Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
9/12/2011

Although massive pumpkins garnered a lot of attention (and set new records) at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer this month, it’s the tasty gourds that deserve respect.

This time of year Virgil Severns is harvesting colorful, beautiful and appropriately sized pumpkins and squash at his Range View Farm, 6 mile Chena Hot Springs Road. His booth at the Tanana Valley Farmers Market throughout August and September fairly screams “autumn.”

Severns grew up on a farm in Kansas. He earned an agriculture education degree at Kansas State University and taught in Kansas for two years before returning to KSU for a master’s in livestock production.

Severns likes to say that it was Anne who got him to Alaska. He taught general science and biology at Lathrop High School for five years then became an agriculture agent for the Cooperative Extension Service. He served the Yukon and Kuskokwim areas from Fairbanks but for the last five years was based in Nome.

He and Anne raised six children.

While in the beginning Severns liked to try new and different crops he has lately focused on pumpkins and squash. He has also grown beans, beets, carrots, corn, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and chard. He grows cucumbers for Pita Place and Homegrown Market.

Severns got his pumpkin seeds from the Division of Agriculture and the Agricultural Experiment Station and planted them in a 20-square-foot plot. He likes that they are much less labor intensive than some other crops.

His pumpkins are so picture perfect that at a recent Wednesday market a customer stopped in her tracks and asked Severns how he grew such gorgeous pumpkins.

“God did that,” Severns said quietly with a big grin.

Severns is pleased that Fairbanksans are becoming more interested in fresh food. He credits market research done by UAF’s Carol Lewis and the efforts of the Division of Agriculture’s Alaska Grown program.

He hopes to see more young people get interested in agriculture.

“Recognize you are not going to get rich but it’s a healthy job with fresh air and exercise and maybe you’ll make a little money,” he said. “The potential is here in my opinion. It isn’t as easy as getting a job at McDonald’s because it takes a lot of initiative.”

Severns intends to keep farming as long as he can. His secret to success is simple: hard work.

Contact information:
Range View Farm
907-490-5912

This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer.

Theresa Bakker
907-474-6941
9/7/11

Archaeologist Scott Shirar expected to find boulders adorned with petroglyphs during his expedition to explore the previously discovered remains of three prehistoric lakefront dwellings in Northwest Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve this summer.

When he and members of his team began small-scale excavations at two of the sites, they made a new discovery: four decorated clay disks that appear to be the first of their kind found in Alaska.

“The first one looks like a little stone that had some scratch marks on it,” said Shirar, a research archaeologist at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. “We got really excited when we found the second one with the drilled hole and the more complicated etchings on it. That’s when we realized we had something unique.”

After sharing information with colleagues and looking up examples in the archaeological record, Shirar said the disks appear to be a new artifact type for Alaska. “We only opened up a really small amount of ground at the site, so the fact that we found four of these artifacts indicates there are probably more and that something really significant is happening.”

While prehistoric rock art is common in some regions, such as the American Southwest, it is exceptionally rare in Interior and Northern Alaska. Archaeologists working in the 1960s and 70s found the boulders at three different lakefront sites in what is now the Noatak National Preserve. The rock art remained on location, undocumented for almost 40 years until this summer, when a team from the UA Museum of the North and the National Park Service assembled to create a permanent record at two of the sites.

Mareca Guthrie, fine arts collection manager at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, joined the expedition to make sketches and take tracings of the boulders. At first, she was just excited for an opportunity to get out of the basement of the museum for a week, but she quickly developed an appreciation for the people who had lived there.

“It felt so intimate to be looking through someone else’s things, knowing that they sat in the same spot and saw the same view of the mountains. When I started getting tired of the mixed nuts I brought for lunch, I thought, ‘Did the kids complain when they ate caribou day after day or were they thankful to have it?’” she said. “I became so hungry to know more about them, I’m afraid I may have driven the archeologists a little crazy with my questions.”

