News on Potato Defects and Diseases from the United States

Benjamin 'Benjy' Firester, 18, of New York City, won the top award in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2018 with a mathematical model that uses disease data to predict how weather patterns could spread late blight spores.

The Colorado potato beetle is notorious for its role in starting the pesticide industry - and for its ability to resist the insecticides developed to stop it. Now scientists have sequenced the beetle’s genome, probing its genes for clues to its surprising adaptability.

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 USDA-NIFA has awarded a grant totaling $388,000 to the University of Maine to study potato breeding and improve quality and pest resistance in the eastern United States.

Researchers from all over the world were in Bangor for the '2017 Dickeya and Pectobacterium Summit', organized by the University of Maine Extension.

A project underway in Aberdeen, Idaho, aims to develop russet potatoes with resistance to pale cyst nematode, while identifying new molecular markers associated with resistance.

In a visit to the Nematode Quarantine laboratory at Cornell University last Friday, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, announced a commitment of $400,000 from the USDA for the upgrades to the facilities and equipment.

Idaho Potato industry officials report yields are down significantly as Western Idaho growers have started with their early harvest of Russet Norkotahs for the fresh market.

Adrienne Gorny, a fourth-year doctoral student in Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology at Cornell University, is the recipient of the 2017-2018 NPC Academic Scholarship.

The National Potato Council, representing the United States Potato Industry responds to the Mexican Court decision to block the import of US potatoes: 'Mexican Court Ruling Ignores Science'

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed two new measures involving the potato industry last Wednesday. One law makes use of certified seed potatoes mandatory, the other enforces a faster response to the presence of late blight

Research of Boise State University plan to develop a wireless sensor network that would be able to detect temperature, humidity levels, carbon dioxide and ammonia levels in real time, to help with early detection of rot in stored potatoes.

Pressure from the tiny, winged insects that spread zebra chip disease in potatoes has been light in Idaho this season, emboldening some Idaho farmers to scale back on their pesticide programs.

Two recently released new Russet varieties - Castle Russet and Echo Russet - should help the potato industry in the Pacific Northwest cope with more stringent regulations on soil fumigants

UMaine scientists say farmers could try to protect their potato crop by utilizing agricultural practices — including crop rotations and push-pull strategies — to create field conditions that favor Colorado potato beetle cannibalism.

Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner this week announced that Colorado State University will receive $264,600 in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to study the spread of pathogens in U.S potato crops.

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