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By Dana Rady, WPVGA Director of Promotions and Consumer Education

It was the first of its kind, but it went off without a hitch. 2021 marked the first year that the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association (WPVGA) embarked on virtual food safety training by offering the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) certification via Zoom. Twenty-three people from nine WPVGA grower/member organizations patiently participated, March 30-31, in two full days of online discussions and presentations. While some were first-time attendees, others participated to update their certificates. Geri Barone of Food Auditing Solutions, Illinois, facilitated the training and set up Zoom classrooms to aid in the group breakout sessions. While not the same as in-person training, WPVGA appreciated being able to offer the class, especially considering that some growers needed their certificates by a specific date. Since incorporating food safety training into its programming, WPVGA has helped growers stay up to date with ever-changing requirements facing the industry while also helping them learn from each other regarding the crops they produce.

The annual training has also caught the eyes of some out-of-state growers who have become WPVGA members to attend training and maintained their memberships to continue receiving the association’s publications. While HACCP is the only training that has been offered so far this year, additional classes are on the docket. At what dates they occur, however, will depend on when new versions of each scheme are released. WPVGA plans to hold classes on the newest versions of USDA’s Harmonized GAP Plus audit scheme (to be called Harmonized GAP Plus+) as well as that of Primus GFS. The USDA has received information on updates to the Harmonized GAP Plus scheme, so please watch the

Badger Common’Tater and Tater Talk for information on when and how this class will be offered through WPVGA. Updates to the Primus GFS audit scheme, however, are not set to be released until later this year. Tentative plans are to hold the class in November or possibly in early 2022. If you have questions about any upcoming food safety classes or suggestions for the program going forward, please contact drady@wisconsinpotatoes.com.

For every ton of nitrogen applied to your crop, whether urea, ammonium nitrate or manure, only around onethird of it will end up in the crop itself. With rising input prices, it is a figure that many growers might find hard to stomach. But the insight from British crop scientist Dr. David Marks is important in encouraging growers to understand more about not only how a crop uses nitrogen, but also how to make that use more efficient.

“There’s a disconnect between nitrogen application in the field and what the crop actually has access to,” Dr. Marks explains. “From the moment your chosen form of nitrogen is deployed in the field, it is under attack as a source of nutrition for soil microbes and subject to degradation from other environmental factors,” he says. “So, unless nitrogen is applied in a stable form,” Marks relates, “your nitrogen-use efficiency [NUE] is immediately under pressure.” “What’s more, irrespective of the form in which it was originally applied, your crop will take in most of its nitrogen as nitrate,” Marks says. Dr. Marks is the scientist responsible for the development of the LimiN technology, the nitrogen stabilization technique used in the OMEX Cell Power SizeN range. He is quick to point out that there is nothing wrong with nitrate itself. “Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth. If the crop gets

nitrogen, you will get a result,” Marks promises.

“However, it might not be the most outstanding result, nor the most efficient use of nitrogen. And if there is too much nitrate in the soil,” Marks surmises, “some of it inevitably ends up in places where it shouldn’t be, such as streams, where it can cause some serious environmental problems.” Key to understanding nitrogen management is learning how the plant processes different forms of nitrogen, explains Dr. Marks. Nitrates

are processed in the leaf, within cell structures called chloroplasts. “Transporting nitrate to the leaf for processing requires energy,” he says. “Then the plant uses more energy creating the nitrate reductase enzymes that turn nitrates into amino acids, used as protein building blocks. Ultimately, protein is what generates plant growth.” But this processing is time and energy intensive. The need to divert energy from photosynthesis decreases photosynthetic activity at the direct expense of further growth and causes a processing lag. Furthermore, nitrate accumulation in the leaves stimulates the production of auxin, a plant hormone. “Auxin encourages vegetative growth,

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which, evolutionarily, is a sensible response to having more food available,” Marks states, “but not much help when you’re not harvesting shoots and leaves. If the leaves grow too quickly, there’s less energy available to put into the tubers.” Amines and ammonium, on the other hand, are processed in the roots where they are absorbed from the soil via a completely different mechanism.

No energy is needed for transport, nor for generation of any reductase enzymes. Amine in the roots stimulates cytokinin production, a hormone that triggers reproductive growth.

“Below-ground growth is exactly what

you want from a potato plant. And while nitrates create a bigger plant, and therefore more potatoes, in fact the numbers are proportionally fewer than when the nitrogen has been applied as amine,” asserts Dr. Marks. With LimiN technology, Marks has found a way to help the plant with what is called “growth partitioning.”

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The process, which employs a chemically stabilized amine called SAN, helps the plant make more appropriate use of the different forms of nitrogen it absorbs. “By giving the plant access to SAN, we help it make better and more efficient use of nitrate,” explains Dr. Marks. “By applying little and often, we’re reminding the plant that it needs to make cytokinin to achieve appropriate growth in all the right places.” Trials conducted by OMEX, in Michigan, 2020, showed how addition of SizeN Ca to a standard grower program increased yield by nearly 10 percent on the Manistee variety. Meanwhile, yields of the popular chipping variety FL1867 enjoyed a 28 percent boost when SizeN was “We’re delighted to be able to offer our U.S. growers a crop nutrition technology that European potato growers have now understandably adopted as a routine treatment.”

added to the standard program. “David had shared with us some very promising European results from a similar product that used LimiN technology,” says Dean Konieczka, consultant agronomist with OMEX, “but we needed to see the results for ourselves, under U.S. conditions and with typical grower programs.” “Our trials from Michigan and North Carolina, using Cell Power SizeN Ca at a rate of 2 quarts/acre, speak for themselves,” Konieczka says. “We’re delighted to be able to offer our U.S. growers a crop nutrition technology that European potato growers have now understandably adopted as a routine treatment.”

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