CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Crisis or not, without breeding there are no solutions Peter van Eerdt, Danespo: ‘ With Royal we can beat off the competition’ ‘When can you talk about a crisis in agriculture? It’s always difficult to point to, certainly in our sector. I know growers who harvested 40 tons per hectare last year and sold them for a contract price of 12 cents per kilogram. I also know growers who harvested 80 tons of free product per hectare this year and who hope to sell them at 6 eurocents per kilogram. In both cases, the financial returns are the same, but not enough, which means crisis. This example demonstrates that you need guaranteed yields in both good and bad years’, concludes Peter van Eerdt, Account Manager at Danespo, the Danish potato breeding company from Give. ‘Generally speaking, we can do that here in Western Europe and that’s why the situation is not so bad after all. Because why do you think the processing industry is so insatiable? There’s no where in the world that the hectare yields are higher and we can compete on cost with many other product areas in the world. That’s what we need to focus on also in the future’, according to Van Eerdt. ‘With even higher yields we still have to get through a difficult period here in Europe, but we’re working hard to make it very difficult for the competition. A variety that can easily dominate the competition is Royal. In recent years, that variety yielded over 90 tons per hectare during trials and in the field. But even more important may be its consistent dry matter content of 23 percent’, is Van Eerdt’s opinion. ‘Many other French-fry varieties can’t match it this year, considering the many potato lots with insufficient underwater weights.’ Jacob Eising, Den Hartigh: ‘Connect suitable for conventional and organic’ ‘I knew that this type of question would come our way’, laughs Jacob Eising, breeder of Den Hartigh in Emmeloord who also has a ready answer. ‘The first thing we, as the entire sector, must work on is to start growing where there’s a market for our product. Local for local. For example, there’s less and less space for first-earlies here in Europe. One of the reasons is that the storage capacity for storage potatoes keeps on improving, as a result of which well-yielding main crops from the same region remain available throughout the year. It’s not for nothing that the potato cultivation in Seville in Spain is no longer significant and that a country like Israel has reduced its acreage by 20 percent.’ Moreover, Eising observes that the wholesale trade is currently making the mistake of falling back on old table potato varieties in a bad market. In his view, this only accelerates a further drop in consumption volume, for it’s exactly at times like this that the market needs varieties with improved flavour and better presentation. ‘But also with a better story with which I mean sustainability. The cultivation of varieties that require little input, a minimum of nutrients and plant protection chemicals. It won’t surprise you but we’ve got a variety like that here. It’s called Connect and this variety is suitable for both conventional and organic agriculture. The sustainable characteristics are that they’re not very susceptible to Rhizoctonia or Phytophthora. What’s more, its haulm gives rapid soil coverage which means effective weed suppression. It’s a strong traditional variety for the consumption grower, easy to grow and high in yield. Seed potato growers are also very happy with it because of its good tuber numbers and Connect is fairly resistant to Scab.’ Potato World 2015 • number 2 23 Pagina 22
Pagina 24Scoor meer met een online shop in uw publicaties. Velen gingen u voor en publiceerden jaarverslagen online.
Potatoworld 2015/2 Lees publicatie 36Home