Potato Review

46 POTATO REVIEW JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 INTERNATIONAL NPC urges increased protections to prevent PEI potato wart spread THE National Potato Council in the US and state potato associations have called on USDA Undersecretary of Marketing and Regulatory Services, Jenny Mott, to work with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to develop new phytosanitary protocols to prevent potato wart spreading from Prince Edward Island to US growing areas. Last month USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) concluded in a risk assessment that the disease was likely to be introduced to the US unless additional mitigation measures were put in place. After a meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden last spring, the borders had been reopened, following a wart finding, which was extensively covered by Potato Review. Members of the US potato industry wrote to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack urging him to implement mitigation measures that would not impact on trade in clean product. They say no potato wart disease detections are still being announced on PEI but no actions have been taken. The letter to Jenny Mot states: “It is clear that the current protocol (the 2015 Federal Order) no longer meets Secretary Vilsack’s standard and does not provide the necessary mitigation to protect the U.S. industry from disease introduction. Therefore, a new protocol must be put in place immediately in order to establish the necessary protection.” NPC and the state organisations oered a number of questions and observations that should be addressed by APHIS and CFIA in constructing a new protocol, including more clarity on the numbers of soil samples remaining to be tested from PEI; banning the re-packing of bulk shipments entering the US; and maintaining a “meaningful level” of testing in PEI for the foreseeable future. High school studient is cornering amarket A HIGH school freshman from Nebraska has found his own corner of the potato market after progressing from what started as a home-based project in his family’s garden. Carson Reiman used to help his dad Mark in the garden over the years, before he outgrew it and moved to a spot just north of the family’s grove to occupy the corner that Brian Scroggin’s irrigation pivot misses, a report in The Nebraska Farmer reveals. The larger plot was just under half an acre. He planted four potato varieties — Yukon Gold, Kennebec, Pontiac Red and Viking — on the plot south of Cozad, Nebraska and has marketed his potatoes through Fresh Seasons Market in Gothenburg, where he now delivers around 150 to 200 pounds each week. “This is something that I’ve dreamed of for years but the scariest part was planting. I didn’t know if this was going to work. But I knew if I really worked at it, something was going to happen,” Carson told the NF reporter. Starting in the middle of October, he also took potato-loaded flatbed trailers into Gothenburg for consumers. His first challenge came in sourcing 600 pounds of seed potatoes, the amount he needed to plant 15 rows, 566 feet in length. Once he acquired the seed, he had to cut 3-ounce slices for planting, which then needed to “harden”. He did this by spreading them outside on newspaper for a day and a half before transferring them to cardboard boxes for four days. He said the cardboard helped to suck extra moisture out of the prepped potatoes and conceded that the use of potato chalk could have sped up this process - something he might consider for the 2023 crop. He works with whatever equipment he can find, currently using a 1920s Champion Corp potato digger which he has adapted to work with a John Deere 950. Of the four varieties that he plants, he says Kennebec has the most fragile skins, needing to be killed o for about two weeks before handling. “Reds are very good; you could pull them out of the ground right now and they would be pretty good. Yukon Golds are kind of in the middle,” he says. He tries to use chemicals as little as possible because of the expense. Instead, he weeds himself and enlists the help of his five younger sisters. US potato sales up almost 18% US POTATO sales rose almost 18% this year compared to last year, according to a report from Potatoes USA. Total sales for all forms of potatoes – fresh, frozen, canned and so forth – were nearly $4 billion in July-September 2022, an increase of 17.8% over July- September 2021. Among fresh potatoes, dollar sales were up for all types, except fingerling and purple, due to tight supply, the report said. The biggest decreases in volume sales for the July-September 2022 time frame were purple potatoes, fingerlings, and white potatoes, down 38.5%, 14.9%, and 13.2%, respectively. All pack sizes saw an increase in dollars, except packages greater than 10 pounds, which decreased by 27.3%. The pack sizes that grew the most were five- pound and 10-pound packs, increasing by 29.4% and 29.3%, respectively. Volume sales of all pack sizes were down except for pack two- to four- pounds and five-pound bags. The average consumer price per pound has risen every year for the last five years, the report said, peaking at $2.35 this year.