04/21/05 Website loaded with Idaho potato news

Whether searching for hot-topic updates, research reports, management tips or cost-of-production estimates, potato growers can find it this growing season on the Web site of the Idaho Center for Potato Research and Education. Center director Mike Thornton says after opening the homepage at www.ag.uidaho.edu/potato, you`ll soon be deep into the latest information THORNTON "Scientists and programs in everything from you know irrigation, pest management and clear on into more of the storage and food technology aspects. You know if you can't find it there it's probably something that is fairly rare in the potato industry." Users are getting information. The University of Idaho site has logged 26,000 hits in the past eleven months. THORNTON "You know we try to update it pretty regularly. We focus on a couple of hot topic issues. Like right now we're got a lot of good information on managing drought in potato crops since this looks like we're going to have a short irrigation year. So just access it often to get the most recent information." And they're also looking for feedback from website users and they hope to attract even more interest this year. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott