Abstract

The use of cut sets, i.e., seed tubers cut into two or three bits according to size, for planting the crop, has been common since the early days of the introduction of the potato as a cultivable food crop. The earliest record of this dates back to the year 1834 when Lindley (8) reported the development of seedlings even from mere potato peelings. While a good amount of work on the use of cut sets has been done in the important potato growing countries, analysis of the data of the various workers reveals the difficulty of forming a definite conclusion of the superiority or otherwise of the whole seed over the cut set, since the yield from both these kinds of seed material seems to be conditioned by the nature of the soil, climate, facilities for irrigation, the variety used, size of the whole seed or out set and possibly other factors. During the years 1938 to 1941 trials were conducted at this station using whole seed and two kinds of cut sets viz., (1) tubers cut transversely with crown ends and heel ends. The findings of these earlier investigations, in relation to the more recent experiments conducted during the two years 1949 '50 and 1950-'51 reported in this paper, are discussed under the head Experimental Data and Results. The trials were concluded in 1951.

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