The crew visited the site to document the rock art, but also to excavate the subterranean house pits to find samples for radiocarbon dating, like animal bones or other organic matter that will give scientists a better idea of when people lived there. Given the house features and other information they’ve gathered, it looks like sometime in the late prehistoric era or the last thousand years.

Archaeologists use the term rock art to describe any human-made marks on natural stone. Petroglyphs are pictures created by picking, carving or abrading the surface of a rock. Shirar said the precise meaning of these petroglyphs, as well as the designs on the clay disks, is still unknown, but their value is clear.

“These objects and places clearly had special significance to their makers. These finds offer an especially tangible reminder of the rich spiritual and intellectual lives they led.”

ADDITIONAL CONTACT:  Scott Shirar, UA Museum of the North research archaeologist, at 907-474-6819 or via email at [email protected].

ON THE WEB: museum.uaf.edu

NOTE TO EDITORS: Images are available for download at www.uafnews.com.

TB/9-7-11/055-12

Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
9/7/2011

 

Four summers ago, Syndonia Bret-Harte stood outside at Toolik Lake, watching a wall of smoke creep toward the research station on Alaska’s North Slope. Soon after, smoke oozed over the cluster of buildings.

“It was a dense, choking fog,” Bret-Harte said.

The smoke looked, smelled and tasted like what Bret-Harte has experienced at her home in Fairbanks, but the far-north version was composed of vaporized tundra plants instead of black spruce and birch. The 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire, which burned an area the size of Cape Cod, is the largest fire ever recorded in tundra. It was the first wildfire in the area since slaves were shoving blocks in place to create the pyramids in Egypt (about 5,000 years ago).

Bret-Harte and others working at the research station knew they were witnessing something unusual — or maybe seeing the future. They found funding to study the burn, and time in their schedules to get their feet on the black ground. The group of scientists, led by Michelle Mack of the University of Florida, collaborated on a study published recently in the journal Nature.

Bret-Harte, a plant specialist, recently returned from a helicopter trip to the site of the big fire. Her close-up images show a green, lush landscape as the tundra recovers nicely after four summers.

“It’s not back to what it was before — the shrubs are small,” Bret-Harte said. “But in 10 years it will look pretty similar over much of the area.”

The new vegetation is photosynthesizing with such vigor that it is taking up as much carbon dioxide from the air as nearby tundra that did not burn in 2007, Bret-Harte said. This is quite a change compared to the staggering amount of carbon the fire added to the atmosphere four summers ago. The researchers calculated that the smoke from the 2007 fire spewed about half as much carbon dioxide as all arctic vegetation in the world sucked in during an average year.

If the tundra burned like that every year, in a flash the Arctic could turn from a place where carbon dioxide is pulled from the atmosphere and locked away, to a carbon dioxide generator that would further warm the world.

“The carbon that was lost in this fire represented about 30 to 50 years of accumulation in the soil,” Bret-Harte said. “But if you burned it again now, you’re getting into the deeper, older carbon. You’d be burning away this bank of carbon stored in the soil over thousands of years. That would be huge.”

Was the 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire a freakish, one-time event, or a sign of things to come? Bret-Harte said she doesn’t know, but she does know the conditions that led to the 2007 event. A lightning strike ignited the tundra in mid-July. Wet soils and vegetation snuff most tundra fires, but this one endured because of an exceptionally dry summer. The fire smoldered for a few months until dry Chinook winds curled over the Brooks Range in September, fanning the fire to life.

“It burned most of the area in five or six days,” Bret-Harte said.

Though the giant tundra fire of 2007 happened due to a combination of rare conditions, at least one of those factors is becoming more common. According to sensors maintained by workers for the Bureau of Land Management, lightning has struck Alaska’s North Slope much more frequently lately. From a steady hit rate of a few thousand lightning strikes from the mid-1980s until the late 1990s, lightning strikes have jumped to about 20,000 each year in the last decade. More lightning strikes and warmer summers might change what people know as a smoke-free northern Alaska.

Bret-Harte wonders, “Is this like a tipping point, moving us to a new regime on the North Slope?”

