News on Potato Varieties and Seed from Northern America

With little fanfare, the Maine Board of Pesticides Control unanimously approved on Friday morning the registration of three new types of genetically engineered potatoes that have been developed by Simplot Plant Sciences.

The Northwest Potato Research Consortium recently approved a combined $1.5 million in grant funding to 37 research projects.

The potato disease Dickeya can be detected by laboratory testing — but is there enough of it present to justify the higher costs? That is the question facing Canadian Seed Potato Growers exporting to the United States who are increasingly asked for the test.

Years before that french fry landed on your plate, the plant that would eventually give rise to the spud your fry was cut from was sealed away deep in a secure-access building, growing slowly in a test tube inside a locked growth chamber.

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.

Following a highly successful launch in 2016, Canadian produce company EarthFresh is bringing its lower glycemic response (GR)* Carisma potato back to Ontario grocery retailers for an extended season.

Red-skinned potatoes are sure to be on the minds and menus of many after remarkable results shown by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s selections this year.

Since Monsanto took their genetically modified Newleaf /Naturemark potatoes of the market in 2001, no GM potatoes have been grown commercially in Canada. But Simplot's Innate potatoes are going to change that in 2017.

The US federal government has given the final OK to three more types of potatoes genetically engineered by Boise’s J.R. Simplot Co. to resist Phytophthora - the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine.

University of Idaho has hired a new director for its nuclear seed potato program and plans to build additional facilities to help her expand production.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) annually releases 10-15 potato selections. To show these to the Canadian industry, AAFC will hold a Potato Release Open House on February 15, 2017, simultaneously in Fredericton, NB; Guelph, ON; and Lethbridge, AB.

It’s potato planting time in North Florida. St. Johns County is one of the counties in Northern Florida well known for its potato production with the town of Hastings being the center of it.

El rendimiento del cultivo de la papa en los países andinos es bajo y una causa es la degeneración de la semilla. Para solucionar el problema se crearon los sistemas formales de certificación de semillas. Pero su implementación no ha entregado los resultados esperados. Se requieren por tanto cambios en los actuales sistemas de semilla.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) today announced the availability of $1.85 million in funding for regional potato breeding research to support the development of superior-performing varieties that can be brought to market as soon as possible.

It’s been more than a year since a new potato variety known as the Caribou Russet was unveiled. But so far, it’s been rather hard to find — getting a new potato onto store shelves isn’t as simple as it may seem.

In September, McDonald's approved two relatively new potato varieties for the production of their french Fries. They only allow seven varieties now, four of which were developed by the Tri-State Program

Can the nutritional value of potatoes be improved? That is the question USDA research geneticist Kathy Haynes has been asking for nearly 30 years. Her quest for the answer has led her to breeding a more nutritious potato, similar to the papa criolla types found in South America.

Do you know the Top 6 potato varieties grown in the United States? We created an overview based on the USDA data for the 2016 fall potato crop.