Greenvale Seed, one of UK’s leading suppliers of seed potatoes has announced its intention to exclusively supply UK growers with a new variety of potato.

The main crop variety named Tyson lives up to its big name because of its high yielding and disease resistant properties.

Head of Seed, Niall Arbuckle (pictured: center), explained for Potato Business that Tyson is also suitable for sale as a pre-pack white variety for major supermarkets. It is drought resistant, with good resilience to common scab and delivers a high early yield.

“We found that the variety stood up well to the very dry conditions experienced the South East England last year,” Arbuckle says. The variety is designed for home consumption.

Greenvale Seed has in its portfolio varieties that have outstanding additional attributes for the market place, such as flavor, processing ability, appearance, organic yields or low carbon footprints.

The company is able to react quickly to the marketplace, targeting specific breeding for a particular goal.

“In 2019, we are now able to exclusively offer Tyson to UK growers. Tyson is an early main crop variety with a very high marketable yield. So far the variety has proven itself to be very robust in two very contrasting summers. Tuber shape has been very good both years and harvested stocks have retained their bright appearance,” the representatives of Greenvale Seeds say.

Greenvale Seed have been supplying UK potato growers with high quality seed for over 40 years and has brought many exclusive varieties to the UK for growers.

As a perspective, Greenvale will continue to see the UK market fragmenting with a larger number of varieties occupying smaller niches, Arbuckle says. He explains, for example, that the Maris Piper variety is dominant because it is widely accepted and the seed is often cheap.

“Newer processing varieties such as Markies, Agria and Sagitta have moved into the market because they can deliver a higher marketable yield and are easier ergonomically. There is a trend towards yellow fleshed varieties in the French fry and fresh chip sector too, which will impact on Maris Piper,” Arbuckle adds.