January 29, 2016
CapitalPress.com
3
Researcher bridges U.S., Mexico potato industries
Arturo Quintero
Ferrer works on the
battle against PVY
in potatoes
Arturo Quintero Ferrer
Age: 29
Home town: Originally from Jalisco, Mexico, but now residing in
Moscow, Idaho
Occupation: Ph.D. student under UI virologist Alex Karasev
studying potato virus Y
Family: Mother, Claudia; father, Arturo; sister, Monica
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
MOSCOW, Idaho — Uni-
versity of Idaho potato virol-
ogist Alexander Karasev has
high hopes for Ph.D. student
Arturo Quintero Ferrer, both
as a scientist and a potential
potato industry diplomat.
Ferrer, a 29-year-old re-
searcher from Jalisco, Mex-
ico, has been helping Kara-
sev to better understand the
complex interaction between
rapidly evolving potato virus
Y strains and specific potato
varieties.
Ferrer’s ties have also
opened doors in Karasev’s ef-
forts to access PVY-positive
plant samples from Mexican
fields for comparison with
U.S. strains.
Karasev hopes Ferrer will
continue researching potatoes
when he returns home and
helps to build a better rela-
tionship between the U.S. and
Mexican potato industries.
U.S. growers have long
been restricted to selling their
fresh potatoes within 16 miles
of the U.S.-Mexican border
but were briefly granted ac-
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Arturo Quintero Ferrer, a Ph.D. student at University of Idaho in Moscow studying potato virus Y, tours
R & G Potato Co. in American Falls, Idaho.
cess to the entire country last
summer, until the Mexican
potato growers association
blocked the expanded access
in court. Those cases are still
pending in the Mexican legal
system.
“I realized there’s a great
divide between Mexico and
the U.S.,” Karasev said.
“That’s my expectation, that
perhaps he may be the per-
son who may help bridge this
gap between the Mexican and
U.S. potato industry.”
Ferrer explained Idaho and
Jalisco are considered sister
states and have an agreement
to share technology. While
attending the University of
Guadalajara, he agreed to
participate in a new exchange
program with UI. Though
he was initially interested in
studying human genetics, a
course Ferrer took at UI made
him aware of opportunities
in plant genetics. He joined
Karasev and began working
in PVY in 2008, and was
scheduled to graduate with his
Ph.D. in December.
Ferrer, who has a full
scholarship from the Mex-
ican government, has been
working to map the genes of
nine newly discovered PVY
strains.
“It’s very important to
know your enemy,” Ferrer
said. “We need to understand
how PVY evolves and where
it is going.”
PVY, spread by aphids,
reduces potato yields, and
there’s been a shift toward
strains that also cause tuber
necrosis.
For research purposes, UI
maintains a collection of more
than 30 PVY isolates, sup-
ported in tobacco seedlings
that must be replaced with
freshly inoculated plants ev-
ery few months.
Since he first set to work in
PVY, Ferrer said several new
strains of the disease have
surfaced — including four
genetically unique strains he
personally cataloged from
Jalisco field samples.
One of his discoveries from
Mexico, PVY M3, is similar
to a common U.S. strain, PVY
NTN, but displays a disturb-
ing characteristic. In tobacco
plants, PVY M3 shows no
visual symptoms. Ferrer be-
lieves the trait shows how
easily new PVY strains could
evolve that are undetectable
in potatoes, making it difficult
for growers to remove infect-
ed plants from fields and po-
tentially resulting in broader
infections.
Certain potato varieties,
such as Russet Norkotah, are
already known to show little
to no symptoms of some PVY
strains.
Karasev said potato breed-
ers have targeted PVY O,
responsible for 26 percent
of infections in 2010, and
reduced its prevalence to 6
percent of infections in 2014.
Strains that cause tuber necro-
sis now represent a quarter of
infections. Karsev said PVY
N Wilga, which doesn’t cause
tuber rot but is tough to detect
in many varieties, now causes
70 percent of infections and
should be a priority for potato
breeders.
This story first appeared
June 26, 2015.
