Agronomic Innovation in Action

Hear from three growers who attended the Potato Innovation Tour this Summer. As they share their reflections, highlight key innovations, and discuss what these developments mean for their businesses.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Perfecting Potatoes Together podcast brought to you by BSF. My name is Rebecca Dawes, and for this series, I am delighted to be joined by Cedric Porter.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Hi, I'm Cedric. I'm the editor of World Potato Markets, a weekly briefing into the wonderful world of potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

And in this series, we visited growers, packers, researchers and agronomists to find out more about the innovations within the potato sector.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

So let's get digging into what we discovered.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

So, episode number two, Cedric, and this is quite an interesting one. We're talking about agronomic innovation and that connection between growers and the advisers that we're hearing and seeing in Scotland but across the UK. I think this was probably one of the best opens to a tour that I could have imagined with Scottish agronomy.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

I think there's a really good sort of introduction to some of the issues in terms of what's happening in potatoes in Scotland and nationally as well, and some of the challenges there. I found Scottish agronomy a really unusual interesting business. Being a co-op, there's not many agronomy co-ops owned by the members. And it really did sort of shine through that what they were doing was for the benefit of their members and that sort of relationship with the members as on the board, or farmers on the board, really sort of key to having that relationship between the agronomists and the farmers on the ground. And you could see that there were feedback from both agronomists and farmers, and that really sort of shone through in terms of improving some of the research they were doing and of course the outcomes of that, and then being able to share it with all the other members too.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

I couldn't agree more. And I thought it was really interesting also how many different partners they were collaborating with. And that collaboration was demonstrating so many positive results in terms of the research. They talked about the James Hutton, they talked about providers like BSF, but it was also partnerships they were having with growers who were giving up land to try some really quite experimental activities to see how we can get on top of PCN and Wireworm and some of the other challenges that we're facing in the potato sector. For the listeners, John Weir, one of their members and growers, joined us, and we'll hear from him a bit later in this episode. But he was just so open, wasn't he, to taking on any new trial?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, and very open with the results and also the downside of some of what they were doing. You know, very sort of open in terms of the non-successes as well, the failures as well as the successes, which is what farmers may all learn from. Yeah, it did sort of shine through that sort of enthusiasm of the members and the farmers they're working with too.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

So you caught up with Zach Riley, one of the Scottish agronomy agronomists. Just give us a bit of a teaser about what you heard and then we'll hear the full chat.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Yeah, so Zach, uh agronomist there, and very much personifying that relationship between the farmers and the research as well. Doing a lot of research on the ground, meeting farmers all the time. So we had a chat about some of the issues affecting growing and certainly in sort of the need for more resilience in terms of perhaps coping with uh changing weather patterns, but also the importance of soil, some of the diseases and viruses that they're looking at, and then sort of discuss what potato growing might be uh looking like in the future.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Fantastic. Well, let's go and hear the full conversation between the two of you.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, I'm speaking to Zach Riley, and Zach is an agronomist with Scottish agronomy. Just explain a little bit about yourself, Zach, and uh Scottish agronomy, please.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Hi Cedric. Yeah, so I'm Zach Riley. I'm an agronomist based in the northeast, so in Angus in Scotland. It's a big potato growing area, historically known for its high quality seed, but increasingly we're growing more ware potatoes. On the PASF potato tour, we were quite happy to share some of the work that we're doing around potatoes, both from a trials point of view and with our membership base, how we get those messages from the trials out to actually implementations on farm.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Because I found it fascinating because you are a membership organization. You're quite unusual in terms of that. Just explain a little bit how Scottish agronomy works and how important potatoes are to Scottish agronomy and its members, of course.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Yes, uh Scottish agronomy is certainly unusual. Um, from a business structure point of view, we're at co-op. So our clients are our owners. So Scottish agronomy, well, members have a £10 share in the business, so the risk to that individual member is very low. And then they pay for the service that they use that's appropriate to their business. But fundamentally, what we want to do as a cooperative is get the best value for our members. And the way we do that is by doing primary research and our trials part of the business, and then translating that as hidden action on farm through our agronomy team. So our potato works absolutely fundamental uh to the the wider agronomy service that we have. We know that our potato membership, the crop of potatoes, is hugely, hugely valuable to these businesses. In a lot of ways, it's the crop that's really driving these businesses on. And the stakes are very, very high. The technical information that our growers are acting upon is hugely important to the viability of not just that enterprise, but of their wider business. So I would say we we really do prioritize potatoes.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

