Mark and Yanara Peters say a community potato giveaway has been fun and fulfilling.

Building their community one potato at a time

Mark and Yanara Peters are turning a potato giveaway into an annual event in Portage la Prairie and beyond

How does it feel to give away 35,000 lbs. of potatoes in just under five hours? “It was awesome… a lot of fun,” recalls farmer Mark Peters with a wide smile. Peters and his wife Yanara, of Spruce Drive Farms, grow certified seed potatoes 12 miles northwest of Portage la Prairie. On Saturday, October 14,

The ingredients in the potato soup recipe below are good sources of vitamin C and the mineral potassium.

Warm yourself with some soup

Soup is high in liquid, which means it usually is lower in calories than other foods

Mom, now my hands will smell like onions!” my older daughter said as she chopped a particularly fragrant onion we had grown this summer. She has been my long-term vegetable chopper, even when we have gadgets that will do the work for us. We had onions, bell peppers and potatoes to chop as we tried


U.S. President Donald Trump is being asked to include potatoes in upcoming NAFTA negotiations.

Spuds may be NAFTA target

A key U.S. potato industry organization is asking the Trump administration to address its concerns in upcoming negotiations

The U.S. National Potato Council is calling for action in any upcoming NAFTA renegotiations. In a letter to President Donald Trump, John Keeling, NPC’s CEO, said the group “… is strongly supportive of improving the conditions for trade that we confront with Canada and Mexico.” He also noted that the two countries represent important markets

A tuber infected with Dickeya dianthicola can have a mushy consistency similar to tapioca.

Dickeya diagnostics available, but could add costs

Growers exporting seed to the U.S. are increasingly being asked for the test

Laboratory testing can detect Dickeya — but is there enough of it present to justify the higher costs? It’s a relatively new threat to North American potato production. The invasive pathogen Dickeya dianthicola — not to be confused with blackleg causing Dickeya solani — was first spotted in Canada in Ontario fields, having come in


Late blight is just one seed-borne disease that makes planting clean seed potato pieces important.


Plant clean seed potatoes

Selecting and planting disease-free potato seed pieces is the crucial first step to assuring a successful potato crop

Starting the season with disease-free potato seed stock is the first step in establishing a good stand that will maximize yield potential. There are several diseases growers should be concerned with when selecting seed potatoes that will produce vigorous uniform stands, especially potato leafroll virus, potato virus Y, also known as “common mosaic,” and late

Chloropicrin being applied on a New Brunswick potato field. McCain has been trialling applications there since 2014.

Fumigation a potential solution for ‘tired potato land’

Not all land will show an effect however, so producers need to consider the strategy carefully

Soil fumigation is a good option for potato acres inflicted by yield-limiting pests, says Andy Robinson, a North Dakota State University extension potato specialist. Fumigation is used south of the border to control buildup of soil-borne pests causing verticillium wilt, potato early dying and other diseases. But fumigation hasn’t been widely adopted in Canada, unlike


An example of a hot spot detected with the FLIR One camera that gave no other indication of breakdown.

Managing potato diseases in storage

High-tech solutions can help to find problems before they’ve become critical

Whether it’s fresh or processing potatoes, any issue in storage needs to involve partnership with your end-user,” says Mary LeMere, an agronomy manager with McCain Foods based in Wisconsin. LeMere was at Manitoba Potato Production Days in Brandon, Man. January 24 to 26 to deliver “lightning advice” on three key topics — managing late blight

Feds fund potato push

The investment is aimed at increasing Canada’s potato exports

The federal government is putting up $274,000 in Growing Forward 2 funding to expand markets for Canadian potatoes. The announcement came last month when member of Parliament Dan Vandal spoke to the 95th annual general meeting of the Canadian Horticulture Council in Winnipeg. This project, funded under the AgriMarketing Program, provides the Canadian Horticultural Council


It’s important that growers recognize symptoms of late blight, which can appear on the plant’s leaves, stems and fruits, says a provincial extension pathologist.

Get an early start on preventing late blight

There are many steps we can take now — including starting tomato seedlings 
from seed from reputable suppliers — that can help ward off another infection in 2017

Commercial potato growers, market gardeners and home gardeners were hit hard by late blight last year, but there are steps to take to avoid a repeat in 2017, say Manitoba Agriculture staff. The key is managing for the fungal disease before it becomes a serious problem. The precautions to take range from choosing tomato varieties

Researchers think there’s potential potatoes could be grown on Mars.

Extraterrestrial potato production studied

Researchers from Peru’s potato centres and NASA are trying to 
grow spuds in conditions that mimic Mars

In a move that mirrors the Matt Damon blockbuster “The Martian,” researchers are trying to prove potatoes can grow on Mars. The International Potato Center (CIP) recently launched a series of experiments to discover if potatoes can grow under Mars atmospheric conditions. CIP’s proof of concept experiment to grow potatoes in simulated Martian conditions began