10-26 IAN Psyllid 1
A whole bunch of unknowns. We have so far processed 4 or 5 samples and these are coming from central Idaho, and. And what? Samples of what? We will talk to Dr. Phillip Nolte, Extension Seed Potato Specialist at the University of Idaho’s Idaho Falls Research and Extension Center in a minute. I’m D.S.
There were some recent concerns regarding one of Idaho’s sacred cows, it’s potato crop. Potatoes can be vulnerable to disease and that’s something we don’t want to hear about but if we must, who better to tell us than Dr. Nolte who is a potato seed expert. “Starting at the beginning I had some samples that came into my laboratory on 20 September. A guy walked in that was packing potatoes locally here in Idaho Falls brought in about a dozen tubers. I cut them open and my 1st response was this looks like potato leaf roll virus. This causes a symptom that we call net necrosis in the tubers. Essentially what happens is the entire vascular system of the tuber becomes outlined in brown and a netting effect that goes through the entire tuber. But the fact of the matter is that we really haven’t seen much potato leaf roll virus in recent years. There were a couple of other things that didn’t look quite right.
