Potato growers will have to find alternatives sprout suppressants options and prepare their potato crops and stores for these alternatives.
Adrian Cunnington, Head of Sutton Bridge Crop Storage Research, has put together a checklist which can help growers prepare for storage without CIPC. Things that growers should look out for are skin set, diseases and defects levels and Maleic Hydrazide residue levels (if applied). Other important steps are assessing and sampling the crop as well as learning how the sprout suppressants alternatives work.
You can read the full checklist here.
AHDB Potatoes Team has also produced a podcast episode discussing the best practice ahead of store loading. The guest speakers are Tom Macfarlane – Farm Manager at Bannister Farms, James Lee - Business Unit Manager at Produce Solutions and Adrian Cunnington - Head of Sutton Bridge Crop Storage Research.
You can listen to this episode here.