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Breaking new ground
‘If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel along the worn paths of accepted success’. This was a statement of the well-known American industrialist John D. Rockefeller. I was reminded of this statement while travelling in the American potato of state Colorado.
CRISPR-CAS may be the answer to fast moving Phytophthora
‘I’ve always been quite optimistic, but after this year I’ve become a bit more pessimistic’, said WUR researcher Geert Kessel during a recent Nedelandse webinar on the preservation of resistances in robust varieties. What worries him most is the combination of the high Phytophthora pressure in the past growing season and the fast moving adaptability of…
CropXR – Using data science in search of stronger potato plants
Climate change and the decreasing availability of crop protection chemicals and nitrogen are putting pressure on arable farming. Plants are having to grow under increasingly challenging conditions. The Dutch research project CropXR, in which the government is investing 43 million euros through the National Growth Fund (Nationaal Groeifonds), is therefore focusing on the faster development of…
Hydrogen in potato cultivation offers opportunities
It goes without saying that we need to get rid of fossil fuels in arable farming and consequently also in potato cultivation. The most used is diesel for our tractors and machinery, such as right now for harvesting and transport. But what are we going to replace diesel with? Electricity sounds logical. After all, the…
Agreement on sustainable varieties now also signed by Belgium and France
During the recently held Potato Europe 2023 potato fair in Kain in Belgium, the Belgian and French organic potato sectors jointly signed an agreement to increase the number of robust varieties in cultivation and in distribution. A unique event, because the provinces of Flanders and Wallonia signed the agreement simultaneously and they also managed to…
World Potato Congress goes down under
From 23-26 June 2024 the 12-th edition of the World Potato Congress (WPC) goes down under. Potatoes Australia will host the congress in the city of Adelaide, one of the main potato production areas in this huge country of 7.6 million square kilometres.
Northern vigor forms solid basis for seed potato cultivation in Alberta
Potato farming in Alberta, a province in Canada, sixteen times larger than the Netherlands and home to only a quarter of the Dutch population, is booming business. This became apparent during a tour this summer. In total, the potato acreage here has increased from 21,000 to 30,000 hectares since 2017. In this issue, the focus…
American potato Eldorado under pressure due to lack of water and labour
Situated between the San Juan, Sawatch and Sange de Cristo mountains along the river Rio Grande, the San Luis Valley in the U.S. state of Colorado is practically an eldorado for cultivating table potatoes. According to the local potato organisation Colorado Potato Administrative Committee, this area is the second largest supplier of table potatoes in…
The Andes end in the Canary Islands, the potato trip to Europe
The Andean mountains are a center of potato biodiversity, where cultivation has been taking place in small fields for thousands of years and growers have selected a multitude of varieties to support their livelihood. Nowadays, this biodiversity still provides an important source of income as growers cultivate about four thousand varieties, each with their own specific morphological,…
The smallest EU crop since 2018?
The impact of the wet autumn on the European potato crop is not fully understood but it will have caused significant damage. At the beginning of December at least 10% of the EU-4 crop (Germany, France, Belgium and Netherlands) was still in the ground and potatoes that have been lifted have suffered higher than normal…
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