So they're absolutely fundamental to it. It was very obvious to me that you are very research focused and lots of trials, and I suppose with all those members as well, you're very much sort of focused on what's happening on the ground. So this isn't blue sky research, it's like call it brown earth research, if you like, or brown soil research. That's really important to you, isn't it? That what happens from a research point of view works on farm.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah, we need to make sure it's applied. So, although we do do some longer-term thinking, an example of that is a few years ago we were part of a collaboration looking at PCN management through PCN Action Scotland. And at the time that that trials work and that project was laid down, there was an issue addressed within the industry. But some of the trials that we were doing, particularly around variety work, it was so far away from what the growers were actually able to grow. Fast forward to today, and actually those varieties that we've trialled are becoming more mainstream because of the fundamental work that that project has done. But most of our research, I would say, or most of our trials that we do, they come off real challenges on farms, so the membership feeding back to say actually this is really causing us issues, and we go and try and look at that and find ways to address that. The big one comes to mind at the moment is potato leaf roll virus. And we're the only provider in Scotland of fully replicated randomized virus work to try and address this growing issue of potato leaf roll virus in our seed and ware sector.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

It's so important for seed, with Scotland being such a leader in seed, so controlling those diseases is absolutely vital.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

It absolutely is, and leaf roll viruses are pretty complex, to be honest. You know, once the virus is taken up by the aphid, it stays with that aphid and the generations that that aphid produces. But then we also have the in-season transmission where a plant is infected, and then the second season horizontal transmission. So when we plant that infected seed, we actually create a problem the next year. You know, that in a seed multiplication system where we're relying on clean seed coming in is a massive issue. We've done some really interesting work this year where we've taken a crop of coultra seed that was tuberindexed, and we found that that coultra seed had a 22% potato leaf roll virus in it. So it's obviously not viable for a commercial crop. But we took some of that seed and we sized it out with the hypothesis or the working hypothesis that the smaller seed will have a higher incidence of virus. And what we did is we planted different seed fractions to try and see how the virus comes from one generation of seed into the next. And by doing that, we're still waiting on the final results coming back. And we should start to understand how actually selecting the size of seed is actually influencing the wider picture. So looking at this integrated pest management or integrated crop management point of view. I'm not aware of any work that's looking at that, but it's something that we felt our membership would benefit from if we just went ahead and put that in place.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Yeah, that's something that's sort of key, and that's really important. Something else that really struck me when you did your presentation was the importance of soil. It sort of reminded me that potatoes are one of the crops that have perhaps the most interaction with soil, you know, sitting in the soil and growing in this soil. What have you been looking at in terms of soil management because it is so important to potatoes?

