Potato Research at Univ of Idaho Pt 2
I’m Bob Larson. Researchers at the University of Idaho are working on a project they hope will help protect potatoes against necrotic viruses that effect the yield and quality of potato tubers.
Professor Alexander Karasev leads the study and says the four-year project, that runs through 2024, deals with a serious problem for producers …
KARASEV … “Potato viruses represent a significant challenge for the potato industry because potato is a vegetatively propagated crop. Because of this, any virus infection that gets into potato becomes persistent so it’s propagated through seed potato tubers and the problem needs detection and elimination from the normal production process.”
As far as their goal, Karasev says it’s pretty straight forward …
KARASEV … “The goal is to improve management tools for potato industry to make it more efficient, to streamline the certification of seed potato, and also find tools to handle this infection in the field.”
So far, Karasev says the research is progressing nicely …
KARASEV … “We are doing a good job on this and I think we will fulfill our objectives by the end of the four years of the project.”
Karasev says he’s satisfied with how the project is going and feels good about the direction the research is headed.
