Adaptive responses of the aboveground vegetative sphere of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) variety 'Bashkirsky' to planting density

One of the approaches to assessing the efficiency of agricultural practices in growing agricultural crops is population analysis with the identification of manifestations of individual and population life strategies of cultivated plants and their varietal specificity. The studies were conducted in 2024 at the Chishminsky Breeding Center of the Bashkir Research Institute of Agriculture. The object of the study was the ‘Bashkir' variety. We studied the morphological structure of the aboveground vegetative sphere and its variability in variants with a planting density of 17.8; 26.7 and 53.3 thousand tubers/ha. We studied the patterns of variability of 11 morphological traits: number of shoots; plant height (the most developed shoot); number of leaves on the most developed shoot; number of pairs of large lobes of the leaf blade, leaf length and width, petiole length of the most developed leaf of the middle formation; length and width of the blade of the most developed leaf lobe, indices of leaves and the most developed leaf lobe. One-way analysis of variance revealed a reliable effect of planting density on most traits, with the exception of leaf indices and the lateral leaf lobe. The adaptive nature of variability of such traits as the number of pairs and sizes of the lateral lobes of the leaf blade, demonstrating convergent and divergent ontogenetic tactics, respectively, was established. The structure of morphological variability with the allocation of groups of indicator traits was revealed. Traits with low rates of general and coordinated variability are classified as genotypic (taxonomic) indicators: plant height, number of leaves, leaf length, number of pairs of leaf lobes, leaf lobe index, leaf index. The length and width of a leaf lobe, leaf width are classified as biological indicators with low general and high coordinated variability. High general and low coordinated variability are characteristic of ecological indicators that depend most on external conditions - petiole length and number of shoots. No systemic indicators have been identified. The influence of variability in the aboveground vegetative sphere on the structure of potato yield remains to be studied.