Shading effects on Tacca (Tacca leontopetaloides L. Kuntze) agronomy andmetabolites: Implications for cultivation strategies

Tacca (Tacca leontopetaloides (L.) Kuntze) is a tuberous plant commonly growing in coastal areas, both in open and shaded areas.This study aimed to identify the agronomical characteristics and metabolite content of Tacca growing under various levels of natural shading.The research was conducted in the southern coastal area of Garut Regency (West of Java-Indonesia) by observing the plant growth and production, and metabolite content of Tacca tubers under conditions of natural full sunlight (0% shade/FL), moderate shade (40% shade/MS), and heavy shade (75% shades/HS) in three different locations as replications.Three mature plants (7 months old) in each shade level and replication were randomly selected as observed samples.The result presented that Tacca's growth increased with the increasing shading levels.Nonetheless, tuber production showed the highest value under MS, which increased by 76.64% and 35.20% compared to FL and HS, respectively.Fourteen metabolites were detected in Tacca tuber grown in MS and FL, while only eight metabolites were detected in HS.The highest concentration of the metabolites obtained in MS were 8 metabolites (57%) and followed by FL and HS with 3 (21%) and 1 metabolite (7%), respectively.Moderately shaded areas have great potential to be used as cultivation land to produce high-quality Tacca tubers.