Consulting services on potatoes began in 2005 with 1,800 acres. Our consulting services have now grown to over 30,000 acres which span across Michigan, North Carolina, Indiana and the Bahamas.
John Mark manages our potato scouting program, as well as our grid sampling program for agricultural chemical companies.
Private consulting services include monitoring fields to identify and quantify:
Insects
Weeds
Diseases
Nutrient deficiencies
Soil and petiole samples
Noting detrimental aspects of the field
Creating reports based on observations and data collected from fields to help optimize yield and quality.
Nematode/Plant Diagnostic Lab
The nematode/plant diagnostic laboratory was built in 2017. This addition includes:
Nematode sampling
Real-time PCR
Genotyping late blight
Building our early die complex risk index for potatoes
APHIS certification to receive plant tissue/soil from the entire continental United States of America
Ideally, potato growers will sample their fields every two weeks during the peak growing season. This allows us to build risk index graphs for each field to see how verticillium may progress throughout the season. Also, enabling our crop consultants to watch for potential early die issues.
