POTATO RESEARCH

Lake County Mail, Issue 28, 3 December 1947, Page 8

POTATO RESEARCH

Work in England Important work is being done by the Imperial Potato Research Station, Cambridge, England, according to Mr C. M. Driver, M. Agr. Sc., who has recently returned to New Zealand. In 1939 a British expedition collected more than 1000 varieties of wild and cultivated potatoes in Mexico and South America, their original home. It is hoped that cross-breeding with these types might lead to the development of potatoes with greater resistance to disease, or capable of being grown under climatic conditions which preclude the cultivation of the present types. The most important objective of the research is the development of a potato which eould be grown in tropical countries like South Africa and India, where there is an urgent necessity to increase the food supply. The potato is also rich in vitamin C, which is generally lacking in tropical foods. The work done at Cambridge has already made possible, said Mr Driver, a considerable development of potato growing in East Africa. At the other end of the scale the station has been engaged in breeding a oold-resisting potato suitable for cultivation, in Canada and other cold countries. Some of the strains produced showed absolute immunity to blight and these were being cross-bred with commercial types. Some of the new blight-resisting varieties will be going on to the English market in the near future. Crop yield is also an interest of the station, but is regarded as a subsidiary problem as it is considered that large yields would follow automatically. In Eire crops of 35 tons to the acre have been recorded, whiek shows what can be done with the ordinary strains when conditions are right.