Kia Ora,
We are in our second year of running our heritage potato collection through a trial with the aim of nourishing them so well they grow out of having viruses, and small crops etc etc. Our New Zealand heritage potato collection has been endangered in recent years by the psyllid and so we are endeavouring to strengthen them again back to having heavy crops as they used to do years ago. We made a lot of progress last season and were very happy with the results. To see last season’s report and the growout trial process click here. To view our collection click here.
This year has been totally different to last season, which was cool and wet. This year began very very cold, our potatoes were frosted three times and they didn’t like that. It is now super hot, heat wave
material and they don’t like that either! We haven’t harvested anything yet but there are way less virus infected plants obvious than last year. The exciting thing this season so far is that the seeds we grew from last year’s potato aerial seeds look incredible. They germinated very well, every seed grew, and they look very healthy. The leaves look far stronger than those of the potatoes in our Trial.
Mark Christiensen also grew a load of seedlings to trial for us and his also look very interesting. I can’t wait to harvest those.
