Potato growers must take personal responsibility for the provenance of the seed they buy and plant, Allan Stevenson stressed at last week’s Seed Potato Industry Conference.

The Potato Council’s chairman called on the whole industry throughout Great Britain to specify all their seed must be Safe Haven-assured seed or from British nuclear stock.

“It is our responsibility; don’t blame anyone other than yourself if you don’t know the provenance of your seed and you and your customers end up with a plant health problem.

“The Potato Council team has heard excuses why it is okay to take risks with planting seed of unknown or uncertain origin. Some have claimed it is not their fault that some crops tested positive [to dickeya], because they had seed pre-tested or even that their customer made them do it.

“To me this is nonsense, and shows a lack of personal responsibility, judgement and ownership.”

Dickeya solani, a more aggressive form of blackleg, was a major challenge, he admitted, but it was not the only threat. “We also mustn’t take our eye off other traditional Pectobacteria blackleg and soft rots.”

But it had been a wake-up call for the industry, he admitted. “The trend of importing seed from outside the British nuclear stock supply chain is reducing, which helps to reduce some of out non-indigenous disease risks.”

And it also provided a good reason to join the Safe Haven Scheme, he said. “It is easy to demonstrate the provenance of your product within the scheme to your customers. For those already in the scheme, don’t compromise it by cutting corners; protect it and value it.”

Dickeya could be kept out of Scotland if growers heeded the message about not importing non-Scottish origin seed, Ian Toth, a plant pathologist at the Scottish Crops Research Institute, said.

“Dickeya solani almost exclusively comes from planting contaminated seed, so if we stop importing it in we stand a good chance of keeping Scotland as one of the few countries free from the disease.”

A three-year £500,000 research project jointly funded by the Potato Council and Scottish government was investigating Dickeya solani’s distribution in crops and water compared with other blackleg-causing species, John Elphinstone, the principal plant bacteriologist for the Food and Environment Research Agency, said.

It would also research the biology of the bacteria to learn more about infection risk and control, and develop diagnostic tests that could identify Dickeya solani from other blackleg-causing bacteria, he noted.

That work was just part of a new plan from the Potato Council to focus on plant health, Mr Stevenson said. “Plant health isn’t only a concern for the seed sector. Every single potato business in Britain has something to lose if we don’t protect our plant health status.

“Plant health has now been written into the Potato Council’s corporate plan, and we are formulating a plan which will be put to the whole industry for consultation.

“The threat to plant health does not just stop with dickeya. With root-knot nematode and Epitrix beetle not far away, estimating the potential devastation if diseases are left unchecked is impossible.

“But PepsiCo apparently spent $260m replacing stocks and product in Romania as a result of Zebra Chip disease, which is spread by a potato/tomato psyllid.

“It shows we must keep our land and watercourses as clean as possible for the future, use the Safe Haven Scheme extensively and continue to have a prosperous and health potato seed industry in Great Britain.”