The Potato Partnership shares trials findings on pest and disease.
THE Potato Partnership, a collaboration between James Foskett Farms, growers and staff of East Suffolk Produce, CUPGRA, Agrii and independent agronomist Graham Tomalin, has shared the findings of its most recent trials.
The partnership was created with the intention of finding new solutions to old problems. Nick Winmill, Agrii Potato Technical Manager and R&D Manager for potatoes, oversees the trials programme.
Nick said: “We have been fortunate to have several as-yet unapproved products in trials, but our focus has not been to consider them in isolation, as we might have in the past, but see them alongside other measures in the context of the situation to give a truly integrated assessment.”
The immediate focus is the challenge of managing wireworm, potato cyst nematodes (PCN) and aphid-borne virus and the threats to metribuzin, mancozeb and fosthiazate, but it has a programme of activity that will carry it through to the next decade if it can retain the support needed to deliver it, Nick said.
The partnership has shared the findings from trials investigating better control of late blight, aphid-borne viruses and PCN with British Potato Review.
In trials in 2022 (100% Globodera rostochiensis) and 2023 (100% G. pallida), Velum Prime in sequence with half-rate Nemathorin delivered marketable yields comparable with that of full-rate Nemathorin.
2023 trial revealed, amongst other things, that the performance of potassium phosphonates is especially encouraging and suggests there is life after mancozeb in the battle on blight, while the use of mineral oils and companion crops proved most successful in reducing the incidence of Potato Virus Y (PVY) in other trials using Lanorma at a site in Suffolk.
Full details of the trials can be found in the July issue of British Potato Review.