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

Marmian Grimes
907-474-7902
9/2/11

The University of Alaska Fairbanks has earned a gold rating in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s evaluation program.

The program, called the Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, evaluates universities based on a variety of criteria, including education and research; operations; and planning, administration and engagement. Schools earn additional points for innovation. Four UAF efforts were recognized for their innovation:

• A program to install power-saver cords on UAF-affiliated vehicles.
• The Sustainability Art Show.
• A program that funds student-initiated sustainability efforts.
• A green talk radio show.

“This rating attests to the collaborative efforts made by our students, staff, faculty and community members to continue pioneering sustainable solutions,” said UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers. “We see STARS as a meaningful way to benchmark our progress for continual improvement toward sustainability and meeting future goals.”

The gold rating is the second-highest in the STARS scale. Platinum is the top rank available. The University of Alaska Anchorage also participated in the rating and earned a bronze rating. Nearly 265 higher education institutions are registered as STARS participants.

This program is open to all institutions of higher education in the U.S. and Canada, and the criteria that determine a STARS rating are transparent and accessible to anyone. Because STARS is a program based on credits earned, it allows for both internal comparisons as well as comparisons with similar institutions.

“We received astounding support from students, faculty and staff across campus to help us complete our report. This report highlights the amazing efforts of so many passionate folks from UAF,” said Michele Hebert, UAF sustainability director.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Michele Hebert, 907-474-6085 or email [email protected].

ON THE WEB: https://stars.aashe.org/institutions/university-of-alaska-fairbanks-ak/report/2011-08-26/

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Debbie Carter
907-474-5406
9/1/11

Late blight has shown up in the fields of two potato producers, in Palmer and Delta Junction.

The UAF Cooperative Extension Service is working with major potato producers to help prevent the spread of the blight, a fungus-like disease that was responsible for the Irish potato famine. The disease can rapidly kill plants in the field or cause potatoes to rot in storage.

Late blight was discovered earlier this week in Palmer. Extension agriculture and horticulture agent Steve Brown said the farmer has taken proper steps to prevent further spread. Late blight can be controlled through the use of fungicides. The Delta producer is also working to prevent infecting the rest of his fields or his neighbors’.

An infected plant will appear to have brown to black lesions that develop on leaves and/or stems. Light blight spores form on the underside of leaves and will have a gray-white color. If farmers or gardeners suspect late blight, Brown suggests that they contact their local Extension agent.

Potatoes from diseased plants remain good to eat, as long as they do not show signs of the blight, but should not be stored as seed potatoes. Brown said growers should kill all affected plants within 100 feet. It takes about seven days for the highly contagious disease to develop so nearby plants are probably already infected. Options for destroying the infected plants include using a weed burner or bagging the plants and placing them in a landfill.

A hard frost and freezing temperatures will kill the disease. Delta has already experienced several light frosts. Although late blight is common in the Lower 48, it was first reported in Alaska in 1995 and there have been three subsequent outbreaks in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough region.

Jeff Smeenk, Extension horticulture specialist, said plant samples from both late blight sites will be examined to identify which type of late blight is involved. Conditions in Alaska this summer have favored the formation of blight.

“This disease likes cool and wet,” he said.

To prevent the disease, gardeners can apply fungicides with the active ingredient chlorothalonil. The fungicide is usually sold as a general-purpose garden fungicide.

To prevent late blight from showing up in next year’s potato or tomato crop, the following guidelines are suggested:

• Plant only Alaska grown certified, disease-free potatoes.

• Remove and destroy any diseased plants.

• Purchase tomato transplants only germinated and grown in Alaska.

• Use an irrigation system that keeps plant leaves as dry as possible.

More information is available by calling Brown at 745-3360 or through Extension’s publications on late blight, which can be downloaded at www.uaf.edu/ces/pubs.

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Steve Brown, Palmer agriculture and horticulture agent, at 907-745-3360 or [email protected].

ON THE WEB: www.uaf.edu/ces

NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos are available online at www.uafnews.com.

