In 2010, Colorado growers harvested 59,200 acres of potatoes with production valued at $293 million (USDA-NASS, 2011b). Additionally, Colorado was ranked 4 nationally in summer potato yields, 5 in fall yields, and had an estimated average of 390 cwt. per acre (USDA-NASS, 2011a). In the San Luis Valley of Southwestern Colorado alone, where the bulk of the state’s potatoes have historically been ...

The potato leafhopper, Empoasca fabae (Harris) (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), is an emerging pest of potato and insecticide applications to control this insect have increased in recent years. Based on field observations of leafhopper-crop dynamics, however, currently recommended action thresholds seem to be overly conservative. As a result, we initiated two experiments designed to quantify the impa...

A research can also reveal the cooperative effectiveness of agencies such as evaluation will lead to discover the weakness and strengths for further improvement of this program. The present study was designed in 2009 especially to see the effectiveness of the working of agricultural extension staff as perceived by farmers in district Okara-Pakistan. The data were collected with the help of a sp...

The psyllid Bactericera cockerelli (Sulc) (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) is the vector of a bacterial pathogen causing zebra chip (ZC) disease in potato, Solanum tuberosum L. (Solanaceae). Recently, ZC has become important to potato growers and the potato chipping industry in the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and New Zealand. In the current study, we evaluated the knockdown effec...

BACKGROUND: Acrylamide is a probable human carcinogen produced during food preparation, including frying of potato products. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of seasonal variation on tuber composition and its acrylamide generation potential. RESULTS: The chemical composition of potato varieties used respectively for French fry (Bintje and Ramos) and crisp (Lady Rosetta and Sa...

In 2 consecutive years, ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) were sampled in commercial organic and conventional potato fields, using pit fall traps. Four conventional and 3 organic potato fields were surveyed to determine ground beetle taxa composition. In a related study, potato fields were assigned to 1 of 4 transitional systems to include: organic, no spray (usually referred to as no cont...

The aim of this study was to examine factors affecting adoption of mini-tuber seed potato. Survey research design was used in this study. A sample of 100 potato growers who were informed about mini-tuber was selected and divided into adopter and non-adopter groups. Questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection and was validated by a panel of experts. A pilot study was conducted f...