Hi all,

Just a quick post today – I want to share the yield results from the potato variety trial run at West Madison Agricultural Research Station in 2014. The trial was planted on certified-organic land and managed organically. The link is below – the pdf has a brief introduction followed by graphs showing total yield and marketable yield.

We had a lot of culling due to green ends this year. Intense rainstorms in June broke down the hills, and the wet soil did not allow us to hill the potatoes enough to keep the developing tubers covered. This also allowed the weeds to take off – so, later in the season, hand-weeding contributed to breaking down the hills. The other main causes of culling were tuber diseases – mostly common scab and silver scurf.

All of these varieties (and more!) will be available to trial this year, so take a look and see what you think might be worth trying for you. Photos and data from on-farm trials are coming soon, too.

Stay warm!

Ruth

Potato variety trials – West Madison 2014

 

This article was posted in Blog Posts, Research News, Uncategorized and tagged organic potato, potato variety trials.