The Pathogen Testing Scheme™

Alex McDonald (Merchants) Ltd

In New Zealand over 1 0,000 hectares of potatoes (Solanum Tuberosum L.) are grown in a year.

The nutritional qualities of potatoes can be affected by:

  • Growing

  • Storage

  • Preparation

The Pathogen Testing Scheme™ makes food crops healthier, better yielding with less disease going back into the environment, more uniform crops with less wastage. More of the nutritious potatoes grown in a smaller area.

The Scheme entails:

  • Heat Treatment

  • Meristem Culture

  • Tests for the presence of virus, fungi and bacteria

  • The multiplication of Pathogen Tested plantlets in tissue, in the greenhouse and in the field.

  • The resultant mini tubers are produced in the greenhouse for field production.

Other experimental work is also carried out to keep the Scheme viable with new science advances.

A Pathogen Tested Garlic Scheme is also in place in partnership with Marlborough Garlic Propagators Ltd and the New Zealand Institute of Crop & Food Research Ltd. This Scheme has increased pack out from 30% to 70% (export), from the 1996/97 season.

Over the last 24 years the PT Scheme™ has developed to provide over 75% of the commercial potato seed crop of New Zealand.

The technique of tissue culture combined with disease control and testing leads to endless possibilities for the future. We also have the expertise to work with other crops or species of plants. In the same Scheme we have worked with such crops as:

  • Strawberries

  • Asparagus

  • Oca (NZ Yams)

  • Cannas Lilies and have looked at:

    • Chrysanthemums

    • Roses

    • Carnations.

 

 

All site content © Alex McDonald (Merchants) Ltd 2001. All rights reserved.

Website design by WebSense (a division of Quik Internet)

[home] [pathogen tested scheme] [tissue culturing] [varieties] [other services] [contact us]