A report titled “Potato Stores in the UK” has been released, giving information on all aspects of pesticide usage during storage of potatoes harvested in 2020 and stored during 2020/2021. The data was collected by the Pesticide Usage Survey Teams at Fera Science Ltd, the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute of Northern Ireland.
The estimated weight of ware potatoes stored from the 2020 harvest was approximately 3.1 million tons, of which this survey estimated that 62% received no post-harvest treatment (79% of the untreated crop was in refrigerated stores). The basic tonnage treated was 1.2 million tons, though some potatoes received multiple treatments. The total tonnage treated, which includes multiple treatments to the same tonnage, was 2.1 million tons.
The biggest change to stored ware potatoes in 2020 has been the loss of approval for chlorpropham and the increased use of the biopesticide spearmint oil as a replacement sprout suppressant. This has probably been the biggest change in potato storage since tecnazene lost approval in the early 2000s.
From this survey, it is estimated that 32% of the 506,108 tons of the stored seed potatoes were treated, either on entry to the store or during the storage period, with a single application of pesticides.
Click here to read the full report.
Source: potatonewstoday.com
