On-farm examination of resistant early and maincrop potato varieties in Hungarian organic farming

Summary

Conditions in organic farming bring other challenges to seedstock breeders than seen in conventional farming. The different way of fertilization and reliance on contact-effect pesticides demands more disease tolerant or resistant varieties. The Hungarian organic potato grower mainly relied on well-known conventional varieties under their organic cultivation, but these varieties are not always best suited for organic farming. Therefore ÖMKi initiated a participatory-research to test resistant potato varieties, improve production technology, and facilitate the cooperation among the farmers and the sector’s other stakeholders like advisors and breeders. This participatory research began in 2012 and continues in 2013 on three different subjects. In this paper a selection of important data is presented.