Surya at northern plane that included Karnal. While for total marketable tuber yields CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) showed superiority in mean marketable tuber yield increase was 30.92 % more than Kufri Surya at at northern plane that included Karnal. Even the dry matter was higher in CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) at 17.5 % than for Kufri Surya at 16 %.  Keeping Quality Evaluation CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) has very good keeping quality with long tuber dormancy, low rottage, low weight loss and low sprouting intensity. Tubers of Kufri Surya, Kufri Bahar and Kufri Badshah from the main crop were stored at room temperature (24-35°C) from mid-March to mid-May during 2013-14 at Karnal. The keeping quality of CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) was compared with Kufri Surya, Kufri Badshah and, Kufri Bahar in years 2013-15 at 75 days was found that dormancy period was less than 6 weeks in CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) under AICRP, Karnal. Even physiological weight loss was minimum 9.14% in CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) highest was in Kufri Surya at 10.55% again showed a remarkable difference (Table 6) for on form trial at 75 days. The same was found true for total weight loss in CP-4054 (Kufri Lima) at 9.98% than for Kufri Surya at 10.55 %.