Avebe and BASF team up over biotech potatoes
The partners plan to start developing a late blight resistant amylopectin starch potato, with the first potatoes to hit the market by 2019.
Gerben Meursing, managing director of commerce at Avebe, said: “Higher yields per hectare and a better control of fungal diseases will lead to a more sustainable production of starch potatoes and starch processing.”
Conventional potatoes produce a mixture of amylopectin and amylose starch, but only amylopectin is required by industries like paper, starch and adhesives. As it is uneconomical and environmentally burdensome to separate the two, GM technology to switch off the amylase gene is a cleaner, cheaper alternative, the companies say.