March 19, 2024 | Articles

International Potato Variety Days 2023

Stricter customer demands require accelerated adjustments in breeding

Customers in the international potato sector are increasingly tightening their requirements. Current terms such as regenerative agriculture and bio­diversity are now being used, partly under the influence of a critically watchful society. One of the consequences of this is that crop protection chemicals and fertilisers will be…

March 19, 2024 | Articles

Sustainable Potato Platform (SPP): resistant varieties cannot do without spraying

‘Resistant varieties cannot do without spraying to stop infection. This is the conclusion from the world of science, and that insight needs to be put into practice as soon as possible.’ It’s for this reason that the Sustainable Potato Platform (SPP) was recently founded by Nufarm and Geersing Potato Specialist. On their own trial field, which…

February 28, 2024 | Articles

Research into cisgeneses continues unabated

‘A number of reports have been written recently about cisgeneses that clearly indicate that cisgeneses is as safe as any conventional method of plant breeding. It is a pity, therefore, to have to conclude that this ministry and some politicians are unreceptive to ongoing scientific understanding’, are the recent words of Professor Evert Jacobson in…

February 28, 2024 | Articles

Higher income by using sustainable precision technology

Towards sustainable agriculture, that was the theme of the information day about new precision technology recently held in the northern region of the Netherlands. Thanks to the use of GPS, digital plot mapping and sensor technology, it is now possible to be more efficient with fuel, artificial fertiliser and crop protection chemicals. An important objective,…

February 28, 2024 | Articles

Skylark brings potato permanently to higher balance

You won’t often see the skylark high over a grass-green potato field, but he does like to fly very high over the golden-yellow, waving cornfields. Unaware, this wondrously singing highflyer has again emphasised its urgent need of both crops through the Skylark foundation. At least, that’s the most frequently-noted experience in the 10 years that…

February 28, 2024 | Articles

New technology for distributing germination inhibitors

The most-used method for preventing sprouting in consumption potatoes is still gassing. The heat atomising equipment with combustion engine used for this purpose is, however, not very user-friendly and the germination inhibitor is not always evenly distributed, is the experience of suppliers such as Agrifirm and Belchim. For this reason, they are jointly focusing on…

February 21, 2024 | Articles

Organically and conventionally-grown potatoes brought togetherin BioImpuls

For more than half her working life, Professor Edith Lammerts van Bueren has been active in the world of organic potato research and breeding. As Senior Plant Breeding Researcher at the Louis Bolk Institute in Driebergen, she has tried, right from the start of her career, to work as much as possible in a wide…

February 20, 2024 | Articles

Straight to work with Crop-R

ICT company Crop-R run by Ivor Bosloper in Groningen has developed an open data network for the immediate registration and exchange of cultivation and company information among growers and their business relations in the agro chain. At this moment, growers can already use the program free via the Crop-R website. Although the program is still…

February 19, 2024 | Articles

Variety presentation 2012: in search of innovations

What is innovation? Van Dale’s Dutch Dictionary is brief. Innovation is simply a synonym to introducing a novelty. The usual run of things for the Dutch potato breeders, you would say. Certainly, if you consider the full trays of new varieties and numbers that were being admired at the variety presentations in Emmeloord at the…

February 19, 2024 | Articles

Always constant temperatures in new storehouse

The business move within the Netherlands in 2012, from the village of Waddinxveen to the southern village of Numansdorp, provided potato grower Jan Cees van der Maas with the opportunity of having a completely new storehouse built for long-term storage. He chose a fully-insulated store from Altez Agrinbo-Geerkens from the Belgian village of Tielt. The…