News on Research from United Kingdom

Defra and UKRI, as part of the Farming Innovation Programme, recently announced funding for 'Potato-LITE' – a multimillion pound project over four years

Ground-Sensing technology TuberScan - developed by Agri-tech business B-hive Innovations and partners - is entering its final phase of testing both overseas and now in the UK following the start of this year’s weather-delayed potato growing season.

With weed control a key challenge for farmers, and reduced sensitivity to some herbicides a continuing problem. New product trials by FMC have demonstrated that effective controls are on the horizon.

The World Potato Congress presents a webinar with Dr. Alison Lees, Potato Pathologist with The James Hutton Institute, Dundee, UK on February 28, 2023 at 9.00am Eastern Standard Time (EST).

The Working Group for GB Potatoes has striven to bring the industry together to explore and develop what the industry needs following the levy payer ballots in Potatoes and Horticulture.

An international research team featuring the James Hutton Institute has shed further light on the evolution and biology of potatoes as a genetically complex global food crop.

Following an upward trend in wireworm damage in root vegetable and cereal crops throughout the UK, industry leaders have joined forces to co-fund a Fera-led R&D project to find an end-to-end solution

Edison Investment Research, a London-based investment research and advisory company releases a report on RNA interference-based biopesticides: Feeding the World: Biological Products for Sustainable Crop Protection

An innovative method of controlling a range of damaging crop diseases using native, beneficial soil bacteria has emerged from a research-industry collaboration.

Seed breeders work closely with potato growers to develop desirable agronomic traits, and with the wider supply chain for those crucial characteristics such as dry matter distribution, sugar formation, and storability.

Recent advances in breeding technologies can be harnessed to fast track the breeding of new varieties. Sensors and drone technologies are driving integrated pest management solutions.

NFU Scotland is urging its potato growers to complete its survey to identify what functions carried out by the industry’s statutory levy body – AHDB Potatoes - are most valued ahead of body being wound down.

AHDB has announced it is winding down significant activities on behalf of the horticulture and potatoes sectors. While awaiting a decision on the future by Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales, AHDB wants to reassure levy payers their views have been heard.

Plant scientists at the James Hutton Institute are studying the evolution of late blight in potato by working with industry and research partners to track the distribution and diversity of dominant clones in Europe in 2020

The British potato industry remains in a state of great uncertainty and at significant risk of crop wastage and economic failure as a result of minimal progress on the availability of suitable sprout suppression chemistry.

Tim, currently Chief Operating Officer of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), will take up his position at the Stoneleigh-based levy board on 31 August 2021, replacing Jane King. During the intervening period, the interim AHDB CEO will be Ken Boyns, AHDB Chief Finance, and Operations Officer.

To ensure the research AHDB funds has the biggest impact and benefit for the potato industry, they work to connect growers with researchers and scientists with initiatives like their Strategic Spot Farms.

Sowing wildflowers into potato crops could reduce aphid-carried viruses and offer an alternative to declining access to insecticides for growers.