News Release

PGI Advising Growers to Take Care of Volunteer Potatoes

BLACKFOOT, ID — Potato Growers of Idaho is encouraging growers to pay careful attention to ensure that volunteer potato plants are removed from their fields this growing season. In many growing areas, winter weather may not have been sufficiently cold to freeze-kill volunteers before the soil was covered with snow, so the University of Idaho is warning growers that they will need to use multiple control tactics to prevent problems. This is critical because of the following factors:

• Volunteers compete for light, water and nutrients.
• Volunteers are hosts for potato diseases like late blight, early blight, and viruses.
• Tubers from a previous crop can harbor soil-borne pests and spread disease.
• Tubers from a previous crop may be of a different variety, and could cause problems with product uniformity.

Failure to control volunteers can lead to devastating economic losses. “We grow for a global market that often will not tolerate some of the problems we consider to be minor annoyances,” said Keith Esplin, PGI Executive Director. “Growers who fail to control for any of these problems may be putting the entire state’s standing in the commercial market at risk.”

The May 2002 issue of the University of Idaho’s Spudvine is a valuable information source for growers who need to learn more about controlling volunteers. To obtain a copy, contact the U of I extension agent in your area, or you may find it on the PGI website potatofrowersofidaho.com. It will be filed under the Industry News category button.