News on Potato Defects and Diseases from Europe

In preparation for the World Potato Congress being held from May 30 to June 2, 2022 in Dublin, Ireland, Liam Glennon, Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee, Irish Potato Federation.

The Crop Trust and the International Potato Center (CIP) are announcing the release of a new disease-resistant potato called CIP-Matilde.

Agrico presented two new varieties during an intimate Meet and Greet at its breeding and research farm, Agrico Research in Bant.

The Potato Days of HZPC are dedicated to the future of the potato. A future in which the potato provides an important contribution to the food security in the world and helps to combat climate change.

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.

Waitrose and Partners is set to be the first major retailer to sign up to The UK Robust Potato Pledge, which will see the group move away from the use of copper-based fungicides on organic fresh potatoes in order to combat late blight Phytophthora.

After more than 2 years, the first major international meeting platform for the potato chain will finally see the light of day: on Sunday 28, 29, and 30 November 2021, INTERPOM will be opening its doors in Kortrijk Xpo. At last, the potato professionals will be able to meet each other again!

The call for abstract submission for WPC 2022 is now open and authors are encouraged to submit their abstract online for consideration. Deadline for Oral Submissions: 30th November 2021. Deadline for Poster Submission: 15th February 2022.

North-western Europe will have had one of its most humid summers in the last decades! In some areas in Belgium and Western Germany, rainfall at mid-July was an absolute historic high.

Potato growers and agricultural machine builders in Biddinghuizen have come up with a way to deal with colorado beetles without using pesticides.

After the Plant Health Centre led a working Group to identify a clear strategy for dealing with the Potato Cyst Nematode (PCN) crisis, a report was delivered to the Scottish Government.

Scientists at the university of Ghent have developed a vaccine to combat potato blight, one of the most common diseases in potatoes.

New discovery will lead to faster and more focused potato breeding

Wageningen University & Research experts in plant pathology, cell biology and physics have found an answer to the question of how members of the Phytophthora genus mechanically gain entry through the protective layer on the leaves of crops.

It's easy to see a bruise on a person. Not so, on a potato. The bruises are under the product's skin and so not easily detected during processing. Science, however, has found a solution that gives the Belgian Colruyt Group a peek under potatoes' skins.

Crop4Sight’s online and mobile digital toolkit is designed to help growers maximise saleable potato yields and was launched as a commercial service in 2020. Crop4Sight now adds a potato irrigation scheduling tool.

This season AHDB (United Kingdom) is receiving a lot of reports of high levels of softening, dehydration and compression damage from potato store managers.

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