Table 1. Effect of one minute of touching over a period of 17 days on morphological characteristics of potato plants.

	Mean Touched			Mean Control			p value
Leaf surface (cm2)	4498.22	±	165.29	3952.41	±	162.33	0.02
Leaf weight (g)	5.91	±	0.22	5.53	±	0.15	0.16
Number of leafs	258.05	±	13.98	248.65	±	10.14	0.59
SLA	767.67	±	24.20	731.61	±	26.01	0.32
Plant height (cm)	22.86	±	0.78	32.41	±	2.31	<0.01
Stem weight (g)	1.48	±	0.10	2.13	±	0.12	<0.01
Number of internodes	11.20	±	0.58	13.45	±	0.29	<0.01
Branch number	32.40	±	1.15	32.45	±	1.57	0.98
Branch weight (g)	3.19	±	0.24	2.70	±	0.18	0.10
Total branch length (cm)	564.02	±	23.56	506.86	±	20.15	0.07
Branch diameter (mm)	4.69	±	0.13	5.36	±	0.13	<0.01
Number of tubers/plant	4.45	±	0.71	4.10	±	0.31	0.65
Tuber fresh weight/plant (g)	12.15	±	1.50	12.58	±	1.48	0.84
Total above ground weight (g)	10.59	±	0.54	10.36	±	0.35	0.72