Happy New Year to All Our Subscribers!
No. 01/25 SUBSCRIBER EDITION: please go to potatostorageinsight.com/subscribe to sign up as a Synopsis subscriber.
Dear Subscriber,
Welcome to your first edition edition of Synopsis for 2025. I'd like to wish you all a slightly belated Happy New Year!
As ever, our storage job continues come rain or shine. Or, in the case of some recent weather, in spite of some cold and difficult conditions.
Those cold days were sufficient to initiate serious condensation problems in some stores with reports of dripping from store roofs due to structural condensation quite commonplace. Hopefully, you were able to take a look at our December bulletin's Best Practice section for some tips on how to handle these issues. There's likely to be some more cold weather heading our way in the next few weeks, so do revisit it via the link above; best to be prepared.
PSI activity
The last month has been a quiet one by all accounts, despite what has already been stated above.
Our focus has been in a few areas: the trials work on respiration continues in two commercial stores nearby, with a pair of respiration pods continuing to monitor the relative activity of the stores' commercial crops being held under differing storage regimes.
Plans are also being worked up for another Strategic Potato Storage Day. Once again PSI is hoping to work with Simon Faulkner at SDF Agriculture and GB Potatoes, plus a host of other partner organisations, to bring you a practical, storage-focused disemmination event in May. This will probably be held in the Norfolk/Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire locality. There are several details to finalise as yet but, if you are interested in being a partner, having a stand or getting involved in the day's technical programme, please drop Adrian or Simon an email or give them a call: Adrian Cunnington 07970 072260 adrian@potatostorageinsight.com
Simon Faulkner 07850 649719 simon@sdf-agriculture.co.uk
Best practice
Crop inspection
Long term storers will do well to carry out a full, detailed storage inspection now we are into the new year period.
That's not to say that you haven't been keeping an eye on what's going on in the store. But there always seems to be a surprise around the corner at this time of year. A few recent conversations with store managers have highlighted this. There's a couple of highly uncommon issues in our Technical Insight feature this month, but generally there are reports of localised breakdown and poor sprout suppression coming through. There's no particular suggestion that this is all due to a single common factor, although inconsistent control of temperature and pockets of poor air flow are bound to be implicated in many instances.