News overview

Read now: The Summer 2021 edition of Between the dreels - Issue 15

Topics:
- Future Proofing
- New Chip On The Block
- Website Refresh
- 12 varieties showcased at Wholecrop trials day
- Plenty of reasons to be positive despite short-term concerns
- Appetite for face-to-face events undiminished
- Fighting blight

Isle of Ely Produce have been promoting a new Chip Ambassador role to promote the great British Chip in association with Agrico. The aim will be to carry on the good work promoting chipping potatoes at their hugely successful open days, and through the ‘Field to Frier’ award.

The Chip Ambassadors will become part of an UK wide group of shop owners and fryers who will promote best practice for potato buying, storing, and of course frying. The chain will also include key growers too like PJ Lee & Sons, and A. L. Lee Farming Company, as IOE looks to nurture the relationships they have grown across the whole supply chain during the last twenty years.

Agrico have partnered with Isle of Ely Produce to bring two new varieties into

At their market-launch, despite being 12 years old and costing in region of €1million in R&D, the success of new a potato variety still hangs in the balance. For seed and ware growers alike, the risks of growing new varieties are high but so are the potential rewards. We find out what’s motivating growers of Babylon, a new yellow flesh processing variety from Agrico, to plant hectares of a potato that is very much finding its feet in the marketplace.

Agrico's Dr. Steven Muir is working on a project with Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) to ascertain the genetic value of parent plants that will ultimately be selected for crossings, regarding desirable phenotypic traits.

Agrico UK has developed a chipping and processing potato variety, Performer, that is resistant to potato cyst nematode (PCN), a serious crop pest particularly in the UK, where it costs millions of pounds a year in lost yield. Performer even cleans infected soils, offering a solution for long-term sustainable farming.

Cambridgeshire potato merchant Isle of Ely Produce have launched a new platform to promote the great British Chip. Its aim will be to carry on the good work it has been promoting via their hugely successful open days, and the ‘Field to Frier’ award it sponsors at the National Fish and Chip Awards.