News on Potato Defects and Diseases from the United States

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.

A partnership between Idaho State University and Boise State University has been awarded an Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission (IGEM) grant to research the application of the Humigator in potato storage.

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.

Progress is being made eradicating the microscopic potato cyst nematodes that have been threatening Idaho’s $900 million potato industry the last decade, according to the latest update by USDA-APHIS.

The National Potato Council (NPC) has sent a letter to President Trump with suggestions how the NAFTA agreement can be improved to benefit the potato trade.

Powdery scab is a potato disease that is difficult to manage and under certain environmental conditions powdery scab can be potentially devastating to susceptible potato varieties.

The potato industry may be losing a mainstay in the battle against psyllids, according to a recent Texas A&M AgriLife Research study.

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.

French Fry manufacturer McCain Foods has started trials examining soil fumigation with several of its potato growers in Maine (United States) and New Brunswick (Canada).

North Carolina State University research delves into the movement and evolution of the pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840's - Phytophthora infestans -, which set down roots in the United States before attacking Europe

The Plant Management Network (PMN) has released a new presentation entitled 'Epidemiology and Management of Potato White Mold' to help growers, consultants and extension agents understand how white mold persists and spreads

A new potato variety that’s genetically modified to withstand bruising has been cleared for commercialization without undergoing USDA’s deregulatory process for biotech crops.

Cornell University receives $1.2 million of new state funding to upgrade the Federal Golden Nematode Lab

Justin Clements, a fifth year doctoral student in the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Center working in the Department of Entomology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the recipient of the 2016-2017 NPC Academic Scholarship.

Potato psyllids have been reported in specific fields in western and central North Dakota. At this point populations are not widespread.

Participants at the 25th annual Texas Potato Breeding and Variety Development Program field day learned that the harvest is underway, that psyllids are threatening unharvested fields and that new varieties are showing lots of promise.

The heart of "Potato Country" in northeast North Dakota was devastated by baseball size hail that lasted up to 35 minutes last Tuesday night.

Dickeya blackleg, often just called Dickeya, is a new disease in the United States. It was severe in 2015 at least partly reflecting hotter weather than previous 2 years when the pathogen likely was present and is developing again in 2016.