ARS' Research Efforts to Develop Better Potatoes

Each American consumes an average of 130 pounds of potato every year, which makes it as the top vegetable crop in America. Worldwide, it is the fourth largest crop next to wheat, rice and corn. However, there are numerous pests and diseases affecting potatoes and these include the Columbia root-knot nematode, the potato tuber moth, and the Irish Potato Famine culprit - the late blight. To combat such pathogens, potato producers result to extensive use of chemicals which raises several environmental concerns. Thus, scientists of the USDA Agricultural Research Service are finding ways to develop new varieties of potato which are pest-resistant, with good storage quality, and nutritional value.

The Small Grains Potato Germplasm Research Unit is one of the units in ARS working on developing new potato lines. One of their late blight-resistant cultivar is labeled as Defender, which helped potato producers minimize their expenses for fungicides. On the other hand, the Sugarbeet and Potato Research Unit, in cooperation with Northern Plains Potato Growers Association, are working on cultivars with more than nine months of storage and these are named  Dakota Crisp and Dakota Diamond. ARS' Vegetable and Forage Crop Research Unit are developing potatoes with improved anti-oxidant activity and increased amounts of phytochemicals.

For more information, read the complete article at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may10/potatoes0510.htm.