Potato and Tuber Crops

Introduction

Botanical Name	Solanum tuberosum L.
Family	Solanaceae
Chromosome Number	2n = 4X = 48 (Octaploid)
Origine	South Africa (Peru)
Common Names	Alu (Hindi); Alugaddi (Kannada)

Potato is the fourth major food crop after rice, wheat and maize in the world. It produces high dry matter, balanced protein and high calories/unit area/unit time. Potato tubers contain vitamin-C (17 mg/100 g) and vitamin-B . It provides carbohydrates, minerals and fibre.The protein is as comparable to that of milk and egg. The crop is of short duration and fits well in intensive cropping system