Managing soil health and crop productivity in potato: a challenging test system

Abstract

Maintaining the health, and therefore productivity, of agricultural soils is vital for continued sustainable agricultural production to support the world’s growing population. Potatoes are grown in a variety of agro-ecological systems and are one of the most important food crops worldwide. Potato crops are demanding on the soil with significant heavy machinery traffic, intensive tillage operations and high inputs of fertiliser, pesticides and water. Maintaining or improving soil health can therefore be challenging for growers. This review considers the different aspects of soil health in a potato production context, how to measure them and how they can be influenced by management practices. Soil health is a complex concept encompassing the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil and their role in ecosystem services and the growth of plants. Although our understanding of soil health and its impact on crop productivity has improved in the last 30 years, many knowledge gaps remain.

Use of Crop Rotations, Cover Crops and Green Manures for Disease Suppression in Potato Cropping Systems

“…In general, rotation crops grown as green manures were more effective than when grown as cover crops for their effects on tuber yield and disease, but positive effects on yield and disease reduction (albeit reduced) were still observed when grown as a harvested crop and then remaining residues incorporated. The importance of crop rotations and soil health management practices in productive potato cropping systems has been documented around the world [12,20,23,110,111,114,115]. The use of diseasesuppressive crops and other soil health management practices can substantially reduce soil-borne disease problems, but cannot completely eliminate them, may take time to develop, and should be used in conjunction with other approaches to achieve sustainable disease management.…”

“…In eastern Canada, the use of cover crops and manure increased microbial activity and potato yields, provided better nutrient utilization, and reduced disease [20,23]. In Australia, the close relationship between soil health and productivity has been documented [114], and in New Zealand, improvements in soil health based on cropping history were shown to be associated with improved yield [115]. [110,111]).…”

Irreplaceable Role of Amendment-Based Strategies to Enhance Soil Health and Disease Suppression in Potato Production

“…Soil microbial communities include many plant pathogens and also beneficial microorganisms that suppress plant pathogens directly through antagonistic activities, or by inducing plant resistance [ 4 , 35 , 36 ]. Furthermore, numerous signal molecules from plants and soil microbes mediate the relationships between microbe–microbe and microbe–plant networks [ 19 , 25 ]. Put simply, soil is where plant pathogens survive and where disease control can also be found ( Figure 1 ).…”

“…Managing soilborne pathogens starts from improving soil health [ 19 , 25 , 29 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Soil health forms the foundation and conditions for plant health, whereas plant health is the goal of crop production and an indicator of soil health.…”

“…However, limited resistant germplasm of potato cannot satisfy the need for diversified varieties for controlling all facultative and soilborne pathogens [ 20 , 21 , 22 ], and pesticides can be a good option, although not for all fungal pathogens [ 23 ]. Pesticides also bring ecological, sustainability, social impacts, and public concerns [ 24 , 25 ]. To keep potato production sustainable, cultural practices, such as soil amendments have been extensively studied and applied [ 19 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ].…”