This article appears in the January 2017 issue of Potato Grower.
This month, we’ll take a look at Modoc, a bright red-skinned fresh market variety developed by the Tri-State Breeding and Research Program and released in 2006. Modoc is grown relatively extensively in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, North Dakota and Canada. A full list of seed growers can be found at www.pvmi.org.
Key Attributes
- High marketable yields
- Excellent fresh culinary quality
- Skin color that does not fade in storage
- Low internal defects
- Early maturity
Parentage
Management
- 9- to 10-inch seed-piece spacing for greater uniformity in tuber size
- Rapid, uniform emergence
- Sensitive to Metribuzin
- Fertilization: 160 to 180 units of nitrogen; around 80 of phosphorus; 180 to 200 of potassium
- Harvest: Maintain good soil moisture after vine kill to promote skin set. Drying soil too much after vine kill and then irrigating to facilitate harvest might actually un-set the skins and increase skinning issues.
Storage:
- Medium storage capability with dormancy between 100 and 145 days