CPRI Shimla — ICAR–Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla 171001: India's Nodal Potato R&D Institute, Lead Centre of the AICRP on Potato, Home of the Kufri Variety Series, the Seed-Plot Technique, True Potato Seed (TPS) and the Hills-to-Plains Seed-Potato Supply Chain

The ICAR–Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI), headquartered on Bemloe hill, Shimla 171001, Himachal Pradesh, is the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)'s nodal institute for research on potato (Solanum tuberosum). India is the world's second-largest potato producer after China— roughly 56 – 60 million tonnes a year from 2.2 million hectares — and CPRI's Kufri varietal pipeline, the Seed-Plot Technique for aphid-free seed-potato production in the plains, True Potato Seed (TPS) technology and the JHULSACAST late-blight warning system are the research foundations on which the Indian potato economy runs.

Founded 23 August 1949 at Patna — the move to Shimla in 1956

ICAR established CPRI on 23 August 1949 at Patna, Bihar, in recognition of potato's rapidly rising importance as a short-duration winter crop in the Indo-Gangetic plains and as the main hills crop in the Himalayas. In 1956, the headquarters was shifted from Patna to Shimla to tap the high-altitude temperate Himalayan climate — essential for aphid-free seed-potato multiplication and for breeding against late blight(Phytophthora infestans), the historic "cancer of potato". The original Patna station continues to serve the eastern Indo-Gangetic plains and is now one of seven CPRI regional stations.

Mandate and research divisions

CPRI's mandate spans basic, strategic and applied research on potato for all Indian agro-climatic zones. Its research divisions are:

• Crop Improvement: development of the Kufri (Co-Kufri) series of potato varieties for the sub-tropical plains, the Himalayan hills, the central plateau and processing use; late-blight resistant breeding using R-gene stacks and quantitative resistance; biotic and abiotic stress tolerance; biofortified potato (iron, zinc, carotenoids, anthocyanins); molecular breeding, genomic selection and gene-editing.
• Seed Technology: the Seed-Plot Technique for aphid-free seed-potato production in the plains; True Potato Seed (TPS) technology; micropropagation and tissue-culture mini-tuber production; apical rooted cuttings; aeroponic mini-tuber production; the three-tier seed-potato certification chain (breeder → foundation → certified).
• Crop Production: nutrient management (NPK with FYM, split N and K at earthing-up, soil-test based recommendations); water management (sprinkler, drip, surface, limited irrigation); zero-till / minimum-till potato after Kharif rice; potato-based cropping systems; mulching with paddy straw and residue-management innovations — see our crop residue management brief for the IGP context.
• Crop Protection: integrated management of late blight (Phytophthora infestans), early blight (Alternaria solani), black scurf (Rhizoctonia solani), bacterial wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum), common scab (Streptomyces), potato tuber moth (Phthorimaea operculella), potato cyst nematodes (Globodera rostochiensis, G. pallida), aphids (vectors of PVY and PLRV) and whiteflies — see our integrated pest management and pest identification briefs.
• Plant Physiology, Biochemistry and Post-Harvest: tuberisation physiology, drought and heat tolerance physiology, dormancy and sprout management, storage (traditional, cold-store at 2 – 4 °C, non-refrigerated low-cost structures), chipping-grade quality standards (reducing-sugar content, dry-matter content, chip colour) and dehydrated-potato processing.
• Social Sciences: potato-based cropping-system economics, farmer adoption studies, seed-replacement rate analysis and processing-industry linkages.
• Agricultural Engineering: mechanised potato planters, inter-row ridging and earthing-up implements, mechanised harvesters, drip-fertigation systems and on-farm cold-chain structures.

Location and regional stations

• Headquarters: Bemloe hill, Shimla 171001, Himachal Pradesh.
• CPRI Regional Station, Kufri, HP: high-altitude breeding and seed-production station in the inner Himalayas — the biosecure nucleus for the Kufri varietal pipeline.
• CPRI Regional Station, Jalandhar, Punjab: the national hub for seed-potato multiplication under the Seed-Plot Technique, serving the north-western Indo-Gangetic plains.
• CPRI Regional Station, Modipuram (Meerut), Uttar Pradesh: for the western IGP and the processing-potato belt around Agra and Mathura.
• CPRI Regional Station, Patna, Bihar: CPRI's original headquarters, now anchoring the eastern IGP potato zone.
• CPRI Regional Station, Shillong, Meghalaya: for the north-eastern hills, where potato is a staple kharif crop.
• CPRI Regional Station, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh: for the central Indian potato zone, bridging the IGP and the Deccan.
• CPRI Regional Station, Ooty / Muthorai, Tamil Nadu: for the southern hills (Nilgiris, Palani, Kodaikanal) — the second-largest hill-potato zone in India after the Himalayas.
• AICRP-Potato partner centres: CSKHPKV Palampur, GBPUAT Pantnagar, PAU Ludhiana, BCKV Kalyani (West Bengal), RLBCAU Jhansi, OUAT Bhubaneswar, SKUAST-K Srinagar, Assam Agricultural University (AAU) Jorhat and others — jointly running the national coordinated-trial network for new variety release.

