FoodTrust – Connections

I mentioned these little guys in my last post. We had some mini-tubers from last year’s growing season that we planted today. Mini-tubers are small potatoes that were grown in containers. Because they are so small they must be planted by hand.

Leonard developed a handy planting tool to take the back breaking task out of planting the tiny spuds. It makes evenly spaced holes and allows the mini-tuber to be dropped into the hole without having to bend over. Someone follows behind to rake soil over the hole.

The mini-tubers will be treated like any other potato crop and allowed to grow until late summer. The new potatoes will be dug up and used for see for next year’s crop. Some of that crop might actually make it to an A&P or Metro store where you’ll be able to have a taste of centuries old potato varieties.

Scott

Potatoes are native to South America and the Incas were one of the first groups to cultivate them. In the thousands of years since they were first cultivated, potatoes have spread around the world and there are literally hundreds of different varieties being produced.

We are very keen on some of these ancient varieties and are working to introduce some of them to the Canadian marketplace. These varieties have been approved for production by The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) after undergoing an 8 month quarantine to certify that they are free of insect and diseases. The varieties have been included in CFIA’s seed classification system in order for them to maintain regulatory control over their propagation and production.

We have imported only a few sample plants. It will take several years, at least, to grow enough seed to supply our retail partners with these unique, flavour-rich potatoes.

Today we are moving trays of potato plantlets into a greenhouse. Plantlets differ from typical potato plants in that they are grown in test tubes. When the plant grows to fill the test tube it is cut into 5 equal sections and each is put into another test tube to grow. When there are enough plantlet filled test tubes they are planted into trays and put into a greenhouse where they continue to grow. After several months in the trays the plantlets will produce small potatoes called mini-tubers.

The min-tubers will be are planted outdoors next spring and treated just like any other potato plant. The potatoes that are produced in this stage may be used as seed for the following year’s crop or may even make it to our potato unit where you will be able to try something very unique.

Scott