Varietal Preferences of Potato Farmers in Sinto, Bauko, Mountain Province.

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the preferred potato varieties and their varietal characteristics, to identify the reasons for choosing the variety to be planted and identify problems encountered/experienced by farmers in Sinto, Bauko, Mountain Province in procuring the preferred potato varieties. There were 40 respondents who were randomly selected. The respondents were interviewed using an interview schedule. The potato varieties preferred by the farmers in Sinto, Bauko, Mountain Province were Granola, Igorota and Raniag. Majority of the farmers preferred Granola because it had short maturation and higher marketability than Igorota and Raniag. According to the farmers, the positive characteristics of Granola as claimed by the farmers were high resistance to bacterial wilt infection and short maturity period while negative attributes were; long dormancy period, medium resistance to leaf miner infestation and medium resistance to late blight infection. The positive characteristic of Igorota were short dormancy period, high resistance to leaf miner infestation and late blight infection, high resistance to bacterial wilt infection and had high productivity potentials. Negative characteristic was its long maturity period. The positive characteristics of Raniag variety were the following; short dormancy period, high resistance to leaf miner infestation and late blight infection and high production. The negative attribute was its long maturity period. According to the farmers they chose Igorota and Raniag varieties because they were not susceptible to leaf miner, late blight and bacterial wilt; and for Granola because of its marketability. The problems encountered by farmers in procuring their preferred variety were the following: high price of potato seed tubers from any source, distance of the source of seed tubers to the farms, the condition of the farm to market roads and the availability of tools and equipments to be used like storage facility for seed tubers.