Archived News

Gardeners' World magazine, February 2010                                             On test: New Potatoes.  Nick Bailey grows 15 early varieties including Sárpo Una.  Its yield was above average and the flavour was "packed with a woody, smoky taste and good texture, it's a culinary treat".

The Garden (RHS Journal)  February 2010.                                            New potatoes.  Alan Romans brings readers up to speed with recent developments.  He includes a section on Blight resistant introductions which tells the story of Sárpo varieties. "Sárpo Mira tubers are good for everything from early-season salad potatoes to floury late-season tubers for baking .....taste is quite good, like Kerr's Pink or Rooster." 

Gardener's World on national television BBC2 featured Sarpo Potatoes
Toby Buckland, presenter of Gardener's World on Friday 28th August showed viewers his plot of potatoes.  Varieties Sánte and Cara were totally dead and the Sárpo variety Axona was green and healthy.  This demonstrates clearly what we have found in our trials. The new and widely distributed strain of blight, Blue 13, is able to knock out formerly resistant varieties like Sante and Cara.

New Factsheet on late-blight disease issued by the Potato Council
The factsheer for "Leisure Gardeners" outlines the biology of the pathogen and how it can be controlled.  It encourages growers to register for blight alerts and Smith Period data via the Council website www.potato.org.uk/blight

New varieties of sustainable, low-input potatoes launched at Open Day

Over 70 visitors from throughout UK came to the Henfaes Research Centre near Bangor, North Wales on 14th August to learn about progress in the breeding of Sárpo potatoes with high resistance to late-blight disease. David Shaw, Director of the Trust, told visitors how breeding material from the Sarvari family in Hungary is being selected by SRT for varieties suitable for low-input growing. He emphasized that the blight-resisting Sárpos have an exceptionally low carbon footprint. These high-yielding varieties resist viruses, have weed-smothering foliage and deep roots for nutrient scavenging and tolerance to drought. Long dormancy means they store without refrigeration into late spring. These are a new generation of potatoes for sustainable cropping and for economical growing.

Simon White, Trials Manger told visitors how potential varieties are challenged with new strains of blight including the highly destructive Blue 13 strain and how many other characteristics affecting acceptability have to be assessed. Four new varieties were awarded National List status this year, extending the range of maturities from early to maincrop and of dry matters from low through medium to high. Simon explained how a project funded by the Welsh Assembly Government is promoting the growing of certified Sárpo seed potatoes. This is providing livestock-farmers with a useful alternative crop.

Gary Collins of the Potato Council Ltd explained to guests how the Council are collaborating with BlightWatch to provide growers with up-to-date forecasting of blight and its actual occurrence throughout U.K.

Alan Romans, Potato Guru, told guests how he had grown Sárpos for many years and was convinced that they had a great future in Britain and abroad.

The fact that Sárpo varieties are versatile in the kitchen and taste good was amply demonstrated at lunchtime when visitors were treated to baked, chipped, and steamed examples as well as delicious potato salad.

After lunch visitors inspected a blight trial on Roger Tebbutt's farm on Anglesey. Strain Blue 13 had devastated many of the control varieties and the only ones still growing strongly were Sárpo varieties. Test digs demonstrated some promising new varieties for the future.

The four new varieties launched at the Open Day were Second early, Sárpo Una and Early Maincrops Sárpo Shona, Blue Danube and Kifli.

Name That Spud - would you eat a potato named Horace?

Two of our newly listed varieties needed suitable names so the Trust ran a competition this Spring.  Hundreds of names came in from many of our followers and we would like to thank all those who offered suggestions. The names we chose were announced at the Open Day.

The early maincrop, blue-skinned variety had been named informally as Adam Blue but this name was rejected by the EU naming office as there was already a variety named Adam.  This was unfortunate, as we wanted to acknowledge our "founder", Adam Anderson, who discovered the Sarvari family in Hungary and took steps to help them set up a breeding company and to help us set up SRT. The name we have chosen is BLUE DANUBE.  This name was suggested by Annie Shaw, a web designer from San Francisco and daughter of our Director.  Annie wins the prize of a bottle of malt but in her case this might mutate into a few Bellini on the Grand Canal (she says, I wish).

We had lots of suggestions for our early maincrop white variety.  None of these appealed so we decided to name it SARPO SHONA after Adam's wife Shona.  We hope she likes eating it.

The other new varieties already had breeder's names that we decided to retain.  The white salad early maincrop we call KIFLI.  Kifli is a spindle-shaped Hungarian pastry - rather like a straightened-out croissant.  Our early rose-pink variety retains the name SARPO UNA.

Visitors to the Open Day saw devastated plots of "resistant varieties" interspersed with Sárpo varieties, the latter still green and growing despite being infected with strain Blue 13. (photo: Phil Sumption)

We were delighted to welcome Elin Jones, the Minister for Rural Affairs, Welsh Assembly Government. The Minister visited the Trust at Henfaes to review recent developments and discuss plans for the future. The Minister was appreciative of the Trust's efforts to promote Sárpo potato growing to provide stockfarmers in North Wales with an additional income.