PTDW 2011 -Nordic Baltic Potato Tuber-Disease Workshop

Abstract

Bioforsk had the pleasure of hosting the Nordic Baltic Potato Tuber-Disease Workshop 2011 (PTDW 2011) at Hamar, Norway 16-18 November 2011. The workshop was mainly aimed at potato advisors, including the potato industry, and scientists from the Nordic and Baltic countries. In addition, we also had participants that are plant breeders, students, and and other people interested in potato quality. In total there were about 60 participants at the workshop from the Nordic countries, UK, Switzerland, USA and China. This Workshop was an activity in Bioforsk project: “Improved potato quality by reduced skin blemish diseases (scab and scurf) in Norwegian potato production” (2008-2012). This project was financed by grants from the Research Council of Norway, the Foundation for Research Levy on Agricultural Products, the Agricultural Agreement Research Fund, and Norwegian potato growers and food industries; Gartnerhallen, Bama, ICA-Norge, NF-Grønt, KiMs and Maarud. The foreign experts attached to this project, Alison Lees (UK), Leslie Wanner (USA) and Jari Valkonen (Finland), were contributors in the workshop. In addition invited speakers were Lv Dianqiu from China and Ueli Merz from Switzerland. The workshop had 5 different sections, in which the 3 first had presentations from the project: 1. Occurrence of skin blemish diseases in the Nordic and Baltic countries 2. Diagnosis and biology of different skin blemish pathogens 3. Control of skin blemish diseases 4. Research activities on other potato tuber diseases in Nordic and Baltic countries 5. Future challenges In the table of contents, the abstracts are presented in the same order as found in the program. The scientific workshop committee consisted of Jari Valkonen (Finland), Björn Andersson (Sweden), Bent J. Nielsen (Denmark) and Arne Hermansen (Norway).