Sarvari Research Trust looking for funding

[jayb]

It seems the Sarvari Research Trust is short of funds in order to continue with their outstanding work with blight resistant potato varieties. I think most veggie growers in the UK have all heard of the Sarpo varieties they have bred if not grown one or more of them. I think some have heard of them here too. I think a shame they are not more widely accepted, but one reason perhaps is commercial potato farmers have an assortment of sprays to use against blight, home gardeners in the UK do not. Must be big money in sprays?

From Horticultureweek's site “Shortfall in take-up of blight-resistant potato variety leaves Sarvari Research Trust in jeopardy.
Failure to gain widespread acceptance of its conventionally bred blight-resistant potato varieties is putting the future of a Welsh research establishment in jeopardy.
"We have spent ten years getting to this point, and now we are stuck," said Sarvari Research Trust director of research Dr David Shaw.
"We have struggled to get accepted - no one will grow our varieties on a large scale because the supermarkets don't want them. We have bred primarily for blight resistance, but they don't value that. They say: 'Can you match our favourite varieties?' Ours are not as uniform and have a less shiny finish. We have been conditioned into thinking that they have to be beautiful."

www.hortweek.com/news/1147347/Research-body-faces-uncertain-future/ I’m not sure if this link will work if not google “Research body faces uncertain future” and look for Horticulture week’s site.

Fund raising is with buzzbnk www.buzzbnk.org/ProjectDetails.aspx?projectId=84

[sarvaritrust]

Update on our Crowdfunding of potato research. Our Crowd now numbers over 100 potatoholics that have backed our project to the value of 6.6kGBP. This will allow us to continue to work on the introduction of a new, blight resistant and low-C potato we call "Crow" for now. This project is an experiment in co-operative, community research as we will receive feedback from backers as they experiment with out new variety. Our target is 10k GBP which we need to hit within 6 days!!! So we need generous backers for the final effort to get there on time. Read all about it at www.buzzbnk.org/sarvari Thanks to jayb for introducing the topic.
And I want to say "Hi" to Tom. David

[Tom Wagner]

Dr. Shaw, thanks for chiming in and becoming a member. I had hoped for some time for you input.

For those of you who don't know....I visited Dr. Shaw in Wales about three years ago and again about a year ago in Oregon. We shared a bit of germplasm.

I wish I could help on the fund raising so necessary for the survival of Sarvari...but as it is, I don't even have enough funding to keep my work going well. I have had to put most of my work on hiatus and do some sub teaching to make a few bucks. Just checked my bank account and I have less than a dollar in it at this moment.

[marches]

Dec 12, 2012 23:50:05 GMT -8 sarvaritrust said:

Update on our Crowdfunding of potato research. Our Crowd now numbers over 100 potatoholics that have backed our project to the value of 6.6kGBP. This will allow us to continue to work on the introduction of a new, blight resistant and low-C potato we call "Crow" for now. This project is an experiment in co-operative, community research as we will receive feedback from backers as they experiment with out new variety. Our target is 10k GBP which we need to hit within 6 days!!! So we need generous backers for the final effort to get there on time. Read all about it at www.buzzbnk.org/sarvari Thanks to jayb for introducing the topic.
And I want to say "Hi" to Tom. David

Say I did by some miracle develop a resistant potato that was desirable to farmers and supermarkets, what would the chances of Savari adopting it be like? Would it be possible? Because I see this as one of the few routes an amateur variety could make it into widespread cultivation these days.

By the way, don't the seed companies pay you some royalties? I see sarpo varieties being sold by many major seed companies, or are the sales too small to have much of an impact?