Blight-Mop: new strategies to combat potato blight
Lucius Tamm, Bernhard
Speiser, Jaques
Fuchs and Thomas Amsler
Funding
The project is funded by the Commission of the European Communities
under the work program Quality of Life, within the fifth framework
program Sustainable Agriculture, Key Action 5. Participation of
the Swiss partner is funded by the Swiss Federal Office for Education
and Science.
Full Project Title
Development of a systems approach for management of late blight
in EU-organic potato production. Project no. QLKT-CT-2000-01065.
Purpose
To develop a systems approach for the control of late blight (Phytophthora
infestans) which allows commercially viable production of organic
potato crops without the use of copper fungicides.
Methods
The project involves seven workpackages. The first workpackage
(coordinated by FiBL) consists of recording the opportunities and
problems for organic potato production in seven European countries,
and to assess the significance of late blight within the overall
production system. A total of 118 organic potato producers were
interviewed, using a questionnaire with 131 questions. These farm-specific
data are complemented by country-specific information, such as
climatic data, blight epidemics, copper legislation, farming statistics
and economic information.
The second workpackage (coordinated by FiBL) entails testing new,
blight-resistant potato varieties to compare them, in terms of
incidence of foliar and tuber blight and yield, with frequently
grown varieties in four European countries. There is one field
trial in each country, which is arranged in a randomized block
design and replicated for two years.
The remaining workpackages examine: the development of within field
diversification strategies; optimisation of agronomic strategies;
development of alternative control treatments; improvement of efficacy
of alternative control treatments for use under field conditions
and integration of blight control strategies. For detailed workpackage
reports see the project homepage.
project
homepage
Results
Workpackage 1: Yields varied from 15 t/ha (N) to 30 t/ha (CH,
NL, UK). In D, F, and DK yields between 20 and 25 t/ha are obtained.
In conventional production, potato yields are consistently higher.
Farm gate prices for organic potatoes are consistently higher than for conventional
potatoes (260-440 Euro/t vs 60-300 Euro/t).
Organic and conventional farmers do not grow the same choice of varieties.
The varieties grown by organic farmers tend to be a compromise between robustness
and acceptance on the market.
There are legislative differences in the studied countries, which have an influence
on production conditions. Copper use is not possible in Scandinavian countries
and in NL, copper use was allowed only as an exception in 1998. In CH and D
copper use is allowed although quantities are limited by state (CH 4 kg/ha)
or by label organisations (D). In F and UK, copper use was not limited until
2001. At present, copper use is limited within the EU by EU regulation 2092/91
to 8 kg/ha and year. In NL, organic potato production is further limited by
legislation since potato foliage has to be destroyed as soon as late blight
incidence exceeds 5%.
Several agronomic factors could be identified that correlate with
success in potato production: the variables 'planting date' (the
earlier the better), 'harvest date'(the earlier the better), 'removal
of foliage' (if yes), 'total amount of copper' (the more the better),
and 'varietal foliar resistance' (the more resistant the better)
correlate significantly and consistently with 'gross yield'. However,
'fertilizer input intensity', 'planting date' (the earlier the
better), 'removal of foliage' (if yes), and 'number of copper applications'
(the more the better), are identified if 'success' includes next
to gross yield also the parameters N-use efficiency, and profitability
(assessed by the farmer).
Conclusions: this survey indicates that a region-specific optimization and
integration of production technologies should lead to a substantial improvement
of gross yields and yield stability in organic potato production. It also
shows that copper has been a key component of the organic production system.
Therefore, a ban of copper without supply of adequate alternative production
strategies (which will be developed in Blight-MOP) would most likely lead
to the destabilisation of organic potato production, decrease in production
area and shortage of market supply.
Workpackage 2: In all test countries, new varieties were identified
which suffered significantly less foliar blight than the currently
grown varieties. Some of these varieties show potential for introduction
into practice, or are already beeing introduced into the organic
market.
Project Duration: Year 2001-2005
Partners
Newcastle
University (TCOA)
Unite
Mixte de Recherches INRA/ENSAR BiO3P
Department
of Ecological Plant Protection, University of Kassel
Elm
Farm Research Centre
Danish
Institute of Agricultural Sciences
Federal
Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry
Swiss
Federal Research Station of Agroecology and Agriculture
Norwegian
Centre for Ecological Agriculture
Louis
Bolk Instituut
Groupe
de Recherche en Agricutlure Biologique
Plant
Research International, B.V.
Landbouw-Economisch
Instituut
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