Abstract

Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important crop in Zimbabwe due to its nutritional and economic worth. The upgrading of its status to a strategic food crop by the government in 2012 has created the need for research to increase production, increase germplasm and diversify staple food crops. A study to investigate the yield potential of new Irish potato varieties was carried out at the Scientific Industrial Research and Development Centre between June and November 2015. Aim of the study was to evaluate new varieties to introduced and released in Zimbabwe. The varieties BRI1, BRI2, BRI3, BRI4, BRI5, BRI6 and BRI7 were grown with the controls being locally released varieties Amethyst and BP1 which are long and short season varieties respectively. The experiment was laid out in a randomised complete block design with 9 treatments and slope as the blocking factor. Analysis of variance was done using Genstat 14th edition. Data on yield, number of days to 50 % flowering and number of days to 95 % maturity was recorded. Analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference (P