April 25, 2024 | Articles

The BOK Partnership replaces complete bagging line

Scale expansion can take different forms. Potato growers can expand the acreage, but can also expand their activities. The BOK Partnership in Creil is a good example. The collaborating neighbours bag a lot of seed for growers in the region. This means that investments must be made. They recently even replaced the complete bagging line.

April 25, 2024 | Articles

Many minitubers minimises the chanceof mistakes

For the partnership of father and son Anton and Frank de Schutter from Vierhuizen, the annual crop of 250,000 minitubers from their own greenhouse has been the basis for the cultivation and supply of high-quality S material for three years now. The fact that this means one crop less, and that the multiplication fields are…

April 25, 2024 | Articles

Frying is healthy!

Potatoes are an important source of essential antioxidants for everyone. How important that source is and which antioxidants can be found in the potato has recently been extensively researched by Carolyn Lister. She works for the Plant and Food Research Station in New Zealand. One significant discovery from her research relates to the various preparation…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

Food trend watcher inspires Europatat

At the end of May, the annual meeting of the European potato trade, Europatat, took place in the Kurhaus Hotel in the Dutch coastal village of Scheveningen. The organisation had invited the food trend watcher Hans Steenbergen as their guest speaker who, being the inspiring speaker that he is, knows exactly how to market a…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

Research in the potato world

Is the potato variety on the packaging in the shop really what it says? Were the crossing parents of this new seedling really true-to-variety when the offspring are so dissimilar? Must we throw these nearly-similar seedlings straight into the bin if they have accidentally been switched or should we save them after all? The Stichting…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

New breeding method leads surprisingly fast to new varieties

Producing new resistant potato varieties without genetic modification. This is possible, because breeding company Solynta has introduced the new F1 hybrid breeding. The starting-point here is not potatoes but real seed. Crossing resistances in 5 years instead of 25 to 35. It is possible by breeding in diploid potatoes with the help of the newly-discovered…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

Soil improvement requires an integral approach

In early March, the partners of Wageningen Potato Centre (WPC) in Emmeloord came together for a brainstorming session on the topic of soil. The meeting was introduced by research expert Janjo de Haan of PPO-AGV (Applied Plant Research for Arable Farming) in Lelystad. He sketched an alarming scenario: every aspect of knowledge about cultivation is…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

English grower goes Dutch

In North Yorkshire (England), Stuart Tweddle grows 36 hectares of crisp potatoes of the Saturna variety. Last year, he invested in a new storehouse, switching over from the English system that uses little air to the Dutch system that uses 100 cubic metres of air per cubic metre of potatoes. He also invested heavily in…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

Fruit Logistica: World Network

Fruit Logistica is an ideal trade show for networking and is relevant for anyone trading in potatoes, vegetables and fruit on an international level. Many thousands of trade visitors were present again in Berlin this year. Representatives of trading companies, packagers, suppliers in the fruit and vegetable sector, buyers for super­markets, hypermarkets, auctions, the wholesale…

April 03, 2024 | Articles

18 promising French fries varieties for the entire world

It is quite logical that, when asked ‘What is the most promising French fries variety for the future?’, all Dutch breeders came up with the most fantastic varieties, at least that is what we saw at the annual variety presentation. The most important characteristics for the French fries varieties are: kilograms per hectare, big tubers…