British Check Out BRR Reports

British authorities completed the first phase of the sampling and testing program after the potato ring rot outbreak July 30.

Some 12 stocks in cold store at the farm in Herfordshire, which supplied the infected potatoes, were tested.

Ten came up negative and two stocks tested positive for ring rot. Both were the variety Sante, associated with seed potatoes supplied from the Netherlands for planting in 2003.

The second phase of the program involves the as yet unharvested 2004 crop. It will seek to establish if the infection is limited to the stocks already identified or if other stocks are infected.

This phase will focus on the Herfordshire farm, as well as three farms in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Newcastle that received stocks of Sante from the same Dutch supplier.