News on Potato Cultivation from the United States

Farmers, researchers and members of the public gathered at the University of Maine’s Aroostook Research Farm in Presque Isle last Wednesday to learn about the latest in potato research.

RD Offutt, the largest potato producer in Minnesota, is backing away from a controversial expansion in the State just south of the Mississippi River headwaters after state regulators insisted on an environmental study of the potential contamination of groundwater.

Despite widely fluctuating temperatures and a lack of rain, the executive director of the Maine Potato Board said Monday that the state’s potato crop remains healthy.

Idaho potato fields looked good as of early July as plants closed in over rows, signaling the tubers are preparing to grow strongly amid the hot-day, cool-night march toward harvest.

Potato growers in Idaho will now have the opportunity to learn about the presence of damaging fungal pathogens much earlier, thanks to the efforts of research staff at the University of Idaho. The research team, led by James Woodhall, has placed 14 spore samplers in potato fields across the Snake River Valley.

Potandon Produce L.L.C., the exclusive marketing agent for Pinto Creek Co., LLC in Eloy, Arizona, has announced that its fresh potato season will begin on Thursday, May 10th, 2018.

Farmers, fish advocates, tribes and government officials are headed to federal court in California on Wednesday (today) to argue who will get water — and when — in the Klamath Basin.

The South Florida potato harvest season has started well, with a good healthy crop taking shape. It has been underway for just over a month and despite cooler weather at the start of the year, South Florida crops escaped any major frost damage.

The USDA reported the preliminary estimated value for the Idaho® Potato crop of 2017 at USD 1.2 billion, a 22.7% leap from the previous year.

Northern Plains Potato Growers Association (NPPGA) president Chuck Gunnerson, announced his upcoming retirement at the February 20th, NPPGA Annual Meeting in East Grand Forks, MN.

When some Colombian potato varieties are lightly grazed by a pest, the plants respond by growing larger tubers, at times doubling their yields. Researchers see an opportunity and want to know more...

Certis USA has entered into an agreement with Corpoica, the Colombian Corporation for Agriculture Research, to license Corpoica’s Spodoptera frugiperda nucleopolyhedrovirus (SfMNPV) strain NPV003 and formulation technology for a biopesticide against the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda).

The Maine Potato Board has announced that Dan Blackstone of Caribou has been selected as the 2018 Young Farmer of the Year.

Potato Expo 2018 announces live streaming Potato TV throughout the event. Voting for the presentations on the Innovation Hub 'Main Stage' is now open.

As the potato season in Maine is coming to an end, John Jemison, a soil and water quality specialist for the University of Maine is reflecting on the season and what the harvest might bring.

The spring weather in Oregon may not have been ideal, but potato farmer Tony Amstad, owner of Amstad Farms, is still pleasantly surprised with the size and quality of his early season potatoes.

The National Potato Council (NPC) led a delegation of 6 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff on a tour of Idaho potato fields during the week of August 14.

Red River Valley potato growers generally have avoided drought and deluge this growing season. That bodes well for the soon-to-begin 2017 harvest.