Does climate change also have an influence on variety development? TRADE AND MARKET I NG Theo Meulendijks, Schaap-Holland: ‘Opting for varieties with reliable yields’ ‘When talking about climate change, you really need to look far into the future. That’s not easy’, is the feeling of Theo Meulendijks of Schaap Holland in the village of Biddinghuizen. ‘What we see is that there are more highs and lows in the weather, extremely dry periods followed by extremely wet ones. The yields are usually the leading factors, both in seed and consumption growing. You can have a lot of drought resistance in a variety, but if the yield is seriously lagging behind, the farmer is no longer interested. Last year was a good test year for us as far as weather extremes are concerned. We could learn from that. I’ll give a good example. We’ve got two trays here with number two varieties from breeder Gerrit Bunk. The tray of the youngest number is full. The oldest number of this year is only three quarters full, while it was always more than full in previous years. Should you throw this number out or should you perhaps accept it as a one-time setback? Look what happens if you adopt the position whereby a number should end in the top 3 during all the years of testing, or it must be dropped. What we see much more often in recent years is that growers ask for varieties that produce stable yields irrespective of the weather. An example of such a variety is our Valencia, which yields in an even line, year in year out. I think that, in our search for new varieties, we will increasingly prefer varieties with reliable yields over varieties that yield high. instinctively’ an increasing number of growers are going for stable varieties. Every year the same, regardless of the weather. We’ve got those as well, the Labadia, El Mundo and Bonnata, for example. Look, the potato is typically a crop that adjusts quickly to climate change. The potato as we know it is tetraploid and heterozygote at the same time. These are two important characteristics. A potato doesn’t need a lot of water, but just enough and, in order to be able to grow them, it’s important that the night temperatures are not too high or too low. You can only grow potatoes in areas where the night temperatures are between 0 and 25 degrees Celcius. In areas that are slowly becoming too dry or too hot due to climate change, potato growing will simply disappear, there’s no potato breeding that can stop that. broad breeding programme; it includes parent lines with extensive characteristics, which makes it possible to adjust to changes as soon as this is necessary. In terms of climate change, I think that we instinctively adapt our programme based on that. For example, what we see is that the potato season in the Netherlands is slowly getting longer. This requires varieties that mature late and have endurance. In addition, you see that Potato World 2017 • number 2 29 Pagina 28
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