Seed Potatoes

Seed Potatoes

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Had a fascinating conversation with Alice Pilgeram, an assistant research professor at Montana State University. In Montana we grow seed potatoes. Most of the potatoes that are grown in Idaho actually start in Montana. There is some seed potato production in Idaho, but all we have in Montana is seed potatoes. We don't have any table potatoes whatsoever. The vast majority of our mature crop after three years goes to Idaho and Oregon producers, that end up on your table. Why do you not grow table potatoes in Montana? Mostly because we are so isolated. So we can grow very, very clean potatoes. We don't have issues with a lot of the potato diseases and different things that you do have problems with in Idaho. The problems and I don't have to do was just the concentration of potatoes. It doesn't have anything to do with the climate or the farmer. It's just that there are so many potatoes there. Here, we'll have a little patch where it will be concentrated farms but then it will be hundreds of miles before you see another potato farm. So in this one instance our isolation really works in our favor. From the standpoint of a producer in Idaho, if he can buy really clean seed potatoes to start with, it's kind of the garbage in garbage out concept. If he starts with clean potatoes, he's been to see a nicer yield, higher-quality. There are going to be lots of benefits to that farmer if he starts clean.
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