This article appears in the April 2016 issue of Potato Grower.
In this month’s Smorgasbord, we take a look at Payette Russet, a new russet variety with exceptional processing qualities and disease resistance, with a helping hand from Jeanne Debons, Rich Novy, Jonathan Whitworth and Jeff Stark from the Potato Variety Management Institute.
For more information on this new variety, visit www.pvmi.org/varieties.
Key Attributes
- High full-season yields
- Cold sweetening resistance
- Excellent processing qualities, low incidence of fry sugar ends
- Very low acrylamide
- Few tuber defects
- Long dormancy
- Optimal specific gravity within a narrow range
- Resistance to late blight, corky ringspot, Verticillium wilt, early blight and PVY strains
- Tolerant to heat stress, no breakdown of process quality
History
- Parentage: EGA09702-2 X GemStar Russet
- Developed by the Tri-State Breeding and Research Program
- Released in 2015
- PVP applied for in 2016
Storage Notes
- Dormancy length approximately 20 to 25 days shorter than Russet Burbank across storage temperatures
- Greater susceptibility to Fusarium dry rot and tuber shrinkage than Burbank
- Mitigation of tuber wounding during harvest important for storage quality
- Tuber glucose concentrations significantly lower than Burbank in storage; remained acceptable throughout the nine-month storage season at 42, 45 and 48 degrees
Production
- As this variety was just released, there are only a few acres in seed production. This, however, is expected to increase dramatically in the next few years.