News on Potato Varieties and Seed from Northern America

After one of the most unique potato harvests in recent memory, Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, said Wednesday that he felt good about all the industry accomplished this year and was optimistic about year ahead.

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.

Examining the ancestors of the modern, North American cultivated potato has revealed a set of common genes and important genetic pathways that have helped potatoes adapt over thousands of years.

August was a great month for retail potato sales in the United States, with all categories enjoying volume growth when compared to the same four weeks a year ago.

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.

La compañía norteamericana Simplot ha obtenido la aprobación para su papa marca Innate en algunos mercados clave, como Japón. Y tiene pendientes otras solicitudes de acceso a mercados extranjeros.

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

More than 300 people stopped by Fredericton Research and Development Centre's open house

Dirk Hays,Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant geneticist: “With Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), we can image the size of the tubers and get a correlation to the actual physical size of the potato without harvesting them. Potatoes are a dream for Ground Penetrating Radar.”

Old Oak Farms®, RPE’s core commodity brand, is bringing new life to the fingerling potato category with Party Potatoes®. In hopes to share the party nationwide, RPE has created multi-themed promotional campaign that will span over the next several months.

Parkland Potato Varieties will be hosting is annual open day at the Crop Diversification Centre South in Brooks, Alberta on August 18th from 10 am to 2 pm.

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

Health Canada and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) have completed the food, feed, and environmental safety assessments of the J.R. Simplot Company’s second generation of Innate® potatoes. The authorizations enable the potatoes to be imported, planted, and sold in Canada.

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

A couple of seed potato companies from Quebec, together with the Centre de Recherche Les Buissons (CRLB) have started an initiative to export high quality seed potatoes to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Simplot Plant Sciences will not commercially launch its Innate GMO potatoes in Canada this year, despite regulatory approval and interest among potato farmers to grow these new potatoes

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.