Re: OT-PLANTS: 'taters

For a number of years I worked for the largest potato growing/processing
company in the world, the J. R. Simplot Co., working out of the Caldwell, ID
(just east of the present location of Riverview Iris--Tony and Irene deRose)
and the Heyburn offices, north of Burley, ID.  One of my early assignments
during the "management training" phase was an intensive tour of a number of
the large (five to ten thousand acre) potato growing "farms" in Idaho owned by
the company to see if I could contribute some ideas on improving the
profitability of the operations, then later took over management of a part of
one of those farms near Payette, ID, to convert it to fruit growing.

The seed potatoes for those bakers Linda Mann mentions come from North Dakota
and northern Minnesota from that rich, black soil area.  They are grown in an
area right on the Canadian border known to be virus free and rarely infected
with Verticillium and other pathogens due to the climate and conditions
there.

In Idaho, the long, hot summer days and irrigation agriculture tent to favor
the spread of virus infections from other plants, including other Solanum
species native to the area--the same genus to which potatoes belong-- and
other plants harboring the same pathogens responsible for the various illness
from which potatos can suffer (as do irises).  Potatoes cut and treated with
fungicides are planted by large machines moving at rather high speed through
the fields.

If one were to take the Idaho grown potatoes--all of the same varieties,
developed by Luther Burbank and known variously as the "Netted Gem" or more
accurately, the "Russet Burbank" and "Norgold" varieties, and cut, plant them
for seed, one takes a high risk of planting seed (cuttings) already infected
with one or more of the problem organisims.

Planting potatoes of the Idaho bakers bought in our grocery stores here in NC
or in eastern TN is asking for trouble.  The variety is best adapted to a
climate with high, hot sun in daytimes, cool nights, very sharp drainage and
cool soils.  Those conditions are very different from those we have here.

There are thousands of registered, introduced varieties of potatoes varying in
specific gravity (density of cell structure) and adapted to a variety of
climates.  Some dense potatoes are best used for potato chips.  Light, fluffy
varieties (low specific gravity) make better bakers.

To get good, edible, harvestable potatoes that remain reasonably virus free,
Verticillium and Fusarium wilt rots- free, one needs to go to the farm supply
houses and get those "seed" potatoes grown in far northern areas where the
problems tend not to occur.

Neil Mogensen  now in z 7, western NC

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