December 16, 2025 | Articles

Novel contaminants in potato

Microplastics are everywhere, while the bulk of plastic is increasing globally because producing new plastic is cheaper than recycling. Environmental loads of heavy metals including lead, cadmium, arsenic, chromium, zinc, cuprum, and nickel are also on the rise, because of increased use of batteries, modern tools, and electrical cars. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are products of…

September 23, 2025 | Articles

Novel weapons to combat an old enemy

Late blight keeps farmers, breeders, and scientists on their toes. Despite 180 years of research since Montagne identified the culprit in 1845, the battle between the oomycete Phytophthora infestans and science continues. But the tool kit of science is getting full of novel instruments. Recently, scientists from McGill University and the International Potato Center wrote…

June 18, 2025 | Articles

Is the physiological age concept getting old?

Physiological age is an important quality feature of seed tubers. It is affected by growing conditions of the seed crop, conditions immediately after haulm killing, storage conditions of the seed tubers and handling during these phases or after storage. Cultivar effects and their interactions with environmental effects are significant. While dormant seed tubers fail to…

March 18, 2025 | Articles

Hot potatoes

The potato crop does not like it hot. Potato is traditionally a crop of the cooler regions, either in temperate climate zones or at higher elevations in the tropics. Increasingly, the crop is also widely grown in areas where it might really get warm, and that results in lower tuber yields and lower tuber quality.…

December 17, 2024 | Articles

Umami taste of potato products

The human tongue is capable of sensing five basic tastes: sourness, sweetness, bitterness, saltiness and umami. Originally, only four tastes were commonly recognized in the Western world. Umami is the new kid on the block; it is sometimes also called savouriness. Umami is a Japanese word, meaning something like deliciousness, and Japanese researchers were the…

October 08, 2024 | Articles

An avalanche of Chinese potato patents, but what do they yield?

In a recent paper by Chinese scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology and the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, authors showed that there is an enormous increase in the number of patents related to scientific innovations in China. Although the numbers are less impressive, this also applies to potato science. Remarkably, a social network analysis…

June 18, 2024 | Articles

The climate is changing, and so is the cultivation of potatoes

Climate change, everyone is talking about it but what do you do about it and what do you do with it? Paul Struik and Anton Haverkort, both retired potato experts and previously employed at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, have recently addressed these pressing questions. In a broad reflection, they jointly set out…

June 18, 2024 | Articles

Potato in Eastern Africa: the need for alternative seed systems

Crop yields in Africa hardly increased during the last decades. Africa is not self-sufficient, and increasingly dependent on food imports. Harnessing innovations in agricultural production is therefore needed. Potato cultivation by smallholder farmers can play a significant role in enhancing food security and dietary diversity, especially in cool environments. But that requires reliable supply of…

March 19, 2024 | Articles

Integrated approach necessary to control powdery scab

Powdery scab is a nasty seed-borne, soil-borne and even, through contaminated dust, air-borne potato disease. The culprit is Spongospora subterranea f. sp. subterranea (abbreviated as SSS), an obligate, parasitic plasmodiophorid with a wide host range. This parasite affects root systems, but also tubers. Moreover, it is the vector of the potato mop-top virus. From the…