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Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
9/1/2011

Somewhere in the rolling tundra east of Deadhorse, a lone wolf hunts. The 100-pound male will take anything it can catch, or find a ptarmigan, a darting tundra rodent, a fish, the scraps of a carcass, or, if lucky, a moose calf or caribou. Hunger is a common companion, but the wolf somehow survived when his mate probably died of it last winter.

That event may have triggered the lone wolf’s incredible summer journey from south of the Yukon River to the crumbling shores of the Beaufort Sea. The wolf has traveled about 1,500 miles in four months, according to biologist John Burch, who works for the National Park Service.

Burch has studied wolves and the things wolves eat since the mid-1990s at Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Last November, he was part of a team that helicoptered to Copper Creek, a remote tributary of the clear-running Charley River. There, he tranquilized a healthy male wolf and fitted it with a satellite radio collar. The collar transmits GPS coordinates from the wolf every few days, which has allowed Burch to follow the wolf’s trans-Alaska trek this summer.

Burch would have preferred that the wolf remain near Yukon-Charley, 2.5 million acres where the Yukon flows into Alaska. The wolf’s collar is expensive and would give useful information about one of a dozen wolf packs that use the preserve as part of their home range. But the lone male is telling the biologists a different story about wolf behavior and what happens when a pack breaks up.

The solo male’s pack was a small one. In 2006, the biologists had collared a dominant breeding female in what scientists called the Edwards Creek pack, which due to the rigors of living in hungry country shrunk to its smallest possible size.

“She ended up being the only member of that pack,” Burch said. “She didn’t pair up for a while, which was unusual. We joked that she must have been kind of ugly.”

But then, last August, there he was. A large male bonded with the Edwards Creek female. In November, they caught him and installed his collar.

The wolves’ short time together ended in February 2011, when the female died, possibly of starvation. A wolverine had eaten her carcass when Burch and others investigated. They didn’t see the male around; he traveled around the preserve for a while but didn’t catch Burch’s attention until later in the spring. That’s when, for some reason, he took off.

From May until now, the wolf has been on the move. The animal dodged ice chunks as it swam the Yukon. Then it shook itself off and headed for the upper Kandik River. From there, it drifted into Canada for a few days, juked back into Alaska and plunged into the Porcupine River. Another water obstacle forded, it headed north into quiet country. It crossed back into Canada and crested the Brooks Range near the upper Firth River, trotted eastward towards the Mackenzie River and then veered for the northern coast, close enough to smell the ocean.

From there, the wolf made a straight line back into Alaska, where it got close enough to see the Dalton Highway, a boundary it hasn’t yet crossed. The wolf is still up there, about 20 miles east of Deadhorse. It lingers at its peril if another wolf pack patrols that area, Burch said.

Because other wolves are territorial, the lone male has all summer snuck “through the gauntlet of these resident wolves,” Burch said. “It’s a dangerous game. If they find a strange wolf going through their range, they’ll kill it.”

Burch has also studied wolves at Denali National Park, finding them most at risk from their own species.

“The primary cause of death in Denali was being killed by your neighbor,” he said.

Why would the male in the prime of his life take such a risk? Burch said because usually only the dominant pair of a wolf pack breed, others might wander to find their own opportunities. And because it’s such a tough life out there (a wolf that lives to 10 is doing well), the chance to join a new pack often exists.

“If one of the dominant pair dies, the other might accept a dispersing wolf as its new mate, or he might find a dispersing female,” Burch said.

The lone wolf now roaming the tundra east of Deadhorse is now probably sniffing at scent posts and spots where other wolves have urinated, and using its other senses to weigh its chances.

“He could possibly determine that there’s no breeding males (in the territory),” Burch said.

Wolves on the move have another species to avoid, Burch said.

“When a wolf encounters humans, it’s usually not good for the wolf,” Burch said. “He’s a fairly young wolf and he might not be too savvy around a fish camp or a dog yard.”

