A research scientist on Prince Edward Island is searching for new varieties of potatoes that will grow more quickly and be more resistant to drought, to help potato growers battling the impacts of climate change.
Bourlaye Fofana has a collection of more than 800 different genetic lines of potatoes that he has been studying over the last decade for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Specimens from some of the lines are being grown in fields at the Harrington Research Farm north of Charlottetown.
Fofana’s work has long focused on genetic traits that will make potatoes more resistant to diseases, including common scab, and also better-looking and less susceptible to greening. Scab and greening are costly problems for potato growers.
But it is the search for a potato that better tolerates drought that is currently attracting attention from both the industry and the public.
“The climate is changing and unpredictable, and we have to adapt our crop to the changing climate,” said Fofana. “We need to adapt some varieties to growing season length because climate is unpredictable.
“It can be short, can be long, depending [on] what will be happening. So we have to work hard to adapt our varieties to this changing environment.”
DNA analysis
Fofana is particularly interested in varieties from parts of South America, where potatoes originated.
