Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran

Implementation of a self-sufficiency program for the production of virus-free potato tuber

By transferring from its place of origin in the Andes mountains in the Americas to Europe and other regions of the world, the potato has become one of the main sources of human food in four centuries, and in Asian countries including Iran, it ranks fourth in the last. Be a food supplier. With 10.8 times the potato production in Iran during the last half century, this period can be introduced as the peak period of its production growth. Examining the changes in the area under cultivation, production and the future forecast of this product in Iran shows that the era of increasing production has passed by increasing the area under cultivation and it is possible to improve production through increasing the yield. Comparing the amount of water consumption in potatoes with other agricultural and garden crops shows the significant amount of water required for the production of this product. The amount of water used for the production of 4.47 million tons of potatoes in Iran was estimated to be 1.516 billion cubic meters, which ranks ninth among crops and garden crops with 2.7% of the water demand. About 15 years ago, Iran imported healthy seed potato in the super elite class from abroad, which led to the annual departure of about 3 million dollars from the country. The Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute obtained the technical knowledge of potato tuber production through tissue culture and completed the healthy seed production chain with the participation of competent authorities and other research institutions and the private sector and transferred it to private knowledge-based companies. Currently, the country has reached self-sufficiency in this field, and every year the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute prepares several varieties of potatoes and provides virus-free seedlings to applicant companies. As a result, this chain has produced and provided about 30 million mini tubers and various classes of seeds to leading farmers. The amount of currency savings resulting from self-sufficiency in this field is about 50 million dollars in the last 15 years. On the other hand, with the expansion of the use of healthy potato seeds, while preventing the entry of pests and quarantine diseases, despite the decrease in the area under cultivation, the amount of potato production in the country has increased, so that the area under cultivation has reached from 160,000 to 140,000 hectares. Production and performance has increased from 21 tons to more than 30 tons. In relation to the efficiency of water consumption, it is estimated that per cubic meter of water, potato production has increased from 3 kg to more than 5 kg, which due to the bottlenecks in the supply of water for irrigation of agricultural crops, the performance index of "performance per hectare" " has been changed to "performance per cubic meter of water".