J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 POTATO GROWER 17 research with all at our annual field day and other events throughout the summer. Additionally, we welcome folks to join us during harvest. Thank you to our many trial hosts, those who supply certified seed, the NPPGA, Minnesota Area II Potato Research and Promotion Council, Simplot, Potatoes USA, North Dakota SCBG program and others for research funding in support of this work, Valley Tissue Culture, the North Dakota State Seed Department, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and to the potato improvement team for collaboration in conducting these trials. The potato breeding team includes Richard (Dick) Nilles (research specialist), Dr. Upasana Ghosh (post- doctoral research fellow), and graduate students James Bjerke, Felicity Merritt, and Edoardo Poletti. University of Minnesota Potato Breeder Dr. Laura Shannon, UMN The restarted UMN potato breeding program is in its second year. We are working at two locations: The North Central Research and Outreach Center (NCROC) in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and The Sand Plains Research Farm (SPRF) in Becker, Minnesota. Grand Rapids, Minnesota Field year 1 was planted at the NCROC in mid-May. It consists of seedling tubers generated from legacy seed left by previous breeders and donations from collaborators in Colorado, Maine, Texas, North Dakota and Oregon. Overall, we have 29 thousand single hills: 55% russet potatoes, 18% chip- ping potatoes, 12% red potatoes, 10% specialty potatoes, and 5% yellow potatoes. We will perform visual selec- tion in the fall, with the aim of keep- ing ~2% of clones. Field year 2 was planted in late-May due to weather. It consists of the 615 selections from the 2018-FY1. All plants are grown in 12-hill plots. The clones are 52% chipping potatoes, 17% russet potatoes, 16% red potatoes, 8% yellow potatoes, and 7% specialty potatoes. We will perform visual selec- tion in the fall, and expect to keep ~25% of clones. Selected clones will be genotyped and a sub-sample will be taken to Grand Forks to measure spe- cific gravity and chip color. We inherited 61 clones from Dr. Christian Thill’s breeding program. These clones had been selected and