| 75 PRODUCTION Eurogrow T T Ange Davidson Finding the perfect spud an on-going quest Once a variety has the green light from customers it will be grown on seed growing properties in the South Island renowned for the colder winters and less aphid pressure. The quest for the perfect potato is the driver behind Eurogrow, one of New Zealand’s leading suppliers of seed potatoes. Based in Hamilton, Eurogrow represents the genetics of 13 different breeding houses primarily in Europe, as well as New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United states of America. Eurogrow owner, Tony Hendrikse, says they are always on the hunt for a potato variety with better characteristics that will suit the industry’s requirements. “We work with the industry to try and determine where the gaps exist to improve characteristics such as disease resistance, yield, taste, appearance, and suitability for processing. The breeding houses are always thinking about the where the market will be in ten-years’ time. They’re looking at the shortcomings of current varieties in the market and what will be the next best thing,” says Tony. “We had crisping potatoes that had a good yield and dry matter but didn’t cook well out of long-term storage. Now varieties meet the storage requirement but the yield is compromised, so the challenge is to find a potato that is both high yielding and keeps its cooking characteristics over long storage.” With fresh potatoes, an example of the challenges is to produce low carb potatoes that yield well, taste great and have excellent skin that washes well. The very popular Agria potato was introduced by Eurogrow in 1984 and while it has outstanding taste and cookability and provides a good but not excellent yield, the Agria suffers tuber breakdown in long storage and has an average skin quality. “We’re always looking to find an outstanding culinary potato like the Agria that has a better skin finish, storability and yield. Our new variety, Jelly, is going well with a substantially better yield than the Agria plus a better skin and is less susceptible to storage breakdown and many people are using this to phase out Agria,” he says. Eurogrow bring in the most promising varieties from overseas breeding houses and give them a fair trial in New Zealand conditions. They run regional trials across the country for the crisp, fry and fresh market and asses how they yield and what their end characteristics are. Only about one in eight varieties will make it to the market as each new variety needs to be a significant improvement for the industry to start growing these. “We will start the growing process from imported potatoes genetic tissue and plant these at our lead growers’ properties. The trials are in the middle of their paddocks and treated like any other crop and Eurogrow collect data and photographic records,” says Tony. “The growers are really interested in how these go as they are driven by hard data. We collect this over about 10 different trial sites, throughout the country. Data is shared with leading growers and contributes to their decision-making process when looking at introducing new varieties.” Once a variety has the green light from customers, the variety will be grown on seed growing properties in the South Island renown ed for the colder winters and less aphid pressure. A shortage of potatoes is looming in New Zealand due to reduced production. Covid contributed to this with a 15% reduction of areas growing potatoes as the demand for chips was impacted by lack of tourists and sporting events. Disruption to the global shipping orders from New Zealand meant it was hard to secure chilled shipping containers which went to higher profile exports such as meat and dairy. Celebrating over 100 years in business Come and see us at the Ashburton A&P show to find out more about what we do and what’s its like to work at Talley’s.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=