A SECOND GROWER received seed potatoes from suppliers investigation following the discovery of the contagious disease ring rot.

Extensive inquiries are continuing after ring rot was confirmed in a batch of Sante potatoes last month at a Cambridgeshire pack house.

Those potatoes were sent to the packing plant by Hereford farmer John Mercer.

Two stocks of seed used to grow the potatoes in which the disease was discovered originated in the Netherlands.

DEFRA has now confirmed that that an unnamed Lincolnshire farmer also received seed potatoes in 2003 from one of the Dutch suppliers.

Stocks at the unnamed premises are now under scrutiny, said a DEFRA press statement on Wednesday (11 August).

Officials are liaising closely with the plant health authorities in the Netherlands to establish whether this seed may have been infected.

They are also trying to find our whether there is any other explanation for the disease.

All affected potatoes from the packing firm in Cambridgeshire where the disease was identified have been disposed of by landfill.

Cleansing and disinfection has been completed at this premises, which means it can operate normally again.

One consignment of Estima potatoes from the Herefordshire farm that supplied the potatoes to Cambridgeshire was exported to Norway in 2004.

Although there is currently no evidence that these potatoes were infected with ring rot, the Norwegian authorities have been notified.