Prior to now decade, Porter has launched 5 new potato varieties in partnership with the Maine Potato Board — Easton, Sebec, Caribou Russet, Pinto Gold and Hamlin Russet
ORONO — Gregory Porter, professor of agronomy within the College of Maine Faculty of Meals and Agriculture, will obtain an Honorary Life Membership from the Potato Affiliation of America on the group’s latest annual assembly.
An Honorary Life Membership Award, the best honor bestowed by PAA, acknowledges distinctive contributions to the potato business. Porter has been a member of PAA since 1981, and served as vice chairman, president elect and president. From 1998 to 2002, he was senior editor of the “Manufacturing Administration of the American Journal of Potato Analysis.” He additionally helped manage two PAA conferences that had been hosted in Maine and served on quite a few committees for the group.
Porter, who grew up on a potato farm in Aroostook County, has devoted his 38-year profession at UMaine to enhancing potato manufacturing within the japanese United States. He has performed analysis on crop and soil administration practices for enhancing the yield and high quality of potatoes and different crops. Prior to now decade, Porter has launched 5 new varieties in partnership with the Maine Potato Board — Easton, Sebec, Caribou Russet, Pinto Gold and Hamlin Russet. The Caribou Russet has confirmed extremely profitable, rising to 1,476 licensed seed acres in 2021 (No. 2 in Maine, No. 16 within the U.S.), with an estimated money farm worth of roughly $41 million in 2022.
“Dr. Greg Porter’s laborious work inside the potato business has supplied invaluable analysis in enhancing potato manufacturing. The College of Maine’s potato breeding program has proven large success and this program wouldn’t be the place it’s at this time with out the dedication and management of Dr. Porter,” says Jeannie Tapley, director of operations on the Maine Potato Board.
“The Maine Potato Business has been extraordinarily lucky to have him in our nook and we couldn’t consider anybody extra deserving of this award.”
Porter additionally leads the Northeast regional potato breeding and selection improvement mission (NE1731), a regional collaboration that spearheads analysis and launch of recent varieties. His efforts to compile analysis outcomes from universities throughout the japanese U.S. and disseminate them to growers are instrumental within the mission’s success.
“Greg didn’t care what program developed the varieties, solely that they had been useful to Maine growers,” says Kathleen Haynes, a retired analysis geneticist on the USDA’s Agricultural Analysis Service.
The intensive potato breeding and selection improvement course of takes roughly 10–12 years. Porter and his crew begin with as many as 50,000 distinctive clones annually and conduct analysis on them over a interval of 10–12 12 months in a number of places till they’ve discovered a number of with manufacturing and palatability traits they search. Candidates are meticulously examined at Aroostook Farm, a 425-acre analysis farm managed by the Maine Agricultural Forest and Experiment Station within the coronary heart of Maine’s potato nation. Porter attracts from his earlier work in agronomy and crop physiology to make sure that potential varieties will thrive in sensible rising situations.
Porter has authored or co-authored greater than 66 scientific journal publications and 250 articles for potato growers and different retailers. Along with his analysis, Porter teaches crop ecology and physiology, experimental design, and statistical evaluation programs. He served as chair of the Division of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences from 2005 till 2010. In 2007, he assumed management of the College of Maine Potato Breeding Program.
