Posts Tagged: potato

USDA and UC join forces against potato psyllid

Scientists at USDA's Agricultural Research Service and UC Riverside will work together to develop a chemical attractant to monitor and manage the potato psyllid, according to an ARS news release issued today.

The psyllid harms the potato industry in two ways. Toxins emitted when the pest feeds causes psyllid yellows and an organism vectored by the psyllids causes a condition known as "zebra chip."

Zebra chip happens when sugars accumulate in some areas of the tuber instead of starch. Dark lines run the length of affected potatoes. In chipping varieties, these areas turn black when the chips are fried, creating a black, striped effect that gives rise to the name "zebra chip," according to the UC IPM Pest Note on potato psyllid.

Under a six-month cooperative agreement, UC Riverside entomologist Jocelyn Millar and ARS scientists in Wapato, Wash., will together try to isolate, identify, synthesize and test the specific chemical or chemicals that female potato psyllids use to attract mates.

"The agreement between UC Riverside and ARS is a pooling of resources and personnel that leverages Millar’s research on insect chemical ecology with the Wapato team’s behavioral assay studies," said the news release, written by Jan Suszkiw.

ARS scientists look at "zebra chips."

Farmers see piles of potatoes at Kern County park

A potato rainbow appeared on the grass at Hart Park in Bakersfield this week, offering farmers the opportunity to see a wide array of potato varieties developed by breeders across the United States and Canada.

The potatoes are the product of the UC Cooperative Extension and California Potato Research Advisory Board's Kern County Potato Variety Trial, which has been collecting potato variety data since the 1970s, according to an article about the annual field day in yesterday's Bakersfield Californian.

"The piles at the park contained every kind of potato imaginable. Big ones. Small ones. Lumpy ones. Round ones. In hues ranging from yellow to purple," wrote reporter Courtenay Edelhart.

She spoke to the event coordinator, Kern County vegetable crops farm advisor Joe Nunez.

"Most of the country hasn't even planted yet and we're harvesting already, so we get a lot of out-of-state interest," he was quoted.

Eldelhart listed the most-sought-after potato attributes:

• Red and purple varieties - because they are higher in antioxidants
• Small - because they don't take as long to cook
• Disease resistant
• High yielding

Texas A & M potato breeder J. Creighton Miller Jr. offered an analogy about finding potatoes with all the right characteristics:

"If I were breeding humans, it would be a little like crossing a National Merit Scholar with an All American football player to get kids that were both scholars and athletes," Miller was quoted. "You can imagine how difficult that is."

Potatoes of a different color.

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