The potato is one of the most important staple foods, but suffers particularly from heat and drought. This makes it all the more important to make potatoes climate-ready. The ADAPT (Accelerated Development of multiple-stress tolerAnt PoTato) project investigated how this can be achieved in the future.
We carried out field trials to show how heat and drought affect potato yields. The two trial years 2022 and 2023 were very different in terms of weather conditions: 2022 was very dry, while 2023 brought a good water supply from rainfall until the summer. As a result, less irrigation was required in 2023. However, comparatively low temperatures in spring 2023 delayed juvenile development.
How did the potatoes react to these different years? On the one hand, the yield could be increased by irrigation, especially in the dry year 2022. However, our detailed observations showed that the higher yields can go hand in hand with reduced quality. The starch content can be lower, and the proportion of tubers demanded by consumers, the "marketable yield", can also change. This can reduce the farmer's profit despite a higher overall yield. In a year with a good supply of water, such as 2023, irrigation will not produce more tubers This emphasises the importance of good juvenile development.
It was clearly shown that potatoes are more susceptible to pests such as the Colorado potato beetle under stress conditions. The opposite can be true for virus infestations, as the transmitting aphids favour green, vital plant parts. Professional crop management is particularly important, especially under organic cultivation conditions, if a good yield is to be achieved at the end of the year.
Research in ADAPT is important, as our Europe-wide survey showed. Potato growers from 22 countries took part in this survey. Almost 90 % of respondents stated that climatic changes had affected their potato production over the past ten years. Almost 50% of respondents saw climate change as a threat to maintaining potato production on their farm.
The ADAPT project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement no. GA 2020 862-858.