The wolf’s long-distance journey, a drama being played out all over Alaska all year long, may end with it becoming the dominant male of a pack roaming treeless country up north. Or it may conclude in a few months, with Burch recovering the collar on a pile of hair, or a hunter or trapper turning in a collar to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game office.

“The other possibility is he could come back (to the eastern Yukon River),” Burch said. “He could realize where he came from wasn’t that bad.”

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
8/30/11

Alaska soccer teams and golfers may soon be playing on grass varieties that are new to Alaska, thanks to research projects at the Matanuska Experiment Farm, a University of Alaska Fairbanks facility in Palmer.

Eight types of high performance bluegrasses bred for use as sports turf are growing in a research soccer field at the farm. The project is the first of its kind in the state. The Mat-Su Health Foundation donated $10,000 for the sports turf research project.

“The demands made of sports turf in Alaska, under the environmental conditions we live under, make it remarkably difficult to maintain exemplary turf conditions during the entire soccer, and then football seasons,” said farm manager Judson Scott. “Budget-driven factors such as construction techniques and the quality of the materials used, and less than ideal nutritional and cultural programs, coupled with the weather, often result in poor field conditions right when the fields are to be used the most.”

The grasses being tested were selected from among the top-performing varieties in northern zones of the Lower 48. Two local varieties serve as the control. The field was planted in June and has been routinely mowed, irrigated and fertilized. Hunter Irrigation Industries donated the automatic computer-controlled sprinkler system.

“Unfortunately, very few fields in Alaska have automatic irrigation systems. This hurts the turf manager’s ability to provide favorable early season turf conditions before the typical Alaska rainy season begins,” Scott said.

Scott has been evaluating density, vertical growth rate, color and resistance to weed infestation in each variety. Another key factor is how often the grass needs mowing and what kind of protective thatch layer each variety produces.

“We’ll see how they do over the winter,” he said. “That will be a big evaluation point.”

Scott hopes to host field days next summer, so sports field managers and landscapers can see the work firsthand.

“We want to share our fields and share our ideas,” he said. “As our turf research program grows, and we are able to acquire more funding for equipment, we would like to offer demonstrations of different maintenance practices that can result in improved turf conditions on our kids’ soccer fields.”

By next fall, Scott plans to test the turfgrass varieties with players.

“That will test the real life component of foot traffic,” Scott said. “We’ll be able to evaluate for how each variety handles the typical abuse an army of 5-year-olds can dish out.”

Once the research is complete, the results will be available to the public.

A new testing area is taking shape next door to the soccer field. Scott is developing a golf-putting course to test low-mow putting green grasses. Earth moving has begun and an irrigation system is being installed. Next spring, drastic bumps and swales will be shaped, the area will be topped with sand and then seeded with a type of grass that is successful as a putting green turf in the Mat-Su Valley.

Scott will use the putting course to study techniques to improve the winter survivability of the grasses. By spring 2014, Scott hopes the putting course will be available for community recreation. The facility will provide a different nine-hole putting route each week. The Mat-Su Health Foundation is funding the project.

Scott’s next project is a nine-hole, par-three golf course that will offer another opportunity to study turfgrass in Alaska. Scott is seeking a graduate student who would be interested in using part of the golf course as a research laboratory to conduct work toward earning a graduate degree.

The Wadsworth Golf Charities Foundation has committed $250,000 over a five-year period for the project. Additional fundraising is to take place soon. The course is being designed mainly for beginners, but will also provide a challenge for more proficient hackers, Scott said. “It’s going to be low maintenance, to keep green fees low, but challenging and fun.”

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Judson Scott, farm manager, 907-746-9481, [email protected].

NT/8-30-11/048-12

Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
8/30/2011

The rumors of Clair Lammers’ retirement have been greatly exaggerated. Lammers, a fixture in the local agricultural community for decades, is still going strong in his apple orchard, despite chatter that he has an eye on his rocking chair.

“It’s a lot of work but it keeps a guy out of the bars,” Lammers said.

