TRADE AND MARKETING Marrakech grows beyond borders 18 promising French fries varieties for the entire world Promising Ludmilla has few flaws ‘What’s our new top French fries potato?’ Jos Bus of TPC in Emmeloord just frowns. ‘What we have here is a very promising potato that is also extremely suitable for French fries. It’s the Marrakech. Its main destination is for export and it’s also highly suitable for both French fries and fresh consumption. You know that in faraway destinations such as North Africa and the Middle East, growers and consumers like big potatoes. And that’s the Marrakech. If you want to hear its three best French fries characteristics, they are yield, frying marks and length. It isn’t easy to indicate a yield in tons because this differs from country to country. What we’ve seen so far is that, in every country, the variety yields 15 to 20 percent higher than the other top varieties that grow there. Some of those countries are Lebanon, Egypt and Morocco. If we look at the length, then tests show that 90 to 95 of the harvested tubers are bigger than 50 mm. The colour of the flesh is pale yellow, but the colour isn’t really important in those countries. Also, the variety is nematode A and D resistant. What the growers really like is that it doesn’t need a lot of nitrogen. You easily use 10 percent less nitrogen than usual in those countries.’ If you google Ludmilla, you go straight to the popular, blonde Dutch pop singer Ludmilla Odijk. Well, girl’s names have always been very popular in potato varieties. Whether breeder Saka, from whom Den Hartigh in Emmeloord gets his varieties, also googled on the internet and found ‘our’ Ludmilla, is not known. What breeder Jacob Eising does know very well is all the characteristics of the very promising Ludmilla potato. ‘The most important characteristic is high dry matter content, which means that these chips are nice and crispy and have good frying results. For example, where the Bintje scores 50 percent, the Ludmilla scores 60 percent. This characteristic is useful,’ says Eising, ‘because French fries potatoes also do well on less nutritious soils, since the variety is highly resistant to high nitrogen/slurry applications. It means that there are fewer cultivation risks on these sandy soils. ‘The Ludmilla has no problems with tuber deficiencies such as brown spot or spraing. No nematode-related diseases affect the Ludmilla’, Eising tells us. ‘That’s important because, in practice, I see the cultivation of French fries shifting from clay to sandy/peaty soils. For that reason, the processor LambWeston has engaged a new staff member for the traditional starch areas’, Eising says. The Ludmilla also stores well at low temperatures without losing any of its frying quality. It also has a long dormancy and a fresh colour and can even be stored until August. The yield compares with standard harvests. The variety can be grown in any climate and anywhere in the world. ‘A promising market? Great Britain, that’s where it’s going to happen’, Eising laughs meaningful. CULTIVATION OF SEED POTATOES It all sounds so wonderful, stories about those high yields and lengths, but French fries varieties are often difficult to grow. The necessary cultivation sizes make it difficult to grow fine seed. Moreover, consumption growers often have a lack of funds and cannot buy expensive seed. Price-wise, it is a market under pressure. It is important to introduce a variety in such a way that it is interesting for both groups of growers. Measures such as treatment with Talent and storage at as high a temperature as possible to get physiologically-older seed potatoes may help. It is also an enormous market. In 1965, the Netherlands grew less than 200,000 tons for the processing industry. Today, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany together now grow 10 million tons a year. That this market can be supplied is also thanks to excellent seed potato growers with a great deal of know-how, good storage techniques and mechanisation, and an optimum logistical road network with world ports like Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and – a bit further away – Gdansk. Europe still has the Bintje and America the Russet. Will these new varieties wipe them completely off the map? 18 Potato World 2012 • number 2 Pagina 17
Pagina 19Interactieve digi magazine, deze folder of onderwijscatalogus is levensecht online geplaatst met Online Touch en bied het online zetten van online gidsen.
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