Researcher studies potato storage
Yi Wang goes from
trials to studying
physiological
mechanisms
Yi Wang
Age: 29
Job: Incoming potato
storage physiologist with the
University of Idaho’s Kimberly
Research & Extension Center
Education: Bacheler’s
degree in biology from
Nanjing Agricultural Univer-
sity in China; Ph.D. in potato
physiology from University of
Wisconsin-Madison, in potato
physiology; post-doctoral
researcher with UW
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Yi Wang, who started in March
as the University of Idaho’s
potato storage physiologist
in Kimberly, holds a Payette
Russet. She has overseen the
agronomic trials that evaluated
the new line, developed through
a multi-state breeding effort to
find potatoes low in acrylamide,
which may be linked to cancer.
Finally, she intends to eval-
uate lines from the Aberdeen
UI and USDA potato breed-
ing programs for tuber-end
defects, with the goal of pin-
pointing the mechanisms that
cause them.
Wang’s arrival will free
UI Extension potato spe-
cialist Nora Olsen to spend
more time in the field and
to focus greater attention on
variety-specific storage man-
agement techniques. Olsen,
who will work closely with
Wang in Kimberly, explained
Wang’s position has been
mostly vacant since Gale
Kleinkopf retired in 2003,
with another scientist filling
in for a few years in the in-
terim. Wang will be in charge
of the unique potato storage
Family: Her mother, Minsang
Zhang, and father, Hongpeng
Wang, live in Central China,
and her uncle, Renyi Zhang,
is an atmospheric scientist at
Texas A&M.
IDIN16-1/#17
Hometown: Twin Falls,
Idaho.
research facility in Kimberly.
“What she’s figuring out
will help us make a lot of rec-
ommendations to growers,”
Olsen said. “We see the (stor-
age) responses. We need to
understand at a more minute
depth what are some of the
mechanisms going on and why
we see those responses.”
Wang believes working in
Idaho’s famous potato indus-
try will open up grant opportu-
nities, as well as the potential
for her research to have a big
impact on a large number of
growers.
“Idaho is the center of pota-
to production in this country,
and I’m really glad I can be
near to those crucial growers
and processors,” Wang said.
“I’m very sure I will learn a
lot from them.”
This story first appeared
Feb. 6, 2015.
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KIMBERLY, Idaho — Yi
Wang aims to help the Idaho
potato industry better un-
derstand the physiological
mechanisms responsible for
problems that may take place
in potatoes during storage.
Wang, 29, who started
March 20 as the University
of Idaho’s new potato stor-
age physiologist, has already
made a name for herself as a
national leader in the potato
industry.
As a post-doctoral re-
searcher with University of
Wisconsin-Madison,
she
supervised agronomic trials
in six states — Wisconsin,
Maine, North Dakota, Min-
nesota, Idaho, Washington
and Oregon — to test new,
low-acrylamide potato breed-
ing lines.
In 2002, scientists discov-
ered acrylamide, a chemical
found in carbohydrate-rich
foods cooked at high tem-
peratures, was a possible car-
cinogen. In response, potato
processors launched the Na-
tional Fry Processing Trial,
funded with a Specialty Crop
Research Initiative grant,
to develop low-acrylamide
potato varieties. As supervi-
sor of the agronomic trials,
Wang maintains a database
on yield, quality and other
attributes of varieties coming
out of the fry processing trial.
She’ll continue leading
the national agronomic trials
while in Idaho, until the proj-
ect ends in August of 2016.
Wang, originally from Cen-
tral China, earned her Ph.D.
in potato physiology at Wis-
consin, where her dissertation
focused on causes of stem-end
disorder in chipping potatoes.
She learned the crop problem
is strongly correlated with
late-season heat stress.
She has three major areas of
interest for research when she
starts work at UI’s Kimberly
Research & Extension Center.
She plans to investigate the un-
derlying physiological mecha-
nisms affecting performance
of potato varieties in storage,
and to identify predictors of
success that may be useful to
breeders. She hopes to find
what causes potatoes to have
the light, fluffy texture that
processors and quick-serve
restaurants favor.
“This is really a new re-
search area,” Wang said. “Al-
most no one has done anything
on it before, but it’s very im-
portant to the industry.”
IDIN16-1/#17