34 FOOD & DRINK TECHNOLOGY
Potato research tackles starch content and pests
New research projects aim to modify potato starch content to improve nutritional benefits and to reduce the effect of the crop’s major pathogenic threat. Sean Ottewell reports.
De nouveaux projets de recherche visent à modifier la teneur en amidon de la pomme de terre afin d’optimiser les avantages nutritionnels et de limiter les effets de la principale menace pathogène sur cette culture. Sean Ottewell nous les explique.
Neue Forschungsprojekte zielen auf die Modifizierung des Stärkeanteils zur Verbesserung des Nährstoffgehalts und zur Reduzierung der Einwirkung der wichtigsten pathogener Bedrohungen auf Feldfrüchte ab. Bericht von Sean Ottewell.
www.scientistlive.com W
orld production of potatoes stands at about 320mt/y, but
late blight remains an ongoing challenge. Caused by a fungus-like microbe, this disease is difficult and economically challenging to eradicate. It was largely responsible for the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century.
Today the cost of the disease is estimated at more than €5b/y, easily enough to drive farmers out of business and increase food prices.
Fig. 1. Modified starch content can help to optimise the nutritional benefit of potatoes.
Howard Judelson at the University of California, Riverside, has received a US$9m (€6.2m), five-year grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA to research late blight and ensure a sustainable and long-term control of this devastating disease.
“Late blight is a global problem,” said Judelson who will lead a multidisciplinary team of extension faculty and researchers – plant pathologists, molecular biologists,
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