There were plenty of potatoes but few, if any, will make the cut.
Farmers from Delta and throughout B.C., as well as retailers and agricultural industry representatives, were at Reynelda Farms on Westham Island last Wednesday for the annual B.C. Potato and Vegetable Growers Association potato variety field trial event. They came to see and judge many new varieties from across North America as well as other parts of the world.
Having such names as Alaska Bloom, Agita, Elmo, Texas Norkotah, Allians, Montreal Mozart and Jelly, the spuds of various shapes, sizes and colours had been grown in a section of the farm.
There were also spuds that only had identification numbers, potatoes developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and various breeding programs.
The field trial is aimed at introducing new varities farmers might be interested in growing, potatoes that have future market potential. However, cautious farmers carefully examined a variety of factors, including yield and appearance, to determine whether the public would be interested in buying them.
Heather Meberge with ES Crop Consultant Ltd., the firm that planted the spuds, talked to growers and sellers like BC Fresh Vegetables to see what types of new potatoes they'd like to see in the marketplace. She said many times factors such as appearance override taste.
As far as the new potatoes that were developed in breeding programs, those are varieties not yet grown elsewhere, so farmers can bid on them for exclusivity.
"A farmer can say they want the rights to a variety, then it wouldn't be this year but next year they could get that variety and have exclusive rights from Ag Canada, and there would be royalties paid ," she said. "The varieties here aren't available for bidding just yet."
Among the farmers checking out the varieties was the Gilmore family from Pemberton.
Noting growing conditions in Delta are not as dry as those on his farm, Chad Gilmore said choosing a new variety can be risky because it might take some time from getting the plants to having enough crop to produce reasonable yields, which could cost thousands of dollars, only to find out the spuds tend to lose their colour, don't store properly or don't have any consumer appeal.
He said the business can be "a tough racket " sometimes.
The field trials have been held at several Delta farms over the past decade. Support for the 2016 trial came from the Clusters Initiative of the Growing Canadian Agri-Innovations Program in partnership with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Horticulture Council and the B.C. Potato and Vegetable Growers Association.
The B.C. potato industry is an important one for Delta with the community producing around half of the crop on over onequarter of the municipality's active farmland.
