Potato Review

50 POTATO REVIEW NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 VARIETIES “ e story goes that when it was rst grown the tubers came out of the ground looking like horses’ heads and the suggestion then was that it should be called Jumbo,” he recalls. “ at name had already been taken so we thought why not call it 7Four7 instead? e name stuck and the variety is now ticking quite a few boxes.” Queen Anne is a Solana second early which can be grown as a salad crop. It will store medium to long term and produces a good skin nish because of its high resistance to common scab. “Queen Anne has an exceptional avour and it’s the nearest thing we’ve got to Charlotte,” said Craig. “We also have Baby Lou which is a fantastic salad variety but in my opinion this one actually eats even better.” Solana has its headquarters in Hamburg and runs a breeding stations at Windeby in the Schleswig-Holstein region. Solana Seeds UK has its o ces at Stody in north Norfolk. *Jumbo is a starch variety bred by Norika Gmbh, based at Gros Lusewitz in north- east Germany. Four of the best Terry Jones, UK sales manager for Meijer Seed Potato Ltd, picked out four of the best from his demonstration plots in an adjacent eld at Coldham. e names of Meijer releases tend to follow a convention whereby table varieties re ect a musical theme while the processors follow a tradition which began with one of the company’s earlier releases, crisping variety Lady Rosetta. e exception to the rule is Rock which straddles both markets having been originally thought of as a prepacker but seems to have found its niche in the sh and chip shop trade as a replacement for Maris Piper. Terry began with Acoustic, an Orchestra cross which is pitched at the organic and conventional packing sectors. “ is one is an early second early with good skin nish and good all-round eating quality,” he noted. “We’ve had three or four years working with Acoustic and it seems to be highly resistant to blight and o ers mid-term storability as well. “Lady Alicia is one of our newer varieties for the crisping trade,’ he continued. ‘As with Acoustic it produces high tuber numbers from low seed rates and it is suitable for long-term storage. It has good dry matter and is e cient in terms of usability from the factory point of view. It is not a variety that is particularly prone to scab and it has shallow eyes and it is very uniform so it cleans up well and produces low levels of waste. Lady Alicia also gives very good scores from the acrylamide perspective which is obviously important in the crisping market now. “Lady Anna is a chipping variety which has a slightly higher dry matter than Rock so it has potential for factory use. It is a medium long variety, with the right shape and shallow eyes so it has a good conversion rate from fresh to nished product. It is quite a dormant variety so it will do long-term storage very well and it has dual PCN resistance. “Rock is also dual PCN resistant and our trials results have been very good – we’ve seen it grown on land with fairly high pallida counts and it has done well. It is a mid-term storage variety which can be held until March, April or May and it is tailored for the fresh chip market rather than processing. It is a pretty robust growing type producing high tuber numbers and low inputs and has a lighter yellow esh, more towards Maris Piper. It is doing a good job for fenland growers and chip shop end users are now asking for the variety by name.” Queen Anne Lacy Alicia Acoustic Rock Lady Anna Terry Jones Craig Stephen with Bably Lou