News on Potato Varieties and Seed

The success of the potato industry is built on growers’ ability to introduce new potato varieties that meet market demands. For example, when snack-size bags of potato chips were popularized, the industry responded by breeding smaller potatoes for smaller chips to fit into the bags.

Seed potato breeding and trading company Royal HZPC Group, expects to achieve a strong result for the financial year 2024/2025 (July – June), with global total tonnage potentially surpassing the 1 million ton mark for the first time.

Aviko, Europe's largest producer of potato products in the out-of-home segment and one of the top five world market leaders, has signed a trade agreement for seed potatoes together with Averis, a subsidiary of potato starch group Royal Avebe and specialised in the development, propagation and trade of starch potato varieties.

El gobierno distribuirá 9,000 semillas mejoradas a los productores locales, creando nuevos semilleros en colaboración con asociaciones agrícolas.

Los Países Bajos son el gran ganador en términos porcentuales, siendo la gran mayoría de las importaciones de origen holandés. El perdedor, el Reino Unido.

Las perspectivas para esta próxima campaña no son muy auspiciosas y de hecho se asemeja mucho a la campaña anterior. Se recomienda realizar pedidos de semilla lo antes posible.

PotatoEurope 2025, scheduled to take place on September 3 and 4 at the Wageningen University & Research (WUR) Field Crops location by the Dutch city Lelystad, has announced the international conference titled 'Integrated Crop Management (ICM) – The Future of Potato Farming.'

Scottish seed potato exports amounted to over 92,000 tonnes in 2023/24. The largest market is Egypt with 60% of exports, followed by Morocco with 10%. The remainder goes to a further 26 countries with volumes varying from thousands of tonnes to a few hundred. 

HZPC Americas Corp. (HZPC) and partners are embarking on a new phase of supporting the North American potato industry with the creation of a Seed Potato Dealer Network.

While it may seem difficult to introduce innovations to the potato sector, Matteo Freddi of 'Freddi 1926 srl' is betting on something new at the Marca trade fair.

Leading potato supplier Branston is once again encouraging schools to sign up for the Grow Your Own Potatoes programme this year, as one of the sponsors of the primary school-based farm-to-fork initiative.

2024 has been a good year for the potato sector. So much so, that there is growing interest in potato cultivation, to the detriment of other crops, according to Patatas Meléndez. However, 2025 will be posing the same challenge as 2024: a limited supply of seed potatoes and an even higher demand.

The renovation of Agrico Research has started. Today the demolition of the various laboratories of the breeding company in Bant has started.

Susie Thompson associate professor of plant sciences, has been named the inaugural Johansen-Thompson Endowed Professor in Potato Breeding at North Dakota State University. 

Mark Hoogendoorn has joined Solynta as Sales Lead as per January 1, 2025. In this role, he is responsible for leading the Sales and Business Development team and expanding the commercial introduction of Solynta’s true potato seeds around the globe.

PoLoPo, a molecular farming pioneer, has announced it has moved beyond greenhouse scale and begun planting its genetically modified potatoes in fields, the first wide cultivation of plants derived from PoLoPo’s proprietary metabolic engineering techniques.

EUROPLANT America is excited to announce that in conjunction with the reorganization of EUROPLANT Europe to incorporate their breeding and farming structure under the EUROPLANT brand, Potato Seed Solutions is now EUROPLANT America.

Todo parece indicar que la disponibilidad y la calidad serán superiores a las del 2024. En cualquier caso, la temporada no está libre de dificultades.