Potato Skin Color

 Harvest a red, yellow or purple specialty potato and its skin color will be shiny and bright. That’s paramount, because skin quality drives buyers to put a particular potato in their shopping cart. Store that potato for a month or two, and its skin color will be noticeably duller. It may even have developed unappealing blemishes that prompt consumers to leave it in the store. Across southern Idaho this year, University of Idaho agricultural researchers will be investigating the in-season, harvest, storage and packing processes that affect skin color and quality in specialty potatoes. They will examine the potentially positive or negative effects of growth regulators, in-season and post-harvest fungicides, harvest timing, disinfectants and storage conditions.

 Here’s Dr. Mike Thornton, Potato Physiologist and Superintendent, U of I Extension Center in Parma with why there’s so much interest in the color of a potato skin? “The eye appeal. When you look at them in the store in the display, they jump out to you. It’s like seeing a very unique fruit or apple but we’re also coming to understand that a lot of the nutrients, they’re good for you are locked up in those skins due to those bright colors so the pigments that actually cause the dark blues and purples and reds, actually have very good health benefits.