USD2m in OSU Financing to Develop Methods of Keeping Stored Potatoes From Sprouting
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded Oregon State University researchers USD2m to find better methods of keeping stored potatoes from sprouting, especially in the organic sector.
The experts point out that this research is crucial considering the explosive growth of the organic industry in American agriculture.
“The organic potato industry cannot depend on traditional chemical anti-sprouting treatments since synthetic chemicals are banned in certified organic,” Valtcho Jeliazkov associate professor in OSU’s Department of Crop and Soil Science, mentioned.
As of 2022, U.S. organic food sales surpassed the USD60bn mark for the first time, the scientists note. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho combine to produce more than 60% of the potatoes grown in the U.S., and Pacific Northwest potato cultivation is a USD2.2bn industry, the researchers said.
According to Jeliazkov, as the organic market continues to grow, the financial implications of spoilage and reduced storage life become even more significant.
“Sprouting diminishes marketable qualities such as appearance, taste, and texture, and decreased storage life translates to financial setbacks. Historically, to mitigate the challenge of sprouting, chemical treatments have been applied, predominantly chlorpropham, or CIPC. CIPC is cost-effective but has come under scrutiny as a potential health and environmental hazard, leading to its recent ban in the European Union. As a result, natural products have been used to combat sprouting in organic potato storage. But current alternatives lack the efficiency of CIPC and thus require frequent applications, which makes them much more expensive,” Jeliazkov said.
He also mentioned that his lab is dedicated to innovating new products and technologies to manage potato sprouting in organic systems and has already studied around 200 different plant essential oils for their anti-sprouting effects.
Working with Jeliazkov on the anti-sprouting project is Kyriakos Stylianou, assistant professor of chemistry at the OSU College of Science.
“We aim to find strategies to control the gradual release of these oils, thus prolonging the inhibitory effects on sprouting. The polymers will be shaped as hollow beads capable of retaining essential oils and prepared as microemulsions in Adam Alani’s College of Pharmacy lab. Our team will experimentally optimize several conditions to tune the size of these beads, and we will spray lots of potatoes and investigate the impact on sprouting,” Stylianou declared.
Robyn Tanguay, university distinguished professor of environmental and molecular toxicology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and associate professor Lisa Truong will lead toxicity experiments to determine the safety of the potato treatments.
Neal Stewart of the University of Tennessee will direct the work of examining potato tuber chemistry and hormonal balance after the treatments are applied.
Funding for the work is through the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture via the Organic Agricultural Research and Extension Initiative.
