Moscow, Idaho, USA
December 10, 2010
Potato Virus Y, better known simply as PVY, worried potato producers when researchers first saw new strains appear in recent years that damaged tubers with little apparent injury to the plants' leaves.
This year's University of Idaho Extension Potato Conference Jan. 19-20 at Pocatello will include a PVY symposium that will help growers learn how to better manage this virus. Conference co-chairman Phil Nolte, University of Idaho Extension seed potato specialist at Idaho Falls, organized the PVY symposium.
"There have been some very important changes in the PVY virus across North America during the last five or six years. Some of the foremost authorities in the country will giving updates on what we've learned and what can be done about these new strains," Nolte said.
The theme for this year's conference is "Producing Potatoes with Potential." Sessions will be held at the Pond Student Union Building on the Idaho State University campus at Pocatello in concert with the Eastern Idaho Ag Expo, which is held January 18-20.
Registration forms must be postmarked by Jan. 7. The fee will be $20 a person for Idaho residents and for $75 for non-residents.
Potato Conference topics will include disease, weed, irrigation and insect management, market news, soil fumigation regulations, managing new varieties and other topics dominate the agenda on Wednesday, Jan. 19. Thursday, Jan. 20, sessions will focus on economics, harvest and storage management, improving phosphorous fertilizer and foliar diseases.
Bill Bohl, University of Idaho Bingham County Extension educator, said potato producers are winding down from an unusual growing season, unusual mostly because it seemed pretty normal.
"It was just kind of an uneventful growing season," Bohl said. "The weather was good and there wasn't much out of the ordinary."
The conference also will repeat popular topics that many growers may not have had a chance to catch during past years.
"I think it would take about five years to cycle through all of the workshops that are offered during the conference," Bohl said.
More information about the conference is available online at http://www.extension.uidaho.edu/district4/Potato%20Conference/potato.html
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