The Suppression of Potato Pathogens Development During Storage Period as Influenced by Air Medium, Contacting With Natural Potassium Salts

Abstract

One of the urgent problems of agricultural production is preservation of the grown yield, minimizing storage losses, which can reach 30-50 percent. The ways to solve this problem are observed in given article. The analysis of existing methods of products storage based on modern technologies is fulfilled. Using of unique properties of natural potassium salts is admitted to be one of promising technologies for potato and root crops storage. The research program has been launched in Perm Federal Research Center of UB RAS to develop new technologies for storage and fertilizing seed potato based on the properties of natural potassium salts and waste products from K-Mg ores. Natural potassium-magnesium salts have a number of specific properties affecting the air medium. One of these properties is the ability to produce light air ions due to air molecules contact with potassium and sodium cations. Such environment has the ability to inhibit the growth of many microorganisms' types, including pathogens, which is used in world practice to treat some chronic human diseases (speleotherapy). Preliminary studies conducted in used drifts of K-Mg ores deposits showed the possibility of storing potato and vegetables in underground storages. The next task is to simulate the conditions of underground drifts in typical potato storages. The most promising variations are lining the storage facilities with sylvinite tiles and aerosol treatment as a result of passing an air stream through a layer of sylvinite and the subsequent infiltration of the aerosol through the potato mass. The identification of potato pathogens in samples from the harvest of 2016 and 2017 was carried out after the main storage period. The most common diseases were fusarium, phomosis, as well as bacterial wet rot, late blight presence was insignificant. The number of infected tubers was 10.2 percent of the studied quantity. The primary modeling of storage conditions under the influence of air ions in a special climatic chamber was carried out. The influence of saline saturated

The Use of Potassium Salts Unique Properties for Suppression of Potato Pathogens During Storage Period

“…The experiments on the effect of the air medium contacting with natural potassium salts on potato storing in special climatic chamber were started in 2017 ( Shalimov, et al, 2019 ) and continued in 2020 in typical storage. In particular, at this stage of research, the use of various methods of saturating the air medium with negative air ions and salt aerosol was studied.…”

“…Such environment has the ability to inhibit the growth of potato pathogens (Krasnoshtein et.al., 2008). Preliminary studies fulfilled in Perm Federal Research Center showed that microorganisms colonies number in the air medium saturated with light negative ions and salt aerosol decreased by 13-25% compared with the control ( Shalimov, et al, 2019 ). In this regard, the purpose of this research is to study the impact of these factors on the microclimate of the storage, the ability to inhibit the development of the main pathogens during potato storage, preservation of potato tubers during storage and to test different methods of medium saturation with salt aerosol and light negative ions.…”