1Tuber Crops Research Centre, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Joydebpur, Gazipur-1701, Bangladesh.
2RARS, BARI, Hathazari.
3Tuber Crops Res. Sub-Station, BARI, Munshiganj, Bangladesh.
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Leaf-bud and apical-bud cutting techniques for rapid increase of seed potato have been studied in three cultivars during 1992–93 and 1993–94. Each mother plant yielded 186 leaf-bud and 120 apical-bud cuttings. Leaf-bud cuttings maintained for 4–6 weeks in sand bed directly produced small tubers (3.0 g/tuber) and each apicalbud cutting averaged 6.6 tubers (19.7 g/tuber) in spaced planting. The tubers ranged in size from 0.9 to 1.5 cm for leaf-bud and 1.6 to 4.5 cm diameter for apical-bud. The tubers produced when planted in the field in next season, gave an average yield of 348 g and 656 g per plant, respectively for leaf-buds and apical-buds and collectively, upto 60 kg tubers could be obtained from a single plant. On the other hand, the yield of mother plant increased very much due to cutting of shoots with an average of 2068 g/plant against only 687 g/plant in the uncut control plant.
