TRADE AND MARKET I NG The year 2016 was a good one for breeders. This is thanks, in particular, to the extreme growing conditions that have allowed breeders to get rid of the ‘weaklings’ such as numbers with growth cracks’, as they describe it so beautifully in their breeders’ jargon. The question that then arises is to what extent is breeding influenced by weather extremes such as those of last season and the possibly-changing climate. This was the question put to the variety development experts at the 2016 Variety Presentations in Emmeloord at the beginning of November. Does climate change also have an influence on variety development? Colin McDonnell (m), IPM: ‘We’re looking more at what happens in the markets’ ‘In a world that contains an ever-increasing number of people, climate change has a big influence on the availability of food in our markets’, Colin McDonnel of IPM in the village of Deinum explains. ‘It’s not such a big issue in our work as breeders, but we’re increasingly looking at what’s happening in the markets. We’ve known extreme weather for a long time in the potato sector. For example, in Ireland in 1985, there were enormous harvesting problems as a result of heavy rainfall. We’re more interested in the introduction of high resistances against nematodes and Phytophthora, for example. That’s more prominent on the wishlists of our growers. We’ve also learned a lot from our old Cara variety. That was a fine variety grown in the UK, but it was late and had high harvesting risks so it was replaced by better varieties. What we’re seeing now is a preference for earlier varieties that start more quickly with tuber formation, which enhances the yield security. This definitely applies to hot countries such as Israel, where earliness is an important cultivation condition. We want to respond to these demands from the market with early varieties and Phytophthora resistance’, the IPM breeder explains. Potato World 2017 • number 2 25 Pagina 24
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