News on Potato Varieties and Seed from Texas

Texas A&M AgriLife Research, the Texas A&M Potato Breeding Program, Barrett Potato Farms and Springlake Potatoes Inc. will host the annual Texas Potato Field Day on July 16 in Springlake.

Advances, including Texas french fry variety and nutrition qualities, to be discussed at National Potato Expo in Austin.

MountainKing has launched a re-brand of one of its popular, gourmet varieties with the introduction of its Butter Cream Potatoes, now available in three-pound poly mesh bags.

New potato varieties bred by the Texas A&M Potato Breeding Program could enter the french fry market before long, said Isabel Vales, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife potato breeder in the Department of Horticultural Sciences

Humble potatoes are a rich source not only of dietary carbohydrates for humans, but also of starches for numerous industrial applications. Texas A&M AgriLife scientists are learning how to alter the ratio of potatoes’

MountainKing is spicing up several of its gourmet varieties by partnering with Tajín Clásico Seasoning to offer shoppers a free sample of the top-selling dry seasoning in 1.5 lb. bags

As MountainKing readies for its fall harvest, early tests from its fields in Colorado’s San Luis Valley offer encouraging signs for several of the brand’s gourmet varieties including its yellow-flesh varietals.

All-yellow flesh potatoes continue to rise above russets, reds and whites in the critical metric of retailer volume sales, an encouraging sign for grocers as growers ready for their upcoming fall harvests.

As shoppers stock up for the summer grilling season, new national sales data indicates US sales of fingerlings and smaller-sized gourmet varietal potatoes, both popular for backyard cookouts, remain on a solid, upward ascent.

Black Gold Farms started harvest of the 2019 fresh crop of Texas colored potatoes earlier this week. According to the company, the first run fields have indicated that the quality will be better than ever.

Earlier this month Texas A&M held its annual Potato Field Day where it presented a range of new potato varieties.

Dirk Hays,Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant geneticist: “With Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), we can image the size of the tubers and get a correlation to the actual physical size of the potato without harvesting them. Potatoes are a dream for Ground Penetrating Radar.”

The Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant pathology team intentionally infected potato plants with psyllids positive with the bacterium that causes zebra chip disease, in order to identify promising germplasm in the battle against the disease plaguing the US potato industry for the past 15 years.

Participants at the 25th annual Texas Potato Breeding and Variety Development Program field day learned that the harvest is underway, that psyllids are threatening unharvested fields and that new varieties are showing lots of promise.

The annual Potato Field Day in the High Plains featuring the Texas A&M University AgriLife Potato Breeding and Variety Development Program will be July 21.

Texas-based MountainKing Potatoes is offering retailers the opportunity to cash in on the recent harvest of its popular Gold potatoes with a comprehensive promotion designed to drive sales of the fastest-growing variety among all bagged potatoes.

This year's major news of the Texas A&M Potato Breeding Program is a new early potato variety called Reveille Russet, a russet baking potato headed to the fresh market.

A decline in overall potato consumption has Texas A&M AgriLife Research breeders working on “designer” potatoes that meet the time constraints and unique tastes of a younger generation.