A team of scientists at Washington State University, Oregon State University and USDA-ARS received a second year of funding from the Northwest Potato Research Consortium to characterize so-called “virgin” soils that have never been planted with potato. Growers have long observed yield increases (14 to 26% reported) when planting potato in virgin soils compared to nearby non-virgin soils that have been planted in potato. The researchers' short-term goal is to document the properties (e.g., biological, physical and chemical) in the soil associated with these yield increases. Long-term, they want to use this information to reproduce these yield increases in commercial fields. To do this, they are asking for growers' help.
Please contact David Wheeler at david.wheeler@wsu.edu) or (215) 880-3024 if you know any pairs of potato fields that will be planted with potato this year and were either (a) planted with potatoes within the past five years (non-virgin fields), or (b) never planted with potato (virgin fields). With permission, the researchers would like to visit each field, sample soil from each field before planting, and sample soil from nearby “native soil” that has never been planted with any crop. Once they have these three types of samples, they will characterize the soil pathogen loads, nematode diversity and abundance, and soil biological, physical and chemical properties. Lastly, they will bring the soils to a common location and plant potatoes in each soil to quantify potato performance in each soil type.
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