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Over a couple of years, we've looked at reduced tillage, primary cultivation ahead of a potato crop. We had a really enthusiastic member, still have a really enthusiastic member, Jim, up at Milton and Mayers, and he kindly did a split field for us where half of the field was plowed and half of the field was deep tyne cultivated. So basically a deep rip-through with a subsoiler type machine. And then both sides of the field were treated equally, so they were both the ridge separated, planted, harvested. And what we did is we did paired analysis up this field looking at the non-inversion and the inversion side. Neither halves of the field were what you'd say min-til. You know, they were still heavy cultivations, it's just simply one side was inverted and the other wasn't. And what we found in that is that the water aggregate stability for both halves of the field decreased after the potato crop. The previous crop was grassland that was terminated and then either plowed or deep dined. And so the water aggregate stability, which is kind of like your building block to soil structure, was very, very good. And we found that it didn't matter which way we cultivated, that the potato crop reduced that structural integrity of the soil. Now that's obviously really important for rooting, uh for nutrient uptake, for water, just for growing that crop in general. But the interesting finding was that even though both sides of the field was intensively cultivated, that the non-inversion side decreased less than the plowed side. And that's kind of the first time that we've seen that actually that primary cultivation, still intensively cultivated, still at a depth, but not inverted, actually had a, I wouldn't say a positive impact, but a less negative impact of growing that potato crop.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Because I suppose that's the thing with potatoes, they have enormous yields, you get an awful lot of nutritional value from them, but they do have a big impact on soil, and that does then impact on rotations as well, doesn't it? So managing it, so understanding that you are going to have an impact on the soil, how then can you manage your rotations within that? I know rotations are lengthening a bit.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

It's fundamental. I think there's two elements. There's how do we minimize the damage from the crop itself, and then how do we build the soil health as a whole throughout the other five, six, seven years before we go back in with potatoes? And it's this incremental increase that we can actually improve soil health that really interests me. Not specific to potatoes, but we have been doing some work on looking at green manures and cover crops and how that can improve soil health to try and make this incremental gain throughout the rotation so that when the potatoes are planted and they are growing, if they do cause damage, that is to a level that is still acceptable and the soil can bounce back from that position.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

And I suppose without that good management, then there is a threat, or you're certainly going to your potato um production is going to suffer, and there is a sort of long-term threat to potato production if we don't manage the soil in that way.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Absolutely. I think you know, this year for Scotland has been extremely dry. It's kind of caught by surprise a little bit. You know, we're not used to such long periods of dry weather. We've had to irrigate quite hard. But for us, I know there'll be other people in the UK that think we're still playing around the edges when it comes to irrigation. But for us, you know, we've we've done a lot of irrigation work, and I think there's there's been benefit to that. But really, we need to make sure that the water that we're using, the nutrients that we're using are being utilized effectively, and that all starts with healthy soils.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Are you finding that production is becoming more volatile and crops need to be more resilient? Because we've seen some pretty wet weather in the last two or three years, and then we've had the very dry conditions in 2025. It's not just an anecdote that the weather is becoming more volatile, is it?

SPEAKER_03 12:04

I don't think so, but equally I'm not actually that old, Cedric. You know, I've got as many seasons under under the belt as uh as me. As you. I think that breakin' area had 400 mil of rain in a month. It wasn't just one extreme weather event, it was four extreme weather events, of which the worst was Storm Babet. And then to go from that into such a dry year, I'm not saying that your soil is going to be able to buffer all of that impact, but it's certainly going to help. If you have a good, well-structured soil that has a sound level of water aggregate stability, the water will filter through that, but then equally in a dry year, your roots can explore that soil to extract the water. So it's not that it's only working on a wet year or only working on a dry year. If you get your soil right, it works in both.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah, so in a in a normal year or an average year, then you are probably going to have better results as well. And it's question even more of sort of survival in very, very difficult years, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Absolutely. Yeah, and we've got to remember that potatoes are not a deep rooting crop, but when compared to some of the other crops we're growing, tatties will grow to the root system will grow 700, 750 mil thereabouts. You know, it's not a huge level of exploration, and therefore, that proportion of the soil that we're managing to grow this potato crop, it's even more important that that's you know, of the best possible health, because that is really what we're relying on.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

So as an organization, I got the impression you're very open to working with others. And I know you have worked with BASF closely now and in the past. How important are those sort of relationships with that sort of wider potato chain, if you like, those other companies that are coming up with innovations?

