March 2022 - 38

National Fry Processors Trial takes new shape
The National Fry
POTATOES USA
John Lundeen
Research Director
Alyssa Green
Research
Communications
Processors Trial
(NFPT) aims to
identify potato variety
candidates that are
ideal for the industry,
namely ones with
strong agronomics
and great processing characteristics.
NFPT membership includes frozen
processors, state grower associations,
growers and university breeders. The
program has seen some success - Caribou
Russet is among those varieties making a
splash in the system.
Varieties go through different levels
of the system called " tiers " to examine
their promise in comparison to standard
varieties, exploring their potential before
reaching the market.
Historically, in October after harvest,
NFPT holds an annual field day in East
Grand Forks, Minnesota, so that members
can provide an initial evaluation of
candidates in Tiers 1, 2 and 3 of the NFPT
variety trials. Then, in January, members
meet again to make their final decisions on
which candidates will move forward to the
next step of the trialing system. However,
when the pandemic hit, a new evaluation
practice was adopted to keep the program
robust and on schedule.
The field day consists of examining each
variety, including the ability to touch, hold
and physically examine the tubers without
constraint. Brad Halladay, lead engineer at
Medius.Re, previously adopted an online
model where members gained the ability
to view images of potatoes and evaluate
the appearance of each variety in the
trialing system. To avoid losing exterior
evaluation data and keep the evaluation
system consistent from previous years,
modifications were made to display more
information to provide users with the
same digital experience they had grown
accustomed to without the ability to be
on-site with the potatoes.
While different, this new system
keeps the trialing channel afloat.
Darrin Haagenson of the Department
of Agriculture-Agricultural Research
Services (USDA-ARS) was key to this
operation, opening his facility to lay out
In-person evaluations of the NFPT varieties
in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.
and photograph the different varieties.
Additional praise goes to the trial
cooperators for harvesting and gathering
initial data for evaluation to streamline the
process.
In October 2021, NFPT had a critical
decision to make - to keep the field day
online, avoiding cutting out evaluators as
travel constraints linger, or to bring back
the traditional model of in-person tuber
evaluation. While members were in favor of
an in-person experience, many members
who historically participated were still
unable to join this in-person experience.
In turn, members of NFPT developed a
new, hybrid model for evaluation. Members
who were able to participate in the East
Grand Forks in-person evaluation had the
opportunity to evaluate the potatoes in
their typical capacity, and those restricted
by travel maintained the opportunity of
participating through photographs and
online data.
Internal data, including factors that
affect a potato's viability for fry processing,
were available online for both categories of
evaluators to view. With the success of this
hybrid approach, it is looking like NFPT just
created a revamped Field Day model for
years to come.
38
Spudman.com
http://www.Medius.Re http://www.Spudman.com
March 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2022
