News on Potato Defects and Diseases from United Kingdom

Scientists have identified a version of a single gene involved in the heat stress response that is more active in potato types that can tolerate high temperature, potentially providing potato breeders a tool to make potato varieties less vulnerable to increased temperature.

In the United Kingdom, farming minster George Eustice (DEFRA) has approved a four-year trial of genetically modified (GM) potatoes at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich.

Buntata is a collaborative effort between the University of St Andrews and the James Hutton Institute to enable open access to our information resources and put them at the fingertips of potato growers.

AHDB Potatoes has pledged to work closely with the seed potato sector and Scottish Government to ensure that the industry maintains a low level of the bacterial disease blackleg.

AHDB Potatoes will use this year’s Seed Industry Event on 3 November to review the industry’s current approach to controlling blackleg. The biennial conference, held this year in St Andrews, will also provide growers with an insight into the potential impact of Brexit, and scope out the potato market, both at home and abroad.

An international group of researchers has detailed the genome sequence and inner workings of the yellow Potato Cyst Nematode (PCN), providing new insights into how it can be stopped.

Blackleg, caused by strains of soft rot bacteria known as Dickyea, has traditionally had little impact on North American potato production, but it now appears to be on the move throughout Europe and could increasingly threaten growers in the Eastern United States.

A team of scientists from The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) and The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) have developed a new method to accelerate isolation of plant disease resistance genes and - using their new method - a brand new source of blight resistance genes in Solanum americanum, a wild relative of the potato.

Dr Jon Pickup, Head of Virology & Zoology at Science & Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) will lead on one of three AHDB Potatoes Fellowship Awards, specifically seeking to secure critical potato nematology expertise for the future.

Researchers in the United Kingdom aim for a new commercial potato that resists many of the worst vulnerabilities of potato crops around the world.

Potato growers and agronomists in he United Kingdom will be better prepared to cope with more aggressive blight strains this season, with a new BlightCast warning tailored to focus on infections now typically occurring earlier in the season at cooler temperatures.

Experts from the UK and India are working together to identify and develop novel environmentally-sustainable strategies to control plant pests, known as plant-parasitic nematodes to ensure global food production and security.

Researchers at the Universities of Dundee and Aberdeen have made a breakthrough in understanding how the microbial spores which cause potato blight are so effective at infecting plants.

In Northern Ireland, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute and CAFRE, Greenmount Campus has issued the first potato blight warning for 2014.

In the United Kingdom, many potato crops are now emerging well - straight into conditions that pose a high risk of blight.

El número de diferentes tipos de plagas que destruyen las cosechas en el mundo en desarrollo podría ser muy superior a lo que se conoce, lo que estaría contribuyendo aún más a mermar las cosechas en países que son grandes productores de alimentos, dicen investigadores.

Avoid bruising at potato harvest by managing moisture levels pre-desiccation is the advice from Hutchinsons Root Crop Technical manager, Darryl Shailes.

The UK government has stepped up its efforts to control the potato disease ring rot.