Malaysian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture (MJSA)

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different plant extracts on sprouting, storability and post-harvest loss of potato at ambient condition in Baglung district, Nepal. The parameters observed were sprouting percentage, sprout number, sprout length, sprout mass, weight loss percentage and damage score. The experiment consists of ten different treatments namely; Zingiber officinale rhizome, Azadirachta indica leaves, Atimisia spp. leaves, Utica dioica leaves, Control, Acorus calamus rhizome, Brassica campestris oil, Cymbopogon spp. oil, Azadirachta indica oil and Mentha spp. oil. The experiment was conducted in a Completely Randomized Design with four replications. Cympopogan oil, Mentha oil and Acorus powder completely suppressed the sprouting until 60 days with Cympopogan oil being the most effective to suppress sprouting throughout the experiment. The highest sprout number was recorded from Mentha oil (1.92) and control (1.79) after 90 days. The lowest sprout number was recorded from Cymbopogon oil (0.38). The average sprout length of Mentha spp. oil (13.47 mm) and control (13.19 mm) was maximum with minimum being that of Cymbopogon oil (2.5 mm) and Acorus (5.63 mm). The sprout mass measured at the end was maximum in control (2 gm) and minimum in Cymbopogon oil (0.25 gm). The weight loss percentage was maximum in control (10.66 %) with minimum in Cymbopogon oil (6.8 %). The tubers treated with Brassica campestris oil were damage to least (1.46) and highest damage score was recorded from control (1.88). A strong correlation was obtained between weight loss and sprout length (r=0.85), sprout number (r=0.78) and sprout mass (r=0.70).