Potato Review

4 POTATO REVIEW JULY/AUGUST 2021 NEWS Editor Stephanie Cornwall 01778 395055 stephanie.cornwall@warnersgroup.co.uk Multimedai Sales Executive eresa Geeson 01778 392046 theresag@warnersgroup.co.uk Publisher Juliet Loiselle 01778 391067 Julietl@warnersgroup.co.uk Design Amanda Calre Subscriptions 01778 392464 subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk Subscriptions & advertising copy Potato Review, Warners Group Publications, e Maltings, West Street, Bourne, PE10 9PH www.potatoreview.com ISSN 0961–7655 © AREMI Ltd 2018 e publishers are not necessarily in agreement with opinions expressed in this journal. No responsibility can be accepted for statements made by contributors or advertisers. POTATO REVIEW is published by: Warners Group Publications, e Maltings, West Street, Bourne, PE10 9PH Printed by Warners (Midlands) Plc Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincs. PE10 9PH July/August 2021 PRINTED BY WARNERS 01778 395111 ‘Microsoft’sBillGates grows potatoes forMcDonald’s’ MICROSOFT co-founder Bill Gates is the largest private farmland owner in the US and, according to a new report from NBC, potatoes that make McDonald’s fries grow in his fields. Citing data by The Land Report and its own research, NBC has said that potatoes for McDonald’s fries are grown in fields in Washington state that are so vast that you can see them from space. Gates owns 269,000 acres of farmland across 18 states, according to updated numbers from NBC, making him America’s biggest owner of private farmland. His land ownership has come under close scrutiny after he and his wife, Melinda French Gates, announced they were Evolution of potato late blight investigated A CONSORTIUM made up of researchers and members of the potato industry have been tracking the distribution and diversity of dominant late blight clones in potato in Europe in 2020. Plant scientists at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, Aarhus University, Wageningen University and INRAE make up the EuroBlight consortiumwhich has tracked the European spatial distribution of Phytophthora infestans over the past eight years. It has also contributed to a review into the development of the disease in Asia in the last 150 years, as part of global e–orts to improve the sustainable production of healthy potato crops. It has compiled and published a report based on information from 1,221 samples collected in 28 countries and genotyped in 2020. One of the study’s leaders, James Hutton Institute researcher Dr David Cooke, said blight pressure in 2020 was lower than average, with a prolonged spell of warm, dry weather early in the season which checked the development of the disease in many regions. “The proportions of the main clones in the 2020 population structure were broadly similar to those reported in 2019. Three clones that first appeared in 2013 (EU_41_A2), 2014 (EU_37_A2, EU_36_A2) and EU_43, named in 2020, made up 40% of the 2020 population,” he said. David and members of West Bengal State University and Queen’s University Belfast, have contributed to a review, into the development of potato late blight in Asia from 1870 to 2020. This has revealed that several clonal lineages of P. infestans have spread from Europe and, to a lesser extent, fromNorth America, into Asia. divorcing after 27 years of marriage. Gates is the fourth-richest person in the world, worth $144 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates. Tescopackaging trial TESCO began trialling fully recyclable packaging for its 1kg new season potatoes in June and is also to reduce the amount of paper used in its 2.5kg potato packaging. The packaging trial will last for 12 weeks across 100 stores, with plans to roll out the changes to more products if the trial is successful. The packaging change will initially cover the Tesco Ireland range of ‘New Season Early Potatoes’. The change will also reduce the amount of paper used in Tesco’s 2.5kg new season potatoes bag by 30% and remove almost 50,000 non-recyclable 1kg new season plastic bags from the waste system annually. The new paper bags will carry the green ‘widely recycled’ logo and can be recycled at home.