SPEAKER_03 14:05

I think it's absolutely essential that we work together. Collaboration's got to happen for us to be able to move the industry forward. I think at Scottish Agronomy, you know, we're willing to work with a variety of partners who want to push things forward, and BASF are an excellent example of an organization that value research that they they want to find the solutions, and Scottish Agronomy are you know very happy to work with them both historically and hopefully in the future.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

And if you could just have a sort of priority list of the next few years, if you like, what sort of things do you think both growers and people like you supporting them should be looking at?

SPEAKER_03 14:41

I think locally, to me, I think we're on the whole, not to put any growers down, but I think we could improve with our irrigation management. We've been in quite a good position, but I think that's going to become an issue. And this year's shown that that can become an issue. I suppose that would be one from a topical what's happened so far point of view. I think slightly bigger picture, from my point of view, we've made massive progress, and it's been absolutely brilliant to see the improvements we've made around potato system nematode control, both from a variety, rotation, biofumigation point of view. But I feel that we've probably overlooked free-living nematode, which I think is a wider issue that I see not just in the potato crop, but also in cereal crops where infestation levels are high. We obviously have the direct feeding damage, but then we've also got the tobacco rattle virus and the symptoms of sprang that come off the back of free-living nematode populations in the soil. So I think that's an excellent carry-on from the work that we've done with potato cys nematode. And then I think the blight challenge is ongoing. We've obviously now no longer got mancozeb, so there's not just the mixing and alternating actives, we've also got to consider the nutritional elements of using mancozeb, and I suspect zinc is going to be an issue. So there's a nutrition point of view. And then I think it would be remiss of me to miss potato leaf roll virus. This is a huge challenge for the sector. We've been working very closely with the James Hutton Institute, with Eugene Rybov there to analyse the samples to understand more about the strain of potato leaf roll virus that we have or strains that we have and how we manage that. So, yeah, I think they would probably be my priorities off the top of my head. It would be irrigation, free-loving nematodes, blight, and potato leaf roll virus.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

So plenty to keep you busy and uh plenty of reason to continue working with Scottish agronomy. Now, I think this is probably the most important question of all is how do you like eating your potatoes?

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Oh, well, the nights are drawn in, so at the moment I'm back to big titties, to be honest. I mean, I've been doing quite a few test eggs, and there are some absolute waffers out there. So I pride myself in finding an 85mm plus that I know would go stock feed and taking that home and baking that. I can tell you that's a meal. That is that five ties and feed feed a family of four.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

There you go. That's a brilliant value, tasty. What's your favourite topping?

SPEAKER_03 17:01

My favourite topping. To be honest, I'm I like the variety. It's something different every day. A bolognese type chili or something like that. That's probably what I could eat just now. And that's it. Half two in the afternoon. And I've had lunch.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

There you go. You can't resist the joys of a baked potato. Zach, very many thanks for that. And yeah, thanks for hosting us on the tour. I found it fascinating and really great to see that relationship between researchers and growers really making the difference on the ground. Thanks very much, Zach.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

