Sterile Environment for Spuds

Seed potatoes and a sterile environment. During a chat with Alice Pilgeram, an assistant research professor at Montana State University, she brought up the importance of keeping a sterile environment for producers of seed potatoes. “If a potato grower gets a lot of seed potatoes that already have a lot of diseases in them, he's going to have a lot of disease the first year. Disease amplifies. From a table potato growers standpoint, it's worth it to start clean. In Montana, if I go on somebody’s farm I have to garb up in tied up coveralls and disinfect my boots. One potato farmer does not go on another potato farmers land. They are so conservative and so protective. But it works. It's all about cleanliness. Where Montana will come into the game if Huckleberry Gold develops into a significant potato, Montana will still be where the seed is produced. We will produce this gorgeous clean seed which will be sent to Idaho, Oregon or Washington, and that's where the people who buy the actual table potatoes will be produced. But the seeds will start here.