Potato Review

32 POTATO REVIEW SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 POTATOES IN PRACTICE Back in the field Potatoes In Practice returns, with two major announcements made at show. H AVING been cancelled last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Potatoes In Practice, the UK’s largest field event for potatoes, returned to Balruddery Farm in Dundee last month, with more than 500 attending. Organisers, who are made up of the James Hutton Institute, SRUC and Agrii UK, took the decision not to hold any seminars at this year’s event. “We felt it was best to avoid getting lots of people in the same room together,” Potato Review was told at a show briefing. However, as in former years, the event brought together variety demonstrations, research and trade exhibits in one place and went “fantastically well” according to The James Hutton Institute’s Media Manager, Bernardo Rodriguez-Salcedo. At a briefing on the first day of the show, Prof Lesley Torrance, the Institute’s Executive Director of Science, Phil Burgess of ScottishPotatoes.org and Prof Ian Toth, Director of Scotland’s Plant Health Centre, outlined the concept of a Potato Innovation and Translation Hub, future funding and applied research and development, and gave updates from the Plant Health Centre. During the event, the Potato Innovation and Translation Hub was launched and £2.2m funding for research on PCN was announced by the Scottish Government. The vision for the hub is a collaborative partnership of researchers, knowledge Photos courtesy of James Hutton Institute