Marketing
This arrangement provides the Group with access to modern varieties coming through the Solana Group’s breeding programme , as well as their existing portfolio of about 60 varieties. This allows the Group to concentrate on a limited number of varieties best suited to the market in GB, Ireland and Northern Europe.
The Solana Group, as well as breeding potatoes, is a distributor of potatoes with subsidiaries in eight counties (including the UK) and sales offices or agents in 23 other countries. This provides the Mourne Seed Potato Group with access to international markets through the Solana Group international sales and distribution organisation.
Further information can be obtained from www.solana.de or by contacting Solana Seeds UK Ltd.
Solana Seeds United Kingdom Ltd.
Unit 4, Stody Hall Barns
Stody,
Melton Constable
Norfolk NR 24 2ED
United Kingdom
Tel:+44 1263 860609
Details of the Solana varieties currently grown by the Group are provided in the Variety Data Sheets referenced below:
Edison
Baby Lou
Opal
Verdi
Miranda
The potato’s journey to your plate
In its journey to your plate to potato moves along a well-controlled and efficient supply chain. The chain starts with the breeder such as Solana GmbH and moves through the seed potato grower, such as those in Mourne Seed Potatoes, to the farmer or gardener who plants the seed to produce the potatoes which we eat.
The term “seed potato” can be a little misleading. Although potatoes do set seed, to sustain variety characteristics, they are multiplied vegetatively; meaning an actual potato is planted which reproduces through stolons or underground stems, which grow from the eyes. This “mother” potato then produces the subsequent crop, which is an exact replica of the potato planted.
Potato Breeder
Over the centuries since the Spanish first discovered potatoes in South America and brought them to Europe, breeders have transformed them into the excellent food crop we know today. The potato is now the fourth most important global food crop. While Northern Ireland’s breeders, such as John Clarke, produced many successful varieties in the past, the business is now dominated by professional breeding organisations such as Solana.
Potato breeding is a slow and expensive process which typically involves making multiple crosses and then, over many years, selecting the variety which has the characteristics required by the market – including disease resistance, flavour, yield, flesh colour and cooking characteristics. With the trend towards processed and pre-prepared food their suitability for French fries and crisps is of increased importance.
To help the breeders recover their huge investment in the breeding programme varieties, are protected for a number of years by Plant Breeder Rights, which is the equivalent of a patent for manufactured goods.
Multiplication
Because potatoes are propagated vegetatively, many diseases in the plant from the prior year will be carried over to the next crop. As generations increase, so the diseases carried by the tubers increase, which is why it is so important for farmers and gardeners to use seed potatoes certified as having low disease loads.
Certified seed used to produce the potatoes we eat will typically be no more than 6 – 7 generations old. The process starts each time with tissue taken from standard “nuclear” stock tuber in a laboratory and is then multiplied up over a number of seasons, to produce the bulk of the “seed” sold to commercial growers and gardeners.
Potatoes – the crop of the future
Although the potato has been grown for centuries and has been under pressure from pasta and rice in the youth consumer market, the “spud” remains the dominant food carbohydrate in Ireland; a potato purchase being made every second in Irish retailers. There are many advantages of the potato crop such as versatility, relatively low calories, and negligible fat content are now being augmented by the increasingly important measures of lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduced water requirement. The potato can justifiably claim to have a very secure place in the global food markets of the future.
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