GM Potato Blight trials to go ahead.

[alan refail]

This is all beginning to sound very familiar

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4797&hilit=brigades

[Nature's Babe]

Apparently blight is here early this year reportedly seen in the west country already.

[alan refail]

Apparently blight is here early this year reportedly seen in the west country already.

Not reported HERE.

[Johnboy]

There are so many diseases related to Potatoes that are mistaken for blight, especially by amateur gardeners. This means that there are always reports of blight that turn out to be something entirely different, which is to be expected.
Most of the diseases are only picked up by an agronomist and so the home gardener has very little chance of actually determining what ails their potatoes.
JB.

[glallotments]

We grew Sarpo Mira last year and it did get a little blight but as it is strong growing it grew through it and produced a good crop.

We never had blight when our allotment site had only a few plotters with masses of dereliction between us. Now the site is full we seem to have blight every year - presumably it is easier for it to spread. We also had it affect the tomatoes in our plot greenhouse but not in our one at home where neighbours don't grow any vegetables in gardens.

[John Walker]

It's disappointing to see several attempts to write off the blight-resistant 'Sarpo' potatoes because they don't apparently taste that good. Isn't this rather like throwing out the baby, the bathwater, and then ripping out the bath and the plumbing as well?

I grew 'Sarpo Mira' last year in a very rudimentary no-dig system, where I simply pushed the seed potatoes under a 2-3in deep layer of leaf mould. They had no special care. I harvested them on an 'as needed' basis (by parting the leaf mould and gathering what I needed) over many months. They kept growing long after 'Charlotte' had been wiped out by blight and they were some of the most delicious potatoes I have ever eaten. The point is that flavour is strongly influenced by the way in which potatoes (as well as other crops are grown). Everyone is going to grow in a slightly different way, so every harvest is going to be different. Attempting to write off all the 'Sarpo' potatoes is frankly ridiculous, especially as there are now a range of different varieties, all with their own distinct texture and flavour. If they were as dreadful as some would like to believe, Thompson & Morgan would have stopped selling them a very long time ago because gardeners would have stopped buying them. I'm also surprised to see T&M being accused of commercialism - they are a business after all.

But the main and spurious argument against using the highly blight-resistant potato varieties we currently have, seems to be that things must always move on and progress. The idea that all potato varieties must somehow have blight-resistance punched into them by an untried and untested technology i.e. genetic modification (GM) is misguided and demonstrates just how deeply some folk have swallowed the greenwash being put out by the GM industry.

And even if the 'Sarpo' varieties don't taste quite like all our old blight-prone favourites, are we really so arrogant as gardeners to expect whatever biotechnology - with whatever uncertainties come with it - to solve the problem for us?

Pragmatism is much mooted here, so a sensible approach would seem to be to work with the conventionally-bred blight-resistant varieties we've already got for now, and not be obsessed by thinking we will always be able to grow everything we always have. We won't. GM, in time, with proper testing and evaluation against a whole range of concerns (which doesn't include the spurious argument that 'millions of people have eaten GM food so it must be ok'), might have benefits.

Downplaying the value of the blight-resistant potatoes we already have and can all try out in our plots, as part of a tirade against a mythical 'anti-chemical organic faction' is both transparent and increasingly unhelpful.

[Colin Miles]

I grew Sarpo Mira last year. Cook didn't like them and the taste - well nondescript is the best I can say. As for blight resistance, well yes, but only with some of the plants and not much better than some other varieties. Yield not that good either. Not growing it this year.

[alan refail]

The Sainsbury Laboratory's release deserves to be read...

http://www.tsl.ac.uk/lateblightqa.html

I believe that most of the feeling against genetic engineering is based on the belief that it is "unnatural" to transfer genes from, say, animals to plants - and it probably is. What seems to be going on here is not "transgenic" genetic engineering, but the transference of genetic material from one species of potato to another species.