The Kufri variety pipeline

Under the AICRP on Potato coordinated-trial system, CPRI has released more than 65 improved potato varieties over seven decades. The Kufri (Co-Kufri) series is organised by use and maturity:

• Early-maturing table varieties: Kufri Chandramukhi (1968, one of the earliest high-adoption Kufri varieties), Kufri Jyoti (1968, workhorse of the hills and the IGP for decades), Kufri Ashoka, Kufri Pukhraj (1998 — now the single most widely grown Indian potato variety, dominant in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand).
• Medium-maturity table varieties: Kufri Bahar, Kufri Lauvkar, Kufri Sindhuri, Kufri Lalima, Kufri Badshah, Kufri Anand, Kufri Pushkar.
• Late-blight resistant varieties: Kufri Girdhari and Kufri Himalini (hills), Kufri Shailja and Kufri Giriraj (hills, with R-gene stacks), Kufri Khyati and Kufri Mohan (plains) — CPRI's answer to the growing late-blight pressure under erratic monsoon and winter weather.
• Processing varieties (chipping and French fries): Kufri Chipsona-1, Kufri Chipsona-2, Kufri Chipsona-3, Kufri Chipsona-4 and Kufri Frysona — low-reducing-sugar, high-dry-matter clones with round-to-oval tuber shape, uniform size and bright chip colour. These varieties were explicitly bred to substitute imports (chiefly from the Netherlands) that historically supplied the Indian potato-chip industry.
• Biofortified and coloured varieties: Kufri Neelkanth (anthocyanin-rich, blue-purple tuber), Kufri Lima (orange, carotenoid-rich) and selections being evaluated for iron- and zinc- biofortification under the AICRP-Potato programme.

The authoritative, current list of notified varieties is maintained on cpri.icar.gov.in and in the AICRP-Potato annual report.

The Seed-Plot Technique — India's seed-potato breakthrough

The Seed-Plot Technique, developed and standardised at CPRI during the 1960s, is the single most important CPRI contribution to Indian potato farming. The problem it solved was simple but severe: in the sub-tropical Indo-Gangetic plains, aphid-vectored viruses — Potato Virus Y (PVY), Potato Leaf Roll Virus (PLRV), Potato Virus S (PVS), Potato Virus X (PVX) — rapidly degenerate the seed stock, cutting yield by 30 – 70% within two to three multiplication cycles. The result was that India remained a chronic seed-potato importer well into the 1960s.

The Seed-Plot Technique exploits the fact that aphid-flight activity in the IGP peaks only after the first week of January. By:

1. Starting with virus-tested basic seed multiplied in the Himalayan hill stations (Kufri, Shillong, Ooty) or produced through tissue-culture micropropagation,
2. Planting early — first fortnight of October rather than the November-December planting common for ware potato,
3. Monitoring aphid flights continuously at CPRI-notified sites using yellow sticky traps and Moerike water traps,
4. Haulm-cutting as soon as the critical aphid-flight threshold is crossed, typically between 25 December and 10 January — well before most aphids feed on the crop,
5. Harvesting after a 10 – 15 day skin-set period and storing immediately at 2 – 4 °C,

CPRI showed that the Seed-Plot Technique keeps virus incidence low enough to maintain seed quality across multiple multiplication cycles. The technique transformed India from a seed-potato importer into a seed-potato surplus country by the 1980s, and remains the dominant commercial seed-production system around Jalandhar (Punjab), Modipuram (Uttar Pradesh), Hooghly and Burdwan (West Bengal) and parts of Gujarat. It is now mandatory for Indian Minimum Seed Certification Standard (IMSCS) certification for potato in the plains.

