Dr. Luis Duque

Assistant Research Professor

Department: Plant Science
College:  Agricultural Sciences
Address: 109 Tyson Building
Phone: 814-963-0710
E-mail: lud88@psu.edu
Websites: https://plantscience.psu.edu/directory/lud88

 

Heat Stress Resilience in Potato  
Hot, dry summers have become more prevalent throughout the United States and elsewhere during the last decade. Potato productivity is greatly reduced at high day and night temperatures. High temperatures reduce yield, cause secondary tuberization and increase physiological defects on tubers. The magnitud of these negative effects will depend on variety and the stage of growth. High temperatures during tuber initiation increase the respiration rate using up energy and reducing tuber set. A high respiration rate mid-season or later may cause the production of a second set of tubers which never reach the desired size for marketability. Our project is interested in understanding root growth and tuber development by means of phenotyping and root carbon allocation under high temperature conditions.

 

Juvenile Sweetpotato Root System Architectural Phenotyping 

Root system architecture (RSA) and distribution are important for crop productivity through improving water and nutrient use efficiency. The sweetpotato RSA is not well known and could help to understand how this storage root crop can adapt under changing environments and to improve  productivity. Our project aims at phenotyping early-stage root traits of an ample sweetpotato diversity panel of both wild type and commerically cultivated cultivars.