News on Potato Defects and Diseases from the Americas

A New Brunswick potato scientist will travel to Peru this month in an effort to help Canadian tubers fight blight.Dr. David De Koeyer, who works at the Potato Research Centre in Fredericton, has spent his professional life studying spuds.He's heading t...

Since 2000, a mystery disease has struck some potato fields in Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, and other western states, reducing tuber yields and quality.

The impact of late blight to potato growers in Michigan is clear and we estimate that many growers with crops going in to long-term storage will spend up to $350/A in crop protection products alone (not including application costs). Even such intense c...

Farmers in southern and central Maine have already reported cases of late blight in potato and tomato crops. Now the disease has spread to northern Maine.

Despite their microscopic size, Columbia root-knot nematodes (CRN) have potential to inflict huge losses—about $40 million annually—by tunneling into potatoes to feed.

Maine potato growers are thriving thanks to a late blight spraying advice offered by the University of Maine's cooperative extension program.

Leaf samples taken last summer by provincial potato specialists and ag chem firm Bayer CropScience throughout Canada show "widespread"presence of fungi that have mutated to resist the fungicides used most often to control them.The sampling pr...

The humble spud has few natural enemies (beside humans), but common scab disease is one that threatens the whole potato industry. Common scab is one of the most prevalent and costly diseases for the potato industry worldwide. The vegetable research t...

A virus that crippled Prince Edward Island's potato industry for six months in 2000 may have returned. A single spud from a quarantined processing field near Kensington is being tested for potato wart, a disease that poses no threat to humans but leave...