CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Farm Frites judges new varieties The chips industry is currently making use of a wide range of varieties to be able to market a varied package of products. Although the latest varieties have earned their special place in the organisation, continuous improvement remains essential. For this purpose, Farm Frites tests dozens of new varieties every year. The results are always discussed with the breeders of the various breeding companies. Selecting varieties is a game one should play together with the breeders, says Farm Frites. “ toes we have lifted from the trial fields’, explains Farm Frites’ Jochem Rovers to a group of breeders. He then hands out a bright yellow evaluation form to each of them, which they can start filling out. As all the varieties are only known under number, nobody knows beforehand which varieties he or she is going to evaluate. This provides the Farm Frites staff with a great deal of information about how the breeders look at the potato lots. ‘Picking out varieties is a game that must be played together with the breeders’, is Rovers’ opinion. The results of the Farm Frites trial fields form a good picture of how the potatoes have grown in the specific fields of the processor. One trial field is located in the environs of Oudenhoorn and another in a sandy area in Belgium near the town of Lommel. T Including external experiences After testing the tuber shape, size, regularity in grading, he potatoes you see in the trays are exactly all those potadefects and the general impression, discussions developed at every tray. Definitely when Martin Vrij – responsible at Farm Frites for the introduction of varieties – lets slip to a group of breeders exactly which varieties come from Farm Frites’ own breeding station. This suddenly opens the floodgates to the breeders’ own experiences, which they have acquired with trial fields elsewhere in the country. This discussion and the processor’s experiences lead to deeply-felt arguments about whether or not to keep a variety. Attractive price ‘The ultimate aim is to develop potato varieties that yield a good price at the factory doors,’ says Rovers. This means that there must be sufficient return for both the factory and the grower. The first test for varieties that breeders put forward as possible candidates for processing are the cultivation characteristics. ‘If a variety cannot be cultivated without problems, it won’t be successful in practice’, explains Vrij. If a variety is 26 Potato World 2009 • number 2 Pagina 25
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