M A R C H 2 0 1 9 POTATO GROWER 29 of October with only one unharvested seed lot left in the ground. Reds, as a whole, accounted for 54.1% of all acres entered for certification, fol- lowed by processing varieties at 24.4%, whites at 16.3%, yellows at 5% and the remaining 0.2% were specialty varieties including All Blue. Dark Red Norland accounted for the bulk of the red pro- duction at 1362.5 acres. Russet Burbank and Umatilla Russet accounted for 93.9% of the 1445.1 acres of processing varieties with the remainder being Russet Norkotah. Cascade, Dakota Pearl, and Kennebec made up 84.0% of the white acres at 809.9 acres. Yukon Gold at 126.3 acres remained the most popu- lar yellow fleshed variety, making up 42.8% of this market, followed by Satina at 15.6% and Milva at 12.3%. In order to detect certain virus diseases, samples from all classes are required to be winter tested. Seed lot samples start- ed to arrive at the East Grand Forks, MN office in early October for the post-har- vest winter test. With the difficulty in harvest, the last samples didn’t arrive until the day the truck was loaded and gassed with Bromoethane to break dor- mancy. Potatoes left East Grand Forks on October 29th and arrived in Hawaii on November 11th. The potatoes were planted under the supervision of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture on November 27th -28th, 2018 at Twin Bridge Farms in Waialua, Oahu, Hawaii. MDA inspectors were in Hawaii from December 31st, 2018 – January 19th, 2019 to certify the 2018 crop. The plots were in great shape upon arrival with growth at an ideal stage for identifying virus. The cooperating owners, Milt Agadar and Al Modrano, along with their staff, did a fantastic job maintain- ing the plots, as seen in the photo. All of the individual leaf confirmation testing was conducted by Dr. Mike Melzer’s University of Hawaii laboratory using the ELISA technique. A total of 585 individual leaves were tested. Mike, his students and staff did a wonderful job supporting Minnesota, and other seed certification agencies, with timely results.