News on Potato Defects and Diseases

When a major South American pest infests potato tubers, the plant produces bigger spuds, reports a study by Cornell, University of Goettingen and National University of Colombia researchers.The secret is in the spit, write the researchers online in the...

Worldwide, late blight is rated the worst of potato diseases. Intermittently since the 1990s, spores have turned up in commercial fields of Idaho, Washington, California and Oregon. When the spore is present it reproduces like a wildfire in cool, mois...

Potato growers across Australia have been urged to protect the local industry from a major pest which has established itself in New Zealand. New Zealand potato producers have been coming to terms with the disease Zebra chip. The disease is seen as...

Developing a chemical attractant to monitor and manage the potato psyllid is the goal of a new cooperative agreement signed in March between the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the University of California (UC) at Riverside.

Potatoes are America’s number one vegetable crop. Per capita, Americans consume about 130 pounds annually.

Many readers are no doubt aware of last summer's late-blight infestation, in which a fungus, Phytophthora infestans, decimated local tomato and potato plantings. The fungus overwinters in southeastern United States but does not generally overwinter in ...

A New Brunswick potato scientist will travel to Peru this month in an effort to help Canadian tubers fight blight.Dr. David De Koeyer, who works at the Potato Research Centre in Fredericton, has spent his professional life studying spuds.He's heading t...

The government has given the green light to scientists to undertake a trial of genetically modified potatoes.Researchers will grow a trial crop of potatoes genetically modified to resist infection by potato cyst nematodes.DEFRA granted approval to scie...

De consumptieaardappelen waar de Plantenziektenkundige Dienst (PD) ringrot heeft aangetroffen, zijn in België geteeld door een akkerbouwer uit Noord-Holland, die ook pootgoed voor eigen gebruik heeft geteeld.

Over 40,000 farmers in Munshiganj (District in Bangladesh , see map) have cultivated potatoes this year, beating all records of potato acreage in the alluvial floodplains of the district. But farmers are daunted by persistent foggy weather in the last...

The South African government has rejected the Agriculture Research Council’s (ARC’s) application to provide genetically modified potatoes to local farmers, saying it was concerned about its safety and economic effect. “This is probably the mo...

Since 2000, a mystery disease has struck some potato fields in Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, and other western states, reducing tuber yields and quality.

Scientists at the Scottish Crop research Institute (SCRI) have helped unlock the mystery behind potato blight - a disease that costs the global industry an estimated £4billion of losses every year. The same disease devastated crops in Ireland 150 year...

The impact of late blight to potato growers in Michigan is clear and we estimate that many growers with crops going in to long-term storage will spend up to $350/A in crop protection products alone (not including application costs). Even such intense c...

Controlling blight is of paramount importance to all potato growers, whether big or small. Research over the past two years by Dr Stephen Kildea and others in Teagasc Oak Park has shown the type of blight Ireland is getting now is changing compared t...

Farmers in southern and central Maine have already reported cases of late blight in potato and tomato crops. Now the disease has spread to northern Maine.

Owing to the fear of blight, many farmers are shying away from cultivating potato. Last year, potato was grown on 50,000 hectares of land in the district, but the crop on 35,000 hectares was affected by blight, and farmers lost Rs. 300 crore as a res...

SCRI is leading an international project to help potato farmers in Kenya.The mission is being supported with a grant from the Monsanto Fund totalling £186,000. The ambition is to increase potato yields - and importantly Kenyan farmer's incomes.