To prove he is still active, Lammers explains that he harvested 6,000 pounds of apples last year, selling all he could at the Tanana Valley Farmers Market and donating the surplus to the Food Bank.

His Chena Hot Springs Road orchard is home to 200 varieties of apples, several he grows for the University of Saskatchewan, testing to see what are the coldest temperatures the trees can survive.

Formerly an X-ray technician, Lammers built his home in 1979 off 6-mile Chena Hot Springs Road on Esro Road. What today is a picture-book orchard was then virgin forest. In the early 1980s he cleared the land and started planting apples. Why? “Everybody said it couldn’t be done,” he said. “They all said I was crazy.”

When starting out he read books and consulted with UAF horticulture professor Pat Holloway, who gave him excellent advice, he said. He wanted to learn grafting techniques and Holloway told him to practice on willows. He did and now he is known as one of the most inventive grafters around.

Holloway said Lammers’ orchard is truly amazing. “There are many people who have dabbled in growing fruit trees over the years but nobody has done the research and experimentation that Clair has accomplished,” Holloway said.

“I am thankful Clair is always willing to share, both his fruit tree trial information on his website and through the Pioneer Fruit Growers Association as well as joining in to help teach local enthusiasts how to graft their own trees,” Holloway said. “He is a master.”

Lammers grew up in Nebraska where his father had a small orchard and his brothers currently have orchards. “They can raise so much better quality than I can because of the longer growing season,” Lammers said. “They raise keeper apples that last till Christmas or Valentine’s Day.”

Of all the apples Lammers grows his favorite is Trailman. “Boy are they good,” he said. “I recommend that one for everyone.”

Growing apples does not require any special skills, he insists. “Just do it,” he said. One thing to watch out for is moose. “Moose love apple trees.” He solved the problem with an eight-foot fence. Rabbits and voles are also hard on the orchard so and he placess metal plates around the base of the trees to deter the critters.

Fairbanks’ harsh winters don’t keep Lammers from producing fruit. “I let Mother Nature take care of them,” he said. “If an apple tree needs special care I don’t want it around.” He uses no pesticides or herbicides. “You learn little tricks,” he said.

Over the years Lammers has invested much of his waking hours to his trees. “It takes a lot of trial and error,” he said. A south-facing slope is the preferred location for fruit trees. And Lammers advises planting two of each variety because “sometimes one will up and die for no reason.”

In addition to apples, Lammers grows cherries, plums, apples and pears. He has not been pleased with the quality of the pears but he keeps trying.

As he gets older and is recovering from knee surgery, Lammers admits it is getting harder to keep up with everything. A high school student helps him with some chores but he still does the majority of the work.

In the past few years, Lammers has begun teaching his methods to a few young farmers, hoping to pass on the knowledge. “This country needs something like this. I want to encourage the younger ones to take it up and get kids interested in this.”

He spoke with joy about his first visit to the orchard each spring when the snow melts and he gets to discover which trees survived the winter. He loves viewing the beautiful blossoms in June.

“I wish I had started this when I was 25 or 30 years old,” Lammers said. “I’m getting too old for this but whoever takes over is going to need me (for advice), not to brag.”

Very soon the harvest will begin and friends from Calypso Farm and Wild Rose Farm will show up to help Lammers get the apples picked and bagged. He’ll sell the fruit at the Farmers Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays till the apples are all gone.

“It’s rewarding to me,” Lammers said.

Learn more about Lammers’ Apple Orchard.

This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Marmian Grimes
907-474-7902
8/26/11

The University of Alaska Fairbanks will welcome more than 800 new students starting this weekend at the kickoff of new student orientation activities. The four-day event, which runs Sunday, Aug. 28 through Wednesday, Aug. 31, will include workshops and activities for new students and their families, as well as opportunities for students to connect with the Fairbanks community.

