Potato Review

CONTENTS www.potatoreview.com POTATO REVIEW JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 3 Editor’s letter HAPPY New year to all our readers! We hope you are all refreshed after a Christmas break and ready to embark on another year of growing, supplying and marketing our favourite crop! e substantial jump in the price of inputs means growers need to think carefully how they manage the risks they are facing, how to best manage their cash ow and the all-important pro t margin more so than ever before. Our feature on page 17 takes a look at the costs of crop establishment, with some tips for keeping these down. Branston Ltd has spent a second season trialling a machine-led haulm destruction method and is looking to roll the technique out to more crops next year, having been impressed with the results, and we share news about this on page 26. In the fertilisation feature, we look at ways in which growers are advised to make crops more e cient by increasing the rate at which the plant is metabolising nitrogen into protein, while elsewhere Helena Estiveira considers how to achieve nitrogen xation with the help of natural bacteria. Storage-wise, we catch up with the manufacturer of an orange oil product launched last Autumn in the UK and nd out how it has fared in its rst year, and also share some tips on timing and application for spearmint fogging. Meanwhile, breeders unveil details of new varieties launched at recent open days, while sharing the merits of each. ere have been some interesting developments of late within international markets. ese are all shared in the second half of the magazine, with a speci c focus piece on Sweden. And nally, with autumn shows now under our belts, and LAMMA in most of our diaries at the time of going to press, there are plenty of machinery updates to nish o with. Stephanie Cornwall Editor News roundup 04 Varieties 23 GB potatoes 09 NPI awards 11 Haulm pullingj 26 Storage 13 Costs of crop establishment 17 Fertlisation 33 Reader pro le: Chris Taylor 28 Appointments 36 Soil health 38 Market focus: Sweden 41 International news 42 Machinery 48 Seed treatment 34 GYOP focus 21