• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.447-451
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• 2004

This study was conducted to establish the proper techniques of the recirculating wick hydroponics for safe seed tuber proliferation of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L. CV. Dejima). To achieve these, several intact tubers (5, 10 and 20 g) and cut seed-pieces (two or four) were treated in wick hydroponic system beds. A polystyrene box (31cm in width, 20cm in height, 51cm in length, and $0.031m^3$ in volume) was placed on a styrofoam hox. Eight wicks $(width\;1.5cm\;{\times}\;length\;40cm) $ were put into each polystyrene hox and the boxes were filled with perlite + peatmoss (1 : 2, v/v) medium. Top fresh weight per plant increased with increasing the tuber size from 10 to 30g/tuber. As the tuber size increases from 10 to 30 g/tuher in case of uncut tuber, the marketable tuber (>5g) production per plant increased from 83.8 to 141.8 g/plant and the marketable tuber (>5g) production per plant of cut tuber was slightly higher than that of uncut treatment. Total tuber yield ranged from 4.16 to $6.56kg/m^2$ and the percentage of seed tubers was greater than $97\%$ for all treatments. These results indicate that seed tuber should be cut to produce large tuber $(\geq10g)$ in the recirculating wick hydroponic system.