Cavendish research centre searches for potatoes that can cope with P.E.I. climate challenges

It takes almost a decade to develop a new variety of potato, and that's why researchers at Cavendish Farms are planting 100,000 plantlets a year in the search for a better fit for P.E.I. growers. 

The frozen food giant opened its $12.5 million research facility in New Annan, P.E.I., in September 2020 with three greenhouses. Now there are six greenhouses dedicated to potato breeding, with two 50,000-specimen plantings each year. 

"In a conventional breeding program, the stats are normally somewhere between one and two new varieties out of that 100,000 and we start the 100,000 every year," said Jubs Bristow, the Cavendish Farms VP of agriculture.

"The key challenges we face as an industry on the Island are drought resistance, resistance to verticillium or potato early die, and resistance to scab," Bristow said.

"The other one we've introduced into the breeding program is resistance to potato wart."

Bristow said Cavendish is in year six of what the company is hoping will be a nine-year cycle to produce some new varieties. They are zeroing in on five of what they call clones, which are a unique cross between two different varieties that have the attributes Cavendish Farms researchers are seeking.

He said potatoes from those clones have just been harvested, and seed from the ones that make it to the next round will go back to the field next year.

Bristow said the new varieties are grown out in the fields, in normal growing conditions for P.E.I., where they're exposed to all of the existing diseases and challenges that involves.

He said they're measured against what has long been the standard on P.E.I., the Russet Burbank, at one time known as the Netted Gem.

Bristow said the percentage of Russet Burbanks grown by Cavendish Farms has dropped considerably, at 22 per cent of their 2024 crop, versus a historical 75 to 80 per cent. 

"We were having real challenges growing it on P.E.I., mainly due to potato early die and then the lack of moisture in some of the previous years, and the long season that it needs too," Bristow said.

"Hence the need to move to varieties that are more environmentally friendly, and are going to reduce our carbon footprint, and use less water, and need less chemical."

He said the Russet Burbank is still being grown because it lasts in storage longer than other varieties. 

Bristow said Cavendish Farms has a short-term program in which they have introduced new commercially available varieties from other regions, in addition to breeding new varieties for Island growers.