Establishing the Nitrogen Dilution Curve for Potato Cultivar Bintje in Belgium

Abstract

The nitrogen nutrition index (NNI) is recognized as a reliable plant-based method for diagnosing the crop nitrogen status (CNS). The NNI is based on the concept of critical nitrogen (Nc) dilution curve describing the Nc concentration in the whole plant as a function of the total crop biomass (W). The objectives of this study were (i) to establish the specific potato Nc dilution curve for cv. Bintje under Belgian growing conditions; (ii) to assess if the established curve for cv. Bintje could be used for cv. Charlotte; (iii) to compare the established curve with the existing Nc potato curves; and (iv) to assess the possibility of using the obtained Nc curve to evaluate the potato CNS and to predict the final yield. Field experiments studying increasing nitrogen (N) rates were conducted at different locations in Belgium for several years. Biomass N concentration and W production were determined at different sampling dates, and the final tuber yield was determined at harvest. At a sampling date, the Nc was determined by selecting the data point from the treatment presenting the highest W. The NNI was calculated as the ratio between the measured N concentration in W and the predicted Nc according to the Nc dilution curve. The Nc curve (Nc (%) = 5.37 W −0.45) was developed for potato for cv. Bintje under Belgian conditions matching also for cv. Charlotte. The Belgian Nc curve presented similar values as the curves developed previously in Scotland and the Netherlands. NNI was related to relative tuber yield (ratio between the tuber yield obtained for a given N rate and the highest tuber yield obtained among all N application rates). The Nc curve and the NNI adequately identified situations of limiting and non-limiting N nutrition and could be used to establish the potato CNS and to predict the final yield.

Evaluation of Variable Rate Nitrogen and Reduced Irrigation Management for Potato Production

“…Further, if reference strips are prohibitively difficult to adopt in a production or research setting, then petioles would be the best method to determine crop N status. Future work should be directed toward developing a method to determine crop N status from remote sensing data without the need for a reference strip such as the N nutrition index (Ben Abdallah et al, 2016;Lu et al, 2017).…”

Quantitative plant resistance enhances pathogen adaptation to ecological stresses

“…Pathogenicity, replicated four times for each of the 300 chosen pathogen strains, was determined on Bintje, a variety with no known R genes 68 , using a detached leaf assay as described previously 46 with minor modification. Briefly, pathogen strains were cultured on rye B agar at 19℃ in the dark for five days to generate colonies.…”

Comparison of optical indicators for potato crop nitrogen status assessment including novel approaches based on leaf fluorescence and flavonoid content

“…From the various plant parts (leaves þ stems, tubers and roots), finely crushed samples with a Cyclotec 1093 sample mill (FOSS Tecator) were subjected to analytical measurements of total N concentration conducted with NIR spectroscopy using a FOSS-NIR Systems 6500 scanning instrument (NIR-Systems, Silver Springs, MD) and calibrated using the Dumas Combustion method (LECO, St Joseph MI, USA) and the statistical method developed by Shenk and Westerhaus (1993). The NNI, defined as the ratio between the measured N concentration in shoots and tubers and the predicted critical N concentration (Nc), was calculated according to the Nc dilution curve (Nc (%) ¼ 5.37 W À0.45 , w is the shoot and tuber biomass expressed in t DM ha À1 ) developed for the Bintje potato cultivar under Belgian conditions (Ben Abdallah et al 2016b). In the absence of a reference Nc curve for Charlotte, the NNI for this cultivar was calculated in this study using the same equation as for Bintje.…”