What a brilliant conversation between Cedric and Zach. And one of the additional benefits from this day was a visit to John Weir, one of the members of Scotch Economy, who is located not too far away from the Scotch Economy offices. So during the visit, we captured a little bit of an interview with him talking about one of the challenges that is particularly facing him on his farm.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Hi, I'm John. We are farming here at Lassiston Farm in Gateside in Fife. We've grown 150 acres of ware for pre-packed whites, and we also grow 10 acres of seed for our own reproduction for the following year. Mixture of varieties Saxon, Careoria, Tyson, and Sarah, all for prepack. Predominantly our potatoes are all grown for Greenvale. They pack for Sainsbury, Coal, and Little, as well as Markets and Canebaker. One of the biggest challenges on this farm is the amount of potatoes that historically have been grown. So the land is quite dirty, and we're losing the tools in the toolbox to control PCN. So we're looking at trap cropping, so a crop that will reduce numbers by up to 80%. And also we're looking at resistant varieties to help clean up the land for future rotation. We grow lots of cereals here, oats valley, spring valley, and winter valley, and we try and clean the land up with a wide rotation. We're out at seven years at the moment. It's nice to go wider, but cost of land, land availability makes it difficult. That's about all we can do is widen the rotation. Then it's down to chemicals, trap crops, and resistant varieties. The challenge is being able to establish these trap crops because they predominantly survive in south of England where it's a lot warmer. So I had to wait till June before drilling to let the soil get warm enough. We've been really lucky this year that we've got a hot summer. So the crop has established, but in a cooler year it may not. So we may go through all the work, we may sacrifice the field and get no return. So it's not a reliable means of controlling BCN, but it's one of the few things that we've got at our disposal. We do have challenges with bright blight, but we've got still got lots of fungicides. Every year it gets more difficult with resistant strains and having to mix and match the fungicides we use because of resistance buildup, but we still have chemicals in the toolbox to do that. The virus control is more of a challenge for the seed crop because there's less and less we can use their lights of leaf roll, and these sort of viruses are becoming more and more prevalent, probably with the warmer climate and more aphids early on. Plant breeding would be key if we could breed blight-resistant potatoes, whether it be by gene editing or GM Dare I say, and reduce the spraying, the tracking through the fields, the work, the diesel, the everything that comes along with spraying potatoes in a seven-day routine would be a godsend. And then we're not left with anything that effective at all. That's what will be must resign to probably only uh PCN resistant varieties. They're fine as long as the market accepts that and they go with us. The processors, the pre-packers, these guys have got to embrace it and say, well, these guys can't grow X variety, they can only grow Y. We need to be able to work with that. I think Scottish agronomy would be the leading agronomy team, certainly in Scotland. If they're right on the doorstep and they'll be on the farm once a month, maybe any sort of problems, issues, and keeping an eye they're right on the end of the phone for advice on whether it be varieties, seed rates, fertilizers, anything related, even as far as uh storage, costs, machinery, cultivations, the whole thing. So it's a full package with Scottish economy. It's family farm here, I farm here with my father. He is 83 sitting on a combine today. We come to this farm in 1981, so 44 years ago, right now, actually. We've expanded our land base, both cereals and potatoes. We actually They didn't grow potatoes all those years ago. Started at 30 or 40 acres, we're now growing 160. Feel it's at a good level for the machinery and the workforce we've got. So we've got my father, one full-time employee Alec, and myself, and a little bit extra help at harvest time and potato time, trailer guys, and things like that. So we're able to cope with almost all work in-house ourselves apart from a bit of harvest help. At the farm here, we're sitting about 350 feet. We go to 700 right at the bottom of the West Lowland, so we're not the earliest area, but we're lucky the fact that it's quite a sandy soil, so we can get on it quite quick. The main thing I like is working with the potatoes because there is so much to do with it. To sow a cereal, you sow it, you spray it, you harvest it, and it's done. But where is the potatoes? It's a 12 months of the year crop. I'm growing the seed for next year's crop to then harvest them in the October to market them in the following year. It's such a long-term thing. It's all just so involved. You've got to have a good relationship with your market, which I got on well with the guys we work with. We talk all the time and we work together to make the best out of it. So I just enjoy the potatoes out of everything. Farming is the biggest job on earth because there's no other business who can start from a bare field and grow a fresh crop of potatoes straight to your table.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

I mean, what a fantastic second episode, Cedric. Both Zach and John just enthuse the love of the potato crop. How much did you take away from both their interviews?

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Yeah, it is, and I think it's that willingness to learn from mistakes as well as successes, and that willingness to really share a lot of uh what they've learnt as well, sort of widely, just you know, for the good of the potato industry. So I think it was great. I think you know it was a really good part of the tour. I was very impressed also that it was one of the first places we stopped and a real introduction to Scotland. We had tonic steak cakes as well, so you know what's not to like.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Absolutely. On that note, thanks so much for joining me for episode number two, and we look forward to the next one coming very shortly.