Potato breeder Rich Novy says growers shouldn't read too much into the fact that a promising new variety he helped develop, Palisade Russet, hasn't made it into many fields yet.
Palisade - billed upon its release last December as a replacement for the late blight-resistant variety Defender - resists foliar and tuber late blight, verticillium wilt, black dot and pink rot and has moderate resistance to net necrosis, PVY and early blight. It's also high yielding and fries without so-called sugar ends, dark areas in french fries caused by higher sugar concentrations in one end of the tuber than the other.
Finding seed has been the challenge for growers interested in those attributes.
