Abstract
Modern companies engaged in the production of original potato seeds (Solánum tuberósum L.) strive to use advanced methods of accelerated propagation of improved material, including the principles of aerohydroponics, where plants are grown in the air with regular spraying of the roots with a moisture-air mixture of nutrients. The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of foliar treatments with sulfur- and silicon-containing preparations on the quantitative yield of minitubers under aerohydroponic conditions. The experiment was conducted in 2024, and minitubers of the ‘Amethyst’, ‘Severnoe siyanie’, ‘Red Scarlett’, and ‘Surpriz’ cultivars were grown using the AGM-60 aeroponic systems in a greenhouse with natural lighting. Two-fold foliar treatment with sulfur- and silicon-containing preparations had a positive anti-stress effect to the action of high daytime temperatures, which affected, first of all, the multiplication coefficient of tubers, which increased by 5.9–11.8 pieces/bush (38–53 %) on average for all cultivars, while the number of tubers larger than 15 mm increased significantly in the ‘Red Scarlett’ and ‘Surpriz’ cultivars. The cost of one minituber averaged 4.17–9.38 RUB/unit in control variants and 3.02–6.59 RUB/unit in variants of the experiment with the use of foliar treatment with sulfur- and silicon-containing preparations. The conditional net income (income of the variant of the experiment minus income of the control variant) was from 340 (‘Severnoe siyanie’ cultivar) to 11875 (‘Red Scarlett’) RUB/work table (60 plants).