News Potatoes
Potato sector talks about extreme season
For the first time since 2020, the LNCN agricultural fair organized another Potato Theme Day in Dronten. Potato growers, processors and suppliers have plenty to talk about after the most extreme growing season in 25 years. What can AI bring to potato cultivation, can phytophthora still be controlled and are potatoes still priced according to value?
The ingredients of the 2023 growing season are known to everyone in the sector. This includes a very high disease pressure from phytophthora and crop protection products that are insufficiently effective, or even no longer effective at all. WUR researcher Bert Evenhuis and his colleagues in Lelystad are investigating which tribes are active in the Netherlands, how they behave and evolve. The strain EU-43 from Denmark - resistant to important fungicides such as Revus and Zorvec Endavia (with the substance CAA) - is now responsible for almost half of all infections in our country.
Weather conditions
The catalyst in 2023 was also the weather in June, July and August, including heavy dew nights and a lot of precipitation later in the summer. An ideal source for potato blight contamination. In Denmark it is now possible to keep the EU-43 strain under control with a strict spraying schedule, which is not permitted in our country. A new strain has now been found in the Netherlands – specifically in the Peat Colonies: EU-46. The effects of this are still unknown to the researchers.
An additional consequence of the extremely high pressure is that existing resistance genes in existing varieties are quickly broken through and are thus 'burned out', Evenhuis showed. The solution is to only use resistant varieties in combination with crop protection according to the BOS system. The idea is that the genes have a longer shelf life and can be applied.
AI image recognition
Seed potato growers are increasingly noticing a high aphid pressure that is appearing earlier and earlier in the season. Klaas Dijkstra, lecturer in computer vision & data vision at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, showed visitors in Dronten how he and his team train an AI model to recognize the green peach aphid. The model can now recognize all kinds of insects with great accuracy, including the louse species. Participating seed potato growers and other companies hope to eventually use the data to accurately predict when a damage threshold is reached.
Ready for practice
Images taken in the field are sent to a central platform, which links the images to a location. It is difficult for Dijkstra to answer the question of when the technology will be ready for practice. This is largely dependent on the support of partners and the sector as a whole. The practical tests will be expanded next year.
Future of PotatoNL
On a theme day about (consumption) potatoes, the subject of the market should not be missing. In the opening words, former PotatoNL chairman Mark Brantjes reflected on the current market conditions. One with a high potato price, but very few free transactions. At the same time, a PotatoNL quotation must be compiled weekly on this very thin basis. The stakes are high, because many co-supplied potatoes are charged for this. “If this situation worsens, the PotatoNL will have to be designed in a different way or perhaps stop altogether,” Brantjes suggested on stage. "That is not yet an issue, but we should not let it get to that point," he continues. "This can only be changed if growers structurally submit all their transactions, whether it concerns co-delivery potatoes, export or another type."
Niels van der Boom
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