Study of the Traits Heritability in Some Varieties of Potato (Solanum tuberosum) under the Climatic Conditions of Romania

Currently, the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the basic crops, representing a guarantee of food security and food safety, for a large part of the world's population. So, in the current context of climate change, it is important to identify those genotypes with stable traits in unstable weather conditions. The study aims to present the morphological traits of five potato genotypes (Dragomirna, Alina, Rapsodia, Lord and Temerar), to emphasize the role of the genotype in obtaining stable productions, regardless of the climatic conditions. The morphological traits determined at the 5 cultivars were: bush height (cm), number of stems/bush, number of eyes/tuber, number of tubers/nest, average weight/tuber (gr) and average yield/ha (t/ha). Average yield/ha at all cultivars was compared with the production obtained by the Alina Variety, used as a control. In both experimented years the Temerar variety obtained the highest average production per hectare (35.4 t/ha - 2020; 41.7 t/ha - 2021) compared to the control variety. The correlations coefficient emphasize the highly significant positive correlations between the average yield/ha and average yield/tuber at all cultivars. The existence of significant positive correlations between the average yield and the number of tubers/nest, respectively yield/tuber, in the Dragomirna (r=,552***; ,682***) and Temerar varieties (r=,758***; r=,,665***) is also were established. In the Alina variety, there is a significant negative correlation between the average weight/tuber and the number of tubers/nest (r=-,755000). The same negative correlation but distinctly significant were also recorded in Lord (r=-,47600) and Rapsodia (r=-,43600) cultivars. The studies carried out in two consecutive years (2020, 2021) on 5 advanced cultivars emphasize a small to medium variability. The cultivar Temerar occurred the first place, if we refer at the yield level obtained in both years of experimentation.