05 November 2021
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32nd CUPGRA Potato Conference
The 32nd CUPGRA Potato Conference will take place at Robinson College, Cambridge, on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 14th and 15th.
The annual potato conference provides an opportunity to interact with industry innovators and scientists to debate current issues.
The first of the Tuesday sessions will explore the future for potato production, considering where there is no constraint to research and development-enabled innovation, where meeting environmental goals sets the scope of
the possible, and navigating a way to the future for potato businesses.
The second session, entitled 'Innovating The practice of the Future' which look at designing root crop production for the farm of the future, practical steps to reducing emissions in the potato
supply chain and will include a forum on zero-emissions potatoes - where are we now and how we get there.
The final Tuesday session will be the Inaugural Eric Allen Memorial Lecture, 'Understanding how potatoes grow determines how to grow potatoes', with reflections from Robert Allen, Neil Gudmestad and Mark Stalham.
A choice of workshops will be available on the Wednesday as follows:
1. No more thorin – what will potato production look like without Nemathorin?
2. Wireworm – managing a population explosion. Bringing experience and research-based knowledge
together.
3. What is a carbon budget? Why do they all give different answers?
4. Diploids – how will potato growing change? Challenges and opportunities.
5. Making sense of virus testing on farm.
6. Determining compaction risk – practical session with Terranimo.
7. Combining satellites and in-field monitoring to guide crop management.
The after-lunch session will consider how to identify practical opportunities for individuals and the industry while CUPGRA Crop Science Centre Fellow Sebastian Eves-van den Akker will share his vision of science into practice and the role of CUPGRA in the post-AHDB landscape will be examined.
The Potato Barons’ Christmas Feast will also take place on the first night of the conference, at St John’s College Great Hall. The afer-dinner speaker will be Nick Vermont and there will be a presentation of the John Green Memorial Trophy.
Full details of this and other forthcoming potato industry events can be found here.
Photo: Luis Quintero
