PW-ACTUA into farming in saline soils salty potato snacks prepared from the Miss Mignonne variety. The report has shown that this variety is doing extremely well in saline soils and can resist a salt concentration that is nearly three times as high as the FAO has researched, without any yield losses. In addition to research, Van Rijsselberghe also sells salty products from the experimental farm. They’re sold under the Marc label and are available via potato merchant Loogman in Amsterdam. There’s an enormous interest in our research internationally’ says Arjen de Vos (m) to minister Martijn van Dam (l) and Marc van Rijsselberghe (r). available for saline areas.’ He goes on to say that it’s important to become more skilled with the germination of crops. The potato has its own water and nutrients, but that’s quite a different story for carrots or onions. He would also like to test the effect of irrigation on the physiological aspects of the crops. ‘A sprinkler system that sprays salt on the leaves can give a different effect from a hosepipe system which only applies saline water to the soil. We’d very much like to test the effects of the various irrigation methods’ Van Bodegom is looking ahead. Picture not so sombre as we thought In a reaction; the minister said that, after his visit to the Experimental Farm on Texel last summer, he had given his small children at home a taste of the salty potatoes. ‘That evening it was the first time they ate all their potatoes’, he said with satisfaction. He said that it was rather strange that saline potatoes don’t taste salty, but have a delicious, full flavour. ‘But this is not only about my children, but about many children all over the world that still want to eat potatoes in twenty or thirty years’ time. In an increasing number of countries, salinisation is withdrawing land from agriculture. Fortunately, research has shown that that picture is not as sombre as we thought. There’s much more land available than we thought until now and this contributes towards food security in the world. And that’s what we need. This is why, as a Department, we’ve made an amount of 400,000 euros available for establishing a knowledge centre for farming in saline soil and for carrying out follow-up research into other crops. This is necessary to continue this research and thus realise the international potential. As a knowledge country, the Netherlands can also play a significant role internationally again and spread knowledge through the new knowledge resource centre, as a result of which the future will be much brighter for many places in the world’, the minister emphasises. Marc van Rijsselberghe, the initiator of saline farming on Texel, then presented tasty Roll out internationally In addition to his research work on Texel, De Vos is also carrying out research in Pakistan and Bangladesh. He tells us that he already has good results on saline soils. The Miss Mignonne variety produces a yield of 40 tonnes per hectare on saline soils in these countries, where growers of local varieties often don’t get more than 20 tonnes, the researcher tells us. ‘It’s obvious that there’s an enormous interest in our research internationally’, De Vos emphasises. ● ‘A sprinkler system that sprays salt on the leaves can give a different effect from a hosepipe system which only applies saline water to the soil’, Professor Peter van Bodegom explains. Potato World 2017 • number 2 15 Pagina 14
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