Abstract

A field study was conducted at Horticulture and Landscaping Department, College of Agriculture, Tikrit University, Iraq during the spring season of 2018. The experiment was carried out using Split-Plot Design according to randomized complete block design. Two cultivars of potato (Fontane and Arizona) were placed in main plots, three spraying concentrations (0, 5 and 10 mg/l) of benzyl-adenine (BA) and two spraying levels (0 and 5 mg/l) of boron (B) were placed in sub-plots with three replications. The spraying of BA and B significantly affected the number of tubers per plant, tuber yield and protein content in potato, whereas weight of tuber of potato was not affected by BA and B sprayings. The number of tubers per plant increased significantly with the application of boron from 56.44 tubers under control where no boron was applied to 62.61 tubers per plant with the spraying of boron @ 5 mg/l. The number of tubers per plant decreased significantly with the spraying of BA in both Fontane and Arizona cultivars. The Arizona cultivar of potato produced higher tuber weight (190 g) compared to Fontane cultivar which produced 170 g tuber weight. The tuber weight of potato cultivars was not affected significantly by spraying BA and B. The tuber yield reduced significantly with increasing levels of spraying BA, from 57.33 t/ha under control where no BA was sprayed to 50.22 and 46.22 t/ha with the spraying of BA @ 5 and 10 mg/l, respectively. The protein content reduced significantly from 9.54% under BA0 to 7.49 and 8.55% under BA1 and BA2 respectively. However, the protein content in potato was not affected by spraying of boron. On the basis of this study, it can be concluded that cultivar Arizona was greater than Fontane with higher tuber yield. Application of boron along with benzine-adenine significantly reduced the performance of potato cultivar Fontane but increased in cultivar Arizona. The optimum spraying level of benzine-adenine was 5 mg/l for obtaining higher number of tubers per plant, tuber weight, tuber yield and protein content of potato cultivar Arizona.