USPB's First Online Seed Chip Committee Seed Auction

USPB’s First Online Seed Chip Committee Seed Auction

I'm KayDee Gilkey with the U.S. Potato Update brought to you by Syngenta and the United States Potato Board. Listen carefully so you can answer the Spuds, Scales and Sleds Sweepstakes question.

The United States Potato Board’s fast tract seed program has allowed new high-profile varieties to be available earlier to commercial growers. In the past the USPB offered the industry stakeholders to the opportunity to obtain these new variety seed through a bid offering where as interested parties placed a bid and the highest bidder won.

Industry feedback requested an online, live auction to be used. Manager of the USPB Chip Potato Program David Parish says the first ever online auction happened in February and was a success.

Parish: “It allowed everybody that was interested to participate. It also allowed everybody that was participating to real-time, online, live watch what offers were coming in for specific seed lots and allowed people to make offers to reflect their interest in the varieties that they wanted. Where in the past, it was all a blind, submit one bid and the highest offer obtained the seed lot. So this allowed people to adjust their thinking on the fly as to how interested they were in obtaining some of this seed.”

That’s the U.S. Potato Update brought to you by the United States Potato Board, maximizing return on grower investment.