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Country Life in BC • October 2016 Annual potato variety trial


takes on international flavour “Ideal year” has Delta farmers expecting near-record levels


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EZ28 COMPACT EXCAVATOR


Hugh Reynolds of Reynalda Farms


discusses potato


genetics with visitors to the BC potato variety trials field day at his farm in Delta, August 24. (David Schmidt photos)


by DAVID SCHMIDT


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DELTA – The BC potato variety trial keeps getting more popular every year. Over 170 people registered for this year’s field day, held at Reynalda Farms in Delta, August 24.


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In addition to dozens of local growers, packers, wholesalers and retailers, this year’s field day attracted visitors from Europe, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Washington. Visitors got to compare over 100 potato varieties, including named and numbered varieties sourced from Agriculture and Agri- Food Canada’s potato breeding program and seed suppliers across Canada. There is good reason for the interest, says BC Potato & Vegetable Growers Association president Bill Zylmans. “This is the only trial where potatoes are grown under commercial conditions,” he points out.


Each year, one local grower offers up a small section of his potato acreage for the trial. Trial co-ordinator Heather Meberg of ES Cropconsult plants the trial varieties in the field, then asks the grower to treat them exactly the same as the rest of the field. In this year’s case, that meant planting them in a field which had chicken manure applied the previous fall and


commercial fertilizer added in the spring. No irrigation was used during the growing


season.


By the field day, the plants had been growing for 104 days. For the field day, 10 plants of each variety were dug up and the resulting potatoes piled in the field, giving visitors a chance to compare yields, shape and other characteristics.


Replicated trials


About 40 varieties were grown as demonstrations, but the rest were grown in replicated trials allowing Meberg to generate results


data, and give the potatoes to local teaching kitchens for students to assess each variety’s taste and cooking or baking characteristics. Hugh Reynolds of Reynalda Farms says shape and colour are the most important attributes, noting people in the store choose potatoes “because of what they look like. They want a brown russet, a red potato that’s red and not pink and a yellow potato that has a truly yellow flesh.


Please see “IMOLA” page 7


The annual BC potato variety trials field day at Reynalda Farms in Delta was a popular event, attracting growers and other industry reps from across Canada and the northwestern US.


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