Our Products
Seed Potatoes
The quality of our seed potatoes is based around 8 key elements:
1
High Grade Input Seed
The input seed to grow our commercial seed crops are from PB & S Field Generation 4 and below. This gives us the best possible start to grow a clean virus and bacterial free crop.
2
Altitude
Our farm and land based in the North Cotswolds is some 300m (1,000ft) above sea level. This means that aphid populations build up later in the season than at lower altitudes and the potential numbers of aphids are lower too. The net effect is to significantly reduce the risk of aphid transmission of virus diseases during the growing season.
3
Isolation
Our geological isolation from other potato growers is a key element in preventing infection of seed potatoes from viruses carried by aphids. Not only are aphids less likely to reach our crops but in the case of Virus Y, aphids will lose the virus particles they carry on their mouthparts when they feed on other vegetation while on the wing.
4
Soil Type
We grow our seed potatoes on limestone brash land. We’ve perfected our destoning methods over the years and advances in machinery now means stones and the potential damage they can do to seed potatoes during harvesting, are no longer an issue. Limestone brash has good water holding capacity in the early growing season to drive crop growth but is free-draining too, which prevents our seed potatoes becoming waterlogged during periods of wet weather. This is a benefit when it comes to preventing infection by blackleg and other bacterial rots. In addition, limestone brash is naturally high in calcium, which is known to help potatoes resist bacterial soft-rot infection through strengthening cell walls.
5
Crop Drying
All our seed crops are lifted directly into boxes which in our opinion starts the drying process immediately. All boxes are stored in the dry between seasons too.
Once back at the yard, every stock is dried in batches of 50 boxes in front of a drying wall until we are confident that the whole profile of the potatoes in the box are cured and dry.
When this is complete they will go into store until they are brought out for grading.
6
Grading
The most recent investment we have made is our specialist Bijlsma Hercules BV tower grader. The grader allows the crop to be split in one pass, up to five size fractions, depending on our customers’ requirements. Seed potatoes can be dispatched in boxes or 1-1.3 ton bags. One pass grading also minimizes the potential for the spread of fungal and bacterial diseases.
7
Physiologically Aged Seed
Due to our seed crops being grown in the south, this naturally puts physiological age on our seed compared to seed crops grown further north. This in turn, will aid the daughter ware crop to mature earlier, allowing early varieties to reach marketable yield sooner and bring later maturing varieties harvest forward. Data also shows tuber numbers are increased potentially allowing for lower seed rates.
8
Virus Tuber Indexing
All our crops have two field inspections by the APHA under the seed potato classification scheme. To accompany these results, we also carry out virus tuber indexing to give you total satisfaction in mind, that our seed is of the highest health.
If you wish to discuss our seed in more detail, please do not hesitate to contact us.
2
Altitude
Our farm and land based in the North Cotswolds is some 300m (1,000ft) above sea level. This means that aphid populations build up later in the season than at lower altitudes and the potential numbers of aphids are lower too. The net effect is to significantly reduce the risk of aphid transmission of virus diseases during the growing season.
5
Crop Drying
All our seed crops are lifted directly into boxes which in our opinion starts the drying process immediately. All boxes are stored in the dry between seasons too.
Once back at the yard, every stock is dried in batches of 50 boxes in front of a drying wall until we are confident that the whole profile of the potatoes in the box are cured and dry.
When this is complete they will go into store until they are brought out for grading.
6
Grading
The most recent investment we have made is our specialist Bijlsma Hercules BV tower grader. The grader allows the crop to be split in one pass, up to five size fractions, depending on our customers’ requirements. Seed potatoes can be dispatched in boxes or 1-1.3 ton bags. One pass grading also minimizes the potential for the spread of fungal and bacterial diseases.
8
Virus Tuber Indexing
All our crops have two field inspections by the APHA under the seed potato classification scheme. To accompany these results, we also carry out virus tuber indexing to give you total satisfaction in mind, that our seed is of the highest health.