Overview of Water-Saving Potato Production Research for the Semi-Arid Areas of Northern China.

In the arid and semi-arid areas of the Northern China, potato makes a greater contribution to solve food problem. Even though, frequent droughts, general water shortages and poor irrigation management often lead to low yields and poor tuber quality. Therefore, water-saving potato production plays an important role in this region. This presentation examined potato growth affected by plastic mulch, and the effects of different irrigation regimes under continuous plastic mulch on potato tuber yield, water use efficiency and tuber quality. On the other hand, it is generally accepted that drought and salinity tolerance could be increased through transgenic approaches by incorporating genes involved in stress protection into plants that lack them. This presentation also reported the case study of enhanced drought and salinity tolerance of transgenic potato plants with a betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase gene from spinach. The role of transgenic potato in sustainable production and its biosafety was also discussed, and demonstrated that the transgenic approach was one of powerful tools to improve potato crop for sustainable production and food supply in the coming world population increase in the future.