Potato Health Management

Book excerpt: The first edition of Potato Health Management is the best-selling title in the APS PRESS Plant Health Management Series, with more than 7,000 copies sold. Pest and pathogen populations have changed since the first edition was printed and a significant amount of new research knowledge has been gained. This second edition addresses those changes and contains up-to-date information recently acquired to help you economically manage potato health. This highly-anticipated manual tackles the hundreds of problems that affect this important crop including weeds, insects, nematodes, fungi, bacteria, phytoplasmas, and viruses. The new edition is 30% larger than the first and contains more color photographs, which are now interspersed throughout the text. It includes timely new chapters on economics, home gardening, and organic production. More than 40 experts from the fields of soil science, weed science, nematology, plant pathology, and entomology explain how to manage potato health from seed to storage by a holistic approach. The book provides the most current information on potato production practices, with an emphasis on pest and disease management. The knowledge base provided in this text can be integrated into a comprehensive management scheme in the context of today's agriculture. Using this manual's integrated strategy for potato health management will help you produce a quality product at a reasonable profit, using an environmentally friendly approach. Potato Health Management, Second Edition is easy to read and understand. Call-outs of important concepts give quick information to supplement the more-in-depth level of peer-reviewed information. Nearly every chapter includes a boxed briefing on an important concept, helpful test, diagnostic tip, or checklist, adding to your practical understanding of potato health management strategies. The information in each of the book's 23 chapters is essential to a successful, holistically managed potato health management program. Cutting edge discussions and details on soil health, managing tubers during harvest and in storage, organic potato production, pesticide resistance management, pesticide application, management of diseases, insects and weeds affecting potato will enlighten commercial potato growers, field consultants and farm advisors, extension specialists, agriculture students, researchers and agribusiness professionals in all aspects of the potato industry. The 42 contributing experts are from the leading potato research facilities in the United States and Canada, but the information in the handbook will provide valuable practical assistance to potato professionals outside of North America as well. - Publisher.