[glallotments]

It' s not that easy on the plot - we try our best to dig up all the tubers but still end up with loads of volunteers - these aften grow from really tiny tubers that are easily missed

[Cider Boys]

After reading John’s thoughtful contribution, I must confess that I have neither grown nor eaten the Sarpo type potato, my opinion on its taste is only based on what others have said. Personally I wish the development of Sarpo to be highly successful since any potato that can be grown without the cost and time in spraying at every smith period or blight report is to be welcome.

However when you grow potatoes commercially you only plant what is going to sell and to date there seems to be no demand for the Sarpo potato.

We still grow, on a small commercial way, several varieties of potatoes but our customers mainly prefer Maris Piper so that is what we grow the most of, several years ago, after Delia Smith said it was her favourite, we used to grow mainly Desiree. So fashions do change but I see little demand yet for the Sarpo variety. Perhaps they need a well respected celebrity cook to say that they prefer them for demand to change!

As the interesting Sainsbury link supplied by Alan says, blight is for ever evolving so what it resistant now may not be in the future, so for me there is no harm in supporting a GM trial to hopefully develop a truly blight resistant yet good tasting potato.

Barney

[Johnboy]

As usual John Walker you have got the wrong end of the stick when you say there are several attempts to write off Sarpo varieties of potatoes.
I tasted Sarpo Mira last year that had been organically grown and to me the taste was below par. Several other reports that I have read come to the same conclusion 'down on taste.' Home gardeners and allotmenteers grow for taste as the all important factor in growing a particular variety.
Although the Savari Trust trials are impressive the pictures before and after blight show that there is not enough resistance for commercial growers. A commercial grower would not really be able to harvest what is shown. The Savari Trust themselves say that their potatoes are for low input and organic growing and have not recommended them for the commercial growers. Nobody has even attempted to suggest that Sarpo potatoes should be written off. These are a first generation of resistant potatoes and probably after another forty years research perhaps the Savari Trust will have drastically improved the resistance and the taste.
Conventional cross breeding is far too slow and haphazard but GM using only genes found naturally within the potato family may be far quicker and more resistant and more reliable for commercial application.
That is what the trial is all about!
I wonder just how many tests are done on Sarpo potatoes?
JB.

[Shallot Man]

To me tast is everything.

[John Walker]

For information: Soil Association press release, 8 June 2010.

GM field trials a complete waste of tax-payers’ money

Following the announcement that a field trail of GM potatoes is taking place at a secret location in Norfolk to monitor whether the genes work against blight, Emma Hockridge, Soil Association policy manager said:

"This GM field trial further highlights just how far behind GM technology is compared to conventional breeding. A blight resistant potato variety (Sarpo) has already been bred using conventional methods and is commercially available. The fact that this GM potato variety is still at the field trial stage – after 10 years, no significant results and £1.7 million of tax-payers’ money later – clearly demonstrates what a failing and old technology this is.

“In the same way that we are calling for the Food Standards Agency to stop wasting money on what is effectively a PR exercise for GM food, this field trial should also be halted. Research should instead be focused on conventional breeding which is showing much better results at a far cheaper cost.

“The IAASTD report, the largest scientific farming study ever conducted and produced by over 400 scientists from across the world, concluded that in a world faced with climate change and resource depletion, agro-ecological farming methods like organic need be utilised, rather than throwing more money at GM crops.”

ENDS

[alan refail]

For information: Soil Association press release, 8 June 2010.

GM field trials a complete waste of tax-payers’ money

Nowhere does this release suggest that the SA is opposed to GM "on principle". Is it perhaps significant that the only objection is on grounds of cost?

[Cider Boys]

Unfortunately John’s quote is from the Soil Association, who are in my view a totally discredited organisation promoting scare stories and manipulating data to support their ill thought out creed. The SA gets far too much publicity for an unelected pressure group hell bent on its own dogma whilst ignoring important truths and facts. I think that their time is fast running out.

After all what exactly do the SA want, if no chemicals then why no genes?

Barney