05/14/08 FFA convention; research on Premier Russet

Washington Ag May 14, 2008 More than 25-hundred FFA members, teachers and parents from around Washington state are expected to attend the 78th Washington State FFA Convention, which gets underway today at Washington State University in Pullman. The theme for this year's convention is "Discover Your Drive" and will feature many leadership activities, competitive events, educational workshops and opportunities for students to be recognized for their outstanding achievements. The convention runs through Saturday. The University of Idaho's Nora Olsen is conducting storage research on a relatively new potato, the Premier Russet, which makes good fries. Olsen: "It is a little more bit more susceptible to weight loss and therefore shrinkage and that is always a concern for long term storage. Something I think we can try to work out. It is also a short dormancy variety. Again, I think we can work on that. And it is a little bit more susceptible to a couple of diseases. One being pink rot and the second being fusarium dry rot." Premier Russet was released in 2006. Acreage of the variety jumped last year in the region and Olsen expects there will be yet more acres this year. I'm Bob Hoff.