No-nonsense, no-frills potato news stories from around the world
Great news for potato producers! 1,4-dimethylnaphthalene (1,4-DMN), a naturally occurring bio-control that enhances dormancy, controls spouting and encourages field-fresh quality in stored potatoes, is scheduled for review and regulatory approval under the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture (FAO)’s Codex Alimentarius. The review process will take place during 2023.
Adrian Cunnington of Potato Storage Insight warns that due to the unprecedented lack of certainty in the UK industry and delays in decision-making, there may potentially be a lot of short-term storage of seed this spring. Therefore, it is crucial not to compromise seed quality by being complacent about how it is handled, even for the shortest periods.
The governments of Canada and Manitoba are investing $98,970 through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership to upgrade the University of Manitoba’s horticulture storage facility so it can conduct innovative potato research, federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and Manitoba Agriculture Minister Derek Johnson announced today. The upgraded facility will also align with other international research facilities and will be able to create more training and capacity-building opportunities.
Potato Storage Insight’s latest bulletin has advice for dealing with the continuing battle against rising storage costs and a reminder of the forthcoming PSI Potato Store Managers’ Course which is attracting interest from across the country and overseas. The latest Synopsis bulletin’s technical insight feature has information on the effective use of plenums in box stores and the importance of them in optimising air flow to help get the best out of every kilowatt of energy expended over the storage period.
From January 24 – 26, Restrain will be exhibiting at the Manitoba Potato Production Days Conference & Trade Show in Canada. Restrain is a manufacturer and distributor of ethylene generators. Restrain generators control sprouting in post-harvest potatoes, in a more natural way than any other agri-chemical method. Restrain is a natural sprout inhibitor based on the natural gas ethylene.
A Scottish potato grower found that investing in better air flow in his stores, had reaped major benefits for crop quality and energy costs, while also reducing the environmental impact, as John Sleigh reports for The Scottish Farmer. James Fairlie, who grows potatoes at Kirkton of Monikie, in Angus, recently had air curtains fitted to two of his stores and is already noticing a difference in air flow, energy use and quality of his crop.
Tong Engineering is pleased to announce its appointment as UK distributor for Dutch palletising solutions manufacturer Verbruggen. “Verbruggen is renowned for manufacturing first-class palletising and stacking solutions with excellent product support. We have successfully collaborated on a number of projects with Verbruggen in the past,” says Simon Lee, Sales Director at Tong Engineering.
“I recently visited a state-of-the-art potato storage in western Manitoba, a very large building with all the bells and whistles,” writes Peter Alder, Appraiser at FFC in this technical article. “I could feel the excitement and pride shared by the owner of this large facility as it promises to deliver everything a pile of potatoes would ever need to make it through the storage season in great condition and deliver a great quality product just-in-time to the processing plant.”
Potatoes in Canada magazine will host the Canadian Potato Summit 2023 as a virtual half-day event on January 12, 2023 at 12:00pm ET. The event will include live sessions focused on industry and agronomy updates from prominent leaders in the potato sector. The first presentation will be by Gary Secor, professor of plant pathology at North Dakota State University, who will talk about a new potato disease and some old potato diseases that have similar symptoms in storage.
Retail demand and household consumption in Ireland have picked up since colder weather has set in, as the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) reports. Storage costs are a multiple of last year’s costs and growers must immediately receive an increase at farm gate level to compensate for this, IFA says. In the U.K. ambient stores are difficult to hold while it has been so mild and “wets” in bags are a problem for some growers.
The PSI Potato Store Managers’ Course is an annual participative course for growers and store managers who are involved in the day-to-day management of potato stores. The course is organised by Potato Storage Insight Ltd in the UK. It will follow a tried and tested format and will include talks, group discussions and practical interactive sessions, focusing on all aspects of potato storage. Tutors will include Adrian Cunnington of PSI (pictured) and Glyn Harper, both formerly of Sutton Bridge Crop Storage Research.
The upcoming Interpom trade show in Belgium is regarded by many as the most specialised indoor trade fair for the potato sector in Europe where the whole chain is represented. It will be hosted on November 26 to 29 this year. Tolsma-Grisnich is happy to announce that it will be showcasing its product offerings at this event. Along with an independent group of specialists from Interpom, the company will showcase a number of ‘must-see’ innovations that will be featured at the fair throughout the event.
For over 25 years, 1,4GROUP Inc. has dedicated itself to providing value-added customer solutions in potato storage quality management, innovative application techniques and shelf-life extension through scientifically based product development. “1,4SIGHT is the only true dormancy enhancer on the market,” says 1,4GROUP’s Global Director of Research, Development and Innovation, Bernd Frings.
As the UK harvest nears its end, albeit with some wetter weather to deal with now, the key to success in storage this month is to secure control of the store environment, advises Adrian Cunnington of Potato Storage Insight. The processes of drying, curing and pull-down are focused on removal of moisture and heat from the crop as a priority after loading, he says.
With about half of Aroostook County’s potato crop out of the ground, some farmers are already using extra storage they planned after last year’s bumper crop. At least right now, there’s no word of farmers running out of storage space, said Don Flannery, Maine Potato Board executive director. Irving Farms staff in Caribou reported the 2022 crop is exceeding their expectations.
Potato yields in Britain are down significantly this season due to the hot, dry spring and early summer weather, and for growers putting spuds into cold storage there is the double whammy of higher electricity costs along with lower tuber numbers. The cost of electricity was about £21-22/t for long-term storage on the farm last year, says Mark Means in Norfolk. This season prices had reached £82/t.
Leading vegetable handling equipment manufacturer Tong Engineering has announced its latest product development, which will see advanced optical sorting options available on all new models of its popular fieldloader machine, the FieldLoad PRO. Designed to allow growers to effectively clean and load crop in-field and on-farm, the FieldLoad PRO is one of the latest Tong machines on offer with fully-integrated camera sorting facilities.
A Suffolk potato and onion grower is facing eye-watering costs to dry and store his harvested vegetables over winter. Woodbridge farmer James Foskett says potato storage costs will see big increases from about £30/t to £80-90/t for these. “So, the energy charges will really start to bite,” he says. “There’s slightly less energy used in storing potatoes and we don’t store them as long,” he says. Most will go in January to February.
Managing CO2 levels in potato stores is mainly done with large, energy-hungry fans. By not using your large fans, but instead using a small Restrain CO2 extractor, you can save one and a half hours of run time of the large fans every 24 hours, according to a news release issued by Restrain company. Furthermore, store managers can simply enter crop and storage information online and within 30 seconds the Restrain Energy Calculator will calculate how much can be saved monthly.
A combination of the high summer temperatures and growers being unable to apply maleic hydrazide means potatoes coming into stores this season will be under increased sprouting pressure. That’s why British growers are being advised to act early and treat crops with a new sprout suppressant, as Richard Allison reports for Farmers Weekly.
Electricity prices have been the subject of significant debate across the UK lately. No more so than within potato production with suppliers facing price hikes of up to 400% to secure new supply contracts, says potato storage consultant Adrian Cunnington in his latest monthly bulletin, Synopsis. Adrian points out that producers are facing energy charges of up to 80 pence per kilowatt hour, against a history of paying under 20 pence.
Masaki Shimono has joined the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno as a research scientist, studying beneficial microbes to improve and mitigate disease in potatoes during storage. He is looking into how long-term storage conditions affect potatoes in terms of water loss and disease decay due to plant pathogens. Soft and dry rot, caused by bacterium and fungus, respectively, are two important diseases being investigated.
1,4SIGHT (1,4-Dimethylnapthalene or DMN), a sprout suppressant for stored potatoes, is now approved for use in Britain, DormFresh has announced. Applied as a hot fog, 1,4SIGHT does not just burn off the sprouts, it will stop their formation and put the tubers into a dormant state. It is suitable for both the fresh and the processing sector, in all storage types and conditions. It is currently approved in 23 European countries, the United States, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and Brazil.
“July is a key time for maleic hydrazide (MH, eg Fazor, Crown, Itcan etc) treatment,” writes storage specialist Adrian Cunnington in the latest issue of his monthly Synopsis bulletin. “With the majority of post-harvest sprout control options lacking residual activity against sprouting – which is so key for long term storage – the role of MH cannot be underestimated,” he points out.
Gustavo Teixeira knows the best way to supply more food to a growing population is by wasting less of it. As a new assistant professor and potato postharvest physiologist with University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Teixeira will use advanced scientific techniques to help Idaho potato growers, processors and shippers waste fewer of the spuds they harvest.
In the June issue of his monthly Synopsis bulletin, storage specialist Adrian Cunnington reports on the recent World Potato Congress event in Dublin, including the technical tour to O’Shea Farms. The bulletin further includes a link to his presentation on post-CIPC solutions at the WPC conference session on storage, which also featured talks by Nora Olsen, Kurt Demeulemeester and Derek Ralston.
In the second of two articles, potato storage specialist Adrian Cunnington of Potato Storage Insight (PSI) homes in on how to compile an accurate cost estimate. Ultimately all of those things are dependent on the basic cost of running a storage set-up, Adrian says, and it is important to have a really good grasp of what those costs are. “There is perhaps no time in the history of modern potato storage as we know it when costs have been so pressurised,” he says.
From May 30 to June 2, Restrain will be exhibiting at the World Potato Congress 2022 (WPC) in Dublin, Ireland. Restrain’s expert team is ready to answer all your questions and show you the solutions that are our contribution to the changing world of the potato. Visit them at stand 57. Restrain is known for their CO2 extractor and their residue-free ethylene anti-sprouting system.
In a recently published article, specialists at Dutch based Ellips grading technology company, Erwin Bakker (CEO) and John Albert (GM Ellips USA) discuss in detail how advanced equipment and technology can help potato companies to overcome five of the most common challenges associated with efficient sorting and grading.
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