e Sustainability in 2016 is all about balance TRADE AND MARKETING Harry van de Vijver, Germicopa: ‘Early-maturing and fast-growing varieties come to mind’ Harry van de Vijver, the Dutch Product Manager at the French breeding company Germicopa from Quimper Cedex, needs to think a bit before he comes up with an answer. ‘Yes, what’s our most sustainable variety’, he repeats the question after a few minutes. ‘You probably mean varieties that need less fertiliser and less water? In which case eason requires less cultivation domain, this feature comes in very useful, because there aren’t too many suitable double-purpose varieties. Whats’s more, Triplo needs relatively little water. It’s a variety that can deal with drought and produces a stable yield. Thanks to these sustainable characteristics, the Triplo is the most important variety of Bonna Terra, the joint marketing organisation for organic potato varieties of Stet Holland and HZPC. I dare say that in the European organic sector, Triplo is currently one of the largest varieties. We already have a considerable volume of consumption crops and sales in supermarkets in countries such as Portugal, Spain, Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. The seed cultivation is placed with growers in the Netherlands.’ early-maturing and fast-growing varieties come to mind. If I look at our table potato segment, we’ve got a striking Armandine-type potato almost ready that could well be called sustainable. It’s the G06 TT 1440-04, at the moment still a number, but hopefully it’ll be in the French List of Varieties under a suitable name next year. This table potato not only matures early, it also produces a great many tubers, on average fifteen per plant. This ultimately produces a very high tuber yield in the required consumption potato size. In the trials so far carried out with the variety, yields often exceeded those of the well-known Armandine by 10 to 15 percent. This is a variety for the conventional crop growing method.’ For their organic production method, Van de Vijver also has a sustainable candidate: the G07 TT 110-05. ‘This variety combines all the necessary environmentally-friendly characteristics such as Phytophthora resistance and a low nitrogen requirement. It also stores very well without the use of sprout inhibitors, roughly up to mid March. This can truly be called a low-input variety’, Van de Vijver summarises. André Postma, Kooij Selection Company: ‘Festo is a variety that’s been doing fine in the past four years ‘Sustainability, I really have to think about that’, André Postma of Kooij Selection Company from Leeuwarden reacts. ‘If this is about varieties, I’d immediately think of the Festo. We’re well-known as the supplier of this early Frieslander variety. We want to expand our product range with it. Early is a good market for us. We’d very much like to continue in this segment with a variety that also has chip qualities. If something is good, it’s not too difficult to find buyers. The Festo is a variety that’s been doing fine in the past four years. However, it’s not really an early variety, rather more mid-early. With an underwater weight between 350 and 360, this variety scores a bit too low to be a guaranteed French-fry variety. Home-fried chips in France is a big market, however, and the variety fits well in this segment. With a yield of 45 to 50 tons per hectare, the variety is also interesting for the seed potato grower. In addition, breeder Fobek also tested the variety under saline conditions, confirming that it has salt tolerance. We now supply the variety for testing in countries where saline growing conditions are quite common. Pakistan and Egypt have already bought a consignment. We initially intended the variety to be for chips, but this has now shifted to saline cultivation.’ Potato World 2016 • number 1 15 Pagina 14
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