The sourced answer
How do missing hills and planting gaps affect potato yield, and what makes a potato planter accurate?
Missing hills do not reduce plot yield in simple proportion to the plants lost, because neighbouring plants partly compensate for a gap. Potato Research (2026) reports that in experimental plots with missing hills, the remaining plants have more space and resources, so single-plant yield rises compared with plants in plots with no gaps.
What a missing hill is and why it matters
A missing hill is a planting position in a row where no plant emerges or survives. The 2026 Potato Research study (Thelen et al., vol. 69, issue 5, article 151) examined how these gaps distort yield figures in breeding trials. This matters because a clone that happens to have gaps in its plot can look better or worse per plant than it really is. Until this study, no universal way to correct for missing hills existed for potato breeding programmes.
What the study did
- It tested approaches on 1,066 different potato clones.
- The corrected trait was single plant yield, adjusted for the proportion of missing hills in each plot.
- It compared different correction approaches, proposed a universal approach, and tested whether estimated parameters transfer from a training population to an independent validation population.
- Authors include breeders from three German companies: Saka Pflanzenzucht, Nordring-Kartoffelzucht- und Vermehrungs-GmbH, and EUROPLANT Innovation.
Limits of what I can tell you
I only have the abstract and bibliographic record of this study, so I can't give the size of the compensation effect, the heritability values for each method, the fitted Weibull parameters, the typical share of missing hills, plot sizes, or trial years and locations. The results come from breeding trials, so they may differ in commercial fields, other climates or other planting densities. The study also does not cover the causes of missing hills (seed rots, poor sprouting, planter errors, pests) or their economic cost.
What makes a planter accurate
I don't have a reliable source on planter design or accuracy, such as metering mechanisms, sensors, spacing precision or seed-piece handling, so I can't give specific figures on that. The study treats planter error only as one possible cause of gaps, without measuring it.
Key takeaway: Gaps reduce plot yield less than proportionally because neighbouring plants compensate, and breeders now have a tested way to correct single-plant yield for missing hills across 1,066 clones. For planter accuracy, you would need equipment-specific research or manufacturer trial data.