True Potato Seed (TPS)

True Potato Seed (TPS) is the botanical seed produced in potato berries — the small tomato-like fruits that form on potato flowers. CPRI pioneered TPS research in India from the 1970s onwards, exploiting two advantages over conventional seed-tuber propagation: a ~1,000× reduction in seed rate (10 kg of seed-tubers per hectare becomes ~100 g of TPS per hectare) and complete freedom from tuber-borne viruses, bacteria and fungi — critical for regions without cold-storage access and for exported planting material.

CPRI's released TPS populations include HPS-1/13, HPS-II/67, HPS-7/13, HPS-II/13 and TPS-C-3. TPS is especially useful in (a) regions with poor cold-storage access where tuber-seed degenerates rapidly — eastern India (Odisha, Jharkhand, parts of West Bengal), the NE hills (Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland) and tribal pockets; (b) kitchen-garden and nutrition-mission potato cultivation; (c) export of planting material under low-weight / low-pest-risk shipping. The limitations are higher seedling-management labour in the nursery and more variable tuber size and skin colour than tuber-seed, so TPS is a strategically important niche rather than a universal replacement.

Late blight and JHULSACAST

Late blight, caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, is the single most destructive potato disease worldwide — the same pathogen that triggered the 1845 – 1849 Great Irish Famine. In India it devastates hill crops in the kharif season (where wet, cool monsoon conditions are ideal) and strikes the plains in late December – January when fog and night-dew create a favourable microclimate. CPRI's late-blight management strategy has three legs:

• Resistant varieties — Kufri Girdhari, Kufri Himalini, Kufri Shailja and Kufri Giriraj for the hills; Kufri Khyati and Kufri Mohan for the plains, each carrying R-gene stacks against the dominant Indian populations of P. infestans.
• Fungicide protocols — protectant contact fungicides (mancozeb, chlorothalonil) through the vegetative stage, with timely translaminar / systemic sprays (cymoxanil, metalaxyl-M, dimethomorph, mandipropamid, fluopicolide + propamocarb, oxathiapiprolin) when late-blight-conducive weather is forecast.
• Decision-support— JHULSACAST, a web-based late-blight forecasting system developed by CPRI, which uses weather-station data (temperature, relative humidity, leaf wetness, rainfall) to issue location-specific blight warnings and spray-timing advisories to farmers through CPRI's regional stations, state Agriculture Departments and the ICAR-Krishi Vigyan Kendra network — see our KVK directory for the local extension anchor in your district.

Potato in India's wider agricultural economy

India is the world's second-largest potato producer after China, with annual production of about 56 – 60 million tonnes from 2.2 million hectares, giving an average productivity of ~25 tonnes per hectare — well above the global average of ~21 tonnes per hectare, but still well below the ~45 – 50 tonnes per hectare of leading producers (the Netherlands, USA, Germany, UK). Uttar Pradesh is India's largest producer (~30% of national output), followed by West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

CPRI feeds this economy with the Kufri varietal pipeline, the Seed-Plot Technique and TPS, late-blight advisories through JHULSACAST, and processing-potato varieties for the fast-growing chips and French-fry industry. CPRI interfaces with the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) and the National Horticulture Board (NHB) for area expansion and cold-chain infrastructure, with APEDA for fresh-potato exports, with Operation Greens — the TOP (Tomato-Onion-Potato) programme for price-stabilisation and processing-infrastructure support, with PMFBY for crop insurance, with the Soil Health Card programme for soil-test-based nutrient management, and with the Krishi Vigyan Kendra network for on-farm training and front-line demonstrations.

See the potato entry in our crop calendar for the month-by-month sowing, fertiliser, intercultural and harvest operations for sub-tropical potato in the Indo-Gangetic plains, with cross-references back to this CPRI deep-dive.

Primary sources

• cpri.icar.gov.in — ICAR–Central Potato Research Institute official website: variety catalogue, AICRP-Potato annual report, JHULSACAST portal.
• icar.org.in — Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
• cipotato.org — International Potato Center (CIP), Lima — CIP maintains a liaison office at CPRI Shimla.
• nhb.gov.in — National Horticulture Board potato area and production statistics.
• apeda.gov.in — Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority — fresh and processed potato exports.

Frequently asked questions

Published 2026-10-06. This page is a research summary by AgriBot; always cross-check specific varietal, package-of-practice and advisory details with CPRI Shimla, the local KVK and your State Agriculture / Horticulture Department before field use.