Orientation will officially kick off at 7:45 p.m. at Beluga Field with a dedication of the campus’ new Outdoor Education Center. Students will have the chance to meet their orientation leaders and members of their orientation group. Highlights of this year’s new student orientation events include workshops on making sound financial choices in college, a college-life game show, a city tour, sessions with tips for academic success, a disc golf tournament, a special late-night shopping event at West Fairbanks Fred Meyer and a mixer for family members at the Pub Sunday evening. A full schedule of events, as well as information on how to register for orientation, is available online at www.uaf.edu/orientation.

Campus residence halls will open for students to begin moving in at 8 a.m. Sunday Aug. 28. Student move-in includes “Rev It Up” activities in Hess Recreation Center in the Moore-Bartlett-Skarland complex from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is designed to be a one-stop resource for incoming freshmen, but is open to any student. It includes representatives from a wide variety of student services departments on campus who provide information on academics and student life. Residence Life staff members, community volunteers and UAF staffers will be there to help students move into their new homes. This year, more than 1,400 students will live in campus residence halls.

The weekend’s events will also include family orientation on Sunday, Aug. 28. Student services offices will be open after Rev It Up from 3-5 p.m. Classes begin Thursday, Sept. 1.

CONTACT: Damien Snook, new student orientation coordinator, at 907-474-2760 or [email protected].  Jamie Napolski, residential freshman coordinator, 907-474-1885 or [email protected].

ON THE WEB: http://www.uaf.edu/orientation/

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Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
8/26/11

A new line of potato developed at the Matanuska Experiment Farm in Palmer stands to boost the state’s agriculture industry with its consumer plate appeal.

“It has high potential,” said Carol Lewis, dean of the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station director. “It will benefit the public, the university and the agriculture industry.”

For now, the potato is simply called 29-6. Researcher Jeff Smeenk has been working on 29-6 for several years. The yellow-fleshed potato’s appeal is that it has flashy red and white skin that will entice restaurant chefs seeking to add excitement to the dinner plate.

“It was selected for the Alaska sales market,” Smeenk said.

Smeenk worked in cooperation with Chuck Brown of the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Bill Campbell of the Alaska Division of Agriculture’s Plant Materials Center to collect several years of data. Each year, the USDA ARS geneticist sends UAF between 1,500 to 2,500 marble-sized tubers, which are planted in a greenhouse to get a jump-start on the season. The transplants are placed in the field in early June and grown for the season. In the fall, all the plants are dug up and individually examined. The tubers of the top 100 plants are collected for planting the next year. In the following season, only the top 20 lines of the previous 100 are kept. In the third season those 20 lines are narrowed down to the best two or three. At this point some of the tubers are cooked and evaluated for flavor. If they taste good, the lines are put into replicated trials for further evaluation.

“We are four years into the program before the taste panel determines if it was worth it,” Smeenk said. “If it doesn’t have good taste it’s not worth keeping.”

However, taste is secondary in the national commercial market, Smeenk said. “The consumer buys with their eyes so it’s all about appearance with the consumer and marketable yield with the farmer.”

While there are many commercial varieties already available, researchers are developing future varieties with a focus on unique colors of flesh and skin along with great flavor.

“The yields are not as high as some of the commercial varieties but we anticipate that the growers will be able to sell the tubers as a premium product,” Smeenk said.

This summer, for the first time, a private farmer planted the potato. Talkeetna farmer and UAF agriculture student Greg Kalal grew enough potatoes to sell at a local farmers’ market. This will provide Smeenk with much-needed market research.

“I hope it has market acceptance and that our growers can become fabulously wealthy growing this niche crop,” Smeenk said. “And it would be nice if a chef turned it into a signature dish.”

The chefs who have tested the potato have been very pleased, Smeenk said. “Their off-the-cuff response was they would love to have hundreds of pounds of these.”

The hardest part of going through the thousands of potatoes grown at the farm each year and choosing which ones have the best potential is wondering about the potential of the ones that are left in the field, Smeenk said. “So many of them look delicious.”

ADDITIONAL CONTACT: Assistant professor Jeffrey Smeenk, 907-746-9470, [email protected].

NOTE TO EDITORS: A photo of the 29-6 potatoes is available online at www.uafnews.com.

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