Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/670900
28 POTATO GROWER | MAY 2016 The Place to Go for Potato Equipment Contact Our Specialists! 5802 N Industrial Way, Suite D Pasco, WA 99301 800-572-0391 potatoes.eiijd.com PO Box 548, Othello, WA 99344 Travis Chlarson.............509-750-4747 Gary Hoffer....................509-331-6160 Joe Davis........... ..............541-282-4031 Let our specialists help you plan and configure the equipment to meet your needs, including: planters, harvesters, eliminators, seed cutters, pilers, etc. They can integrate any combination of products. 151351EveImp13h.indd 1 11/6/15 3:05 PM Diggin' In Diggin' In Diggin' In Diggin' In Diggin' In Diggin' In We've all cut into a potato, only to find a dark spot or hollow part. Early research shows that these defects are likely the result of calcium deficiencies in the potato—and that tuber calcium is genetically linked to tuber quality. Neither consumers at grocery stores nor the companies that make potato chips and fries want these low calcium defects. In addition to the obvious cosmetic issues, these potatoes are more likely to rot. Most cultivated varieties of potato have naturally low levels of calcium. So researchers at the USDA-ARS and University of Wisconsin-Madison, including Shelley Jansky, John Bamberg and Jiwan Palta looked to wild potatoes. Their purpose: to breed new potato cultivars with high calcium levels. Many wild potato relatives are still extant in South America. Their presence means growers' potato plants in that region often exchange genes with wild species. "That's a way they continue to evolve as the climate changes or as disease and pest patterns change," says Jansky. "But in the U.S., we have removed our potatoes from that environment. We have to breed new genes in from these wild relatives when we want to improve our cultivars." These wild relatives are an invaluable resource for scientists across the country. "If you go down there and drive along the roadside, you can see these weedy, wild plants growing along the roads and fields," says Jansky. "Whenever we have looked for any trait in wild potato species, we have been able to find it." So it was with the search for a high-calcium potato. The team found a wild potato with almost seven times as much calcium as varieties typically grown in the U.S. VARIETIES| By Adityarup Chakravorty Wild varieties help breeders remedy nutrient defi ciencies Wild for Calcium Tim Kazmierczak, horticulturalist at the USDA-ARS potato genebank in Wisconsin, displays the white fl owers and large leaves of the high-calcium species Solanum microdontum.