TRADE AND MARKETING The most promising varieties that meet the most important market trends SOPHIE working with the local varieties, often table potatoes, but they don’t meet the frying requirements. At the same time, you see that growers in Northern Europe want stronger chip and crisp varieties as a result of the changing climate. This requires a variety with more or less similar characteristics. It’s therefore important for us to look for versatile varieties, with which we can cover as wide a market as possible. What you need for that is a variety from which you can cut crisps or chips both here in Europe and elsewhere. A fine example is what we have ‘For us, the most important trend we gear to is the increasing export volume of varieties that can be easily processed. Our buyers around the Mediterranean are increasingly asking for fast-growing, high-yielding early chip and crisp potatoes with good drought and heat resistances. The reason for that demand is the increasing standard of living. As a result, you see the processing industry developing in these countries. They first start SELINE ‘The trend we observe is that varieties that want to be successful should stand out well-above the market. They must possess very strong, specific characteristics with which they clearly stand out from existing varieties. Variation is the most important aspect in our breeding work. As an example, we already had the Apache last year. Something special, because this is a table MAGISTRAL ‘Breeding early potatoes runs in the blood of our breeding and trading company. The Frieslander and the Obama are examples. In addition, we’ve also focused strongly for years on export varieties. And, whether coincidental or not, the demand for early high-yielding varieties is enormous. The main purpose of the buyers in the countries around the Mediterranean, and North Africa in parJan Eric Geersing, Caithness, Emmeloord / Perth (GB): ‘Only varieties that stand out well-above the market’ potato variety with a red and yellow skin, which has now been successfully sold to the British packing company Bartlett. But, yes, if you select widely, you can do a lot. We currently have several likely candidates in various segments. I’ll mention the Seline, an up-and-coming, early, redskinned variety. A likely candidate for countries such as Germany, because it’s that little bit earlier on the market than the Laura. Moreover, it has high Phytophthora resistance, thanks to its crossing with Santé. That makes the Seline also suitable for organic cultivation.’ Michel de Nijs, De Nijs, Warmerdam: ‘We focus on multi-purpose varieties’ here on our plates: the Sophie. It’s a pure crisp potato, drought and heat resistant, which also yields very well, as many as 70 tons per hectare. It’s also an attractive variety for the cultivation of seed potatoes, because it produces many tubers and many kilos. In short, we have really high expectations of this variety.’ André Postma, Kooi, Leeuwarden: ‘We don’t want to forget our seed potato growers’ ticular, is that the growing season produces big potatoes as quickly as possible. In our search for suitable varieties, we’re not forgetting our own seed potato growers. They should also be able to harvest nice quantities of seed from a suitable export variety. They’re at the start of a successful variety and if they earn well, they want to continue with that variety. A still young variety where this applies is the Magistral. It’s currently being tested at Kleinjan Vlaanderen. His customers in Egypt are very enthusiastic about the variety.’ Potato World 2014 • number 2 21 Pagina 20
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