Vol. 9, Special Issue 11, Part I (2025)

The experiment was carried out during 2021-22 and 2022-23 at research area of Department of Forestry, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar (20^˚ 10´N latitude, 75^˚46´ E longitude, altitude 215 m mean sea level), situated in the semi-arid region of North-Western India. The tree species was Poplar (Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh) which were planted during February, 2017. There were four planting geometry as 3×3 m, 4×3 m, 5×3 m and 6×3 m and control (sole crop of potato devoid of trees). There were six potato varieties (Kufri Bahar, Kufri Neelkanth, Kufri Lima, Kufri Ganga, Kufri Pushkar and Kufri Pukhraj). The experiment was carried out in Factorial Randomized Block Design with three replications. The results revealed that wider poplar tree spacing S4 (6×3 m) with potato variety V2 (Kufri Neelkanth) produced significantly taller plants at 30 DAS, i.e., 43.00 cm and 43.00 cm during 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively. At 90 DAS, again poplar tree spacing S3 (5×3 m) with variety V2 (Kufri Neelkanth) produced significantly taller plants, i.e., 66.74 cm during 2021-22 and 65.26 cm during 2022-23. Significantly higher chlorophyll content was recorded under closer spacings of poplar tree S1: 3×3 m with potato variety V3 (Kufri Lima) i.e., 26.92 cm at 30 DAS which was found at par with S2: 4×3 m with potato variety V3 (Kufri Lima) i.e., 26.60 cm during 2021-22. Same results have been obtained during 2022-23. Poplar tree spacing S1: 3×3 m with potato variety V1: Kufri Bahar and V3: Kufri Lima resulted into significantly higher chlorophyll content with soil plant analysis development (SPAD) values (36.97 and 35.87) in potato leaves at 90 DAS during 2021-22. The poplar tree spacing S4: 6×3 m with variety V3: Kufri Lima resulted in significantly higher tuber yield during both the years, i.e., 418.19 and 421.20 q/ha during 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively. Overall, Kufri Lima was found most suitable variety for potato cultivation under poplar-based agroforestry system with wider spacing of 6×3 m.