This spring, in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, dozens of hectares of farmland are occupied for the first time with potatoes of new domestic varieties - on a scale designed for sale to a wide consumer, reports press service of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
Gulliver and Vympel varieties are expected to demonstrate high yields. Another variety, Terra, is being grown for seed this year and is being tested and compared with other varieties. The peculiarity of these three varieties is that they are bred in Russia and are fully adapted to growing in the Siberian climate.
“We are talking, first of all, about the uniqueness of our local product and food safety, the transition to exclusively local and adapted potato varieties,” said Natalya Bahova, head of the Gastronomic R&D Park strategic project.
Up to this point, varieties were grown only in small volumes and were not available to a wide audience. This year, in March, a blind tasting was held at the Siberian Federal University (SFU), which was attended by about 400 people. The partners of the tasting were the Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University and one of the largest agricultural holdings in the Krasnoyarsk Territory "Dary Malinovka" - it was their areas that were sown with Russian potatoes.
For three hours, everyone could try and evaluate samples of 18 varieties on a ten-point scale. The winners of the vote were varieties Gulliver, Vympel and Terra. It was decided to include them in the production program. In addition, data on new varieties were included in the report on the implementation of the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Development of Agriculture for 2017–2025. In autumn, after the harvest, a repeated professional tasting is planned, which will be conducted by experts and brand chefs of the leading restaurant groups of the Yenisei Siberia.