{"id":11952,"date":"2025-02-25T09:24:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=11952"},"modified":"2025-02-25T09:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:24:27","slug":"uw-madison-researchers-and-wisconsin-farmers-work-together-to-produce-healthy-potato-harvests","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-madison-researchers-and-wisconsin-farmers-work-together-to-produce-healthy-potato-harvests\/","title":{"rendered":"UW\u2013Madison researchers and Wisconsin farmers work together to produce healthy potato harvests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Andy Diercks, a fourth-generation potato farmer from the small village of Coloma in central Wisconsin, is blunt about the difficult realities facing family-owned farms today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are days when the choices aren\u2019t always good, and you\u2019re making the least bad choice,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we\u2019ve survived well. I\u2019m proud of what we do here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
The Diercks family has been farming in central Wisconsin for four generations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For decades, Diercks\u2019s family and farmers across the state have worked closely with vegetable researchers at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison to ensure a healthy harvest, from the initial seed supply to disease prevention and management.<\/p>\n

Amanda Gevens, a UW\u2013Madison Extension specialist and the department chair of plant pathology, knows all too well the high stakes for Wisconsin farms. She arrived at UW in July 2009 \u2014 the same month that a late blight epidemic hit the state for the first time in nearly a decade. Gevens had to learn how to relay critical information to farmers in a timely, useful manner so that they could take action against the debilitating plant disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intervention that you recommend can save the return for that crop,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd for very large acreage, that can be in the millions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tackling the disease triangle<\/h3>\n

UW researchers are tackling the entire \u201cdisease triangle\u201d: the environment (tracked by Blitecast), the pathogen (diagnosed and managed through testing), and the host \u2014 that is, the health of the seed. Since 1913, UW\u2013Madison has overseen the Wisconsin Seed Potato Certification Program. The university maintains the state\u2019s potato tissue culture, storing the tiny plantlets of potatoes that seed future commercial production. The year-long inspection process covers the entire growing cycle and even involves shipping seed potatoes to Hawaii during the winter months to continue to observe their health and quality.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a great relationship\u2019<\/h3>\n

Diercks, who graduated from UW in 1993 with a degree in agricultural engineering, operates Coloma Farms alongside his father, Steve. The farm spans 2,700 acres and is a supplier to McCain Foods, the world\u2019s largest manufacturer of frozen potato products. The Diercks family has long collaborated with UW researchers to implement more productive and sustainable practices, and they routinely return the favor by opening their farm to the university for education and research projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not afraid to ask us to change, and we don\u2019t have any problem asking why they\u2019re trying to get us to make some of the changes,\u201d Diercks says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great relationship. It\u2019s frankly one of the main reasons I\u2019ve stayed in the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The close partnership between UW researchers and Wisconsin farmers is also leading to promising innovations. Gevens\u2019s lab is developing a tool that uses aerial imaging from aircraft and satellites to evaluate the health of crops in the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve developed some models that tell us when the crop has late blight or early blight. We can identify disease in the plant before it\u2019s showing symptoms. We\u2019ve never before been able to do that,\u201d Gevens says. \u201cWe think it will help give better information to the farmers in advance of disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her team is also testing the use of UV light \u2014\u00a0\u201calmost like dosing using a chemical,\u201d she says \u2014 to treat disease while potatoes are in long-term storage.<\/p>\n

Gevens grew up working on a small vegetable farm in New York and interacting with agents from the Cornell Cooperative Extension. So it\u2019s no wonder that she feels right at home in her current career and alongside dedicated farmers like Diercks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe research team \u2014 they\u2019re just really good people,\u201d Diercks says. \u201cWe know them socially. They have beers with us at the end of the day. They\u2019re friends. And they\u2019re willing to get out of Madison and grab samples, walk around in the field, get their feet and hands dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n

That commitment, he adds, makes them \u201cthe best potato research team in the country. And we\u2019re really proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by\u00a0Preston Schmitt. Photos by Bryce Richter and Jeff Miller.<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/impact.wisc.edu\/uw-madison-researchers-and-wisconsin-farmers-work-together-to-produce-healthy-potato-harvests<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andy Diercks, a fourth-generation potato farmer from the small village of Coloma in central Wisconsin, is blunt about the difficult realities facing family-owned farms today. \u201cThere are days when the choices aren\u2019t always good, and you\u2019re making the least bad choice,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we\u2019ve survived well. I\u2019m proud of what we do here.\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-11952","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/11952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=11952"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=11952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}