News on Potato Varieties and Seed from United Kingdom

A genetically-modified (GM) Maris Piper designed to resist the devastating plant disease late blight has worked “brilliantly” during the first year of field trials, according to scientists of The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL)

One of the key features of the biennial British Potato event is the seminar programme and the approaching Brexit is of course a topic that must be front and center at an event in the United Kingdom.

In Great Britain, Maris Piper is still by a wide margin the most grown potato variety. But potato growers have planted an increased area of emerging varieties to serve the fresh packing market

The Chinese Government and leading potato company, Xisen Potato Group have committed £3 million to a collaboration with James Hutton Limited (JHL) to breed new varieties and research resistance to pests and diseases, tuber storage and potato processing.

Government representatives from Scotland and Brazil met in July to simplify the import classification requirements for seed potatoes. The game-changing meeting was organised and funded by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).

In Scotland, a group of major potato businesses and public sector organisations have sponsored a £242,000 (USD 313,000) research project aimed at reducing the impact of potato disease blackleg on the Scottish seed potato industry.

Seed potato growers for the United Kingdom who have been confident that crucial trade with Egypt and other non-EU markets would not be disrupted by Brexit may be in for a shock.

Scientists have identified a version of a single gene involved in the heat stress response that is more active in potato types that can tolerate high temperature, potentially providing potato breeders a tool to make potato varieties less vulnerable to increased temperature.

DEFRA ha aprobado la solicitud del Laboratorio Sainsbury, Norwich, para llevar a cabo ensayos de campo con cultivo de papa genéticamente modificada (GM) en un sitio de ensayo designado en el Norwich Research Park entre 2017 y 2021.

In the United Kingdom, farming minster George Eustice (DEFRA) has approved a four-year trial of genetically modified (GM) potatoes at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich.

AHDB Potatoes has pledged to work closely with the seed potato sector and Scottish Government to ensure that the industry maintains a low level of the bacterial disease blackleg.

Jim Cruickshank OBE, one of the most well respected seed producers in the UK, is this year’s winner of the British Potato Industry Award, organised by AHDB Potatoes.

AHDB Potatoes has produced provisional estimates of planted areas by variety for Great Britain for 2016.

Purple Magic, a Northern Ireland potato with high anthocyanin content, was bred by Paul Watts at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute and just reached the finals of INVENT 2016, a Northern Ireland innovation competition.

El AFBI (Instituto de Agroalimentación y Biociencias) de Irlanda de Norte ha desarrollado una papa morada, conocida como Purple Magic. Los investigadores la desarrollaron con la esperanza de que tenga propiedades anticancerígenas debido a los efectos beneficiosos de las antocianinas (los pigmentos), que son un tipo de compuestos antioxidantes.

A team of scientists from The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) and The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) have developed a new method to accelerate isolation of plant disease resistance genes and - using their new method - a brand new source of blight resistance genes in Solanum americanum, a wild relative of the potato.

UK Seed potato exports are booming with big strides being made to open even more new markets.

Researchers in the United Kingdom aim for a new commercial potato that resists many of the worst vulnerabilities of potato crops around the world.