US (AK): Plant Materials Center provides seeds to grow local agriculture

Many Alaskans are interested in eating local, but eating local isn’t just about the food we put on the table. It’s also the seed that food is grown from. In Alaska, there is just one certified seed laboratory in the state — the Plant Materials Center in Palmer run by the Division of Agriculture.

Director Rob Carter said the center is home to more than 180 varieties of potatoes. But if you’re looking for the familiar spuds you buy in the grocery store, you’ll have trouble finding them here. That’s because the center stores it’s potato plants in test-tubes.

“We maintain all our 281 varieties of potatoes in vitro, which is in a test-tube,” said Carter. “It’s clonal propagation, they are maintained in a medium that is very much similar to tapioca pudding with all the nutrients a plant would need to survive.”

Carter said farmers and seed growers can order potato starts from the center, in fact they have to.

Under Alaska law, commercial potato growers can only use the same seed stock for a period of eight years before it’s considered a risk for disease. Carter said cloning the starts is one way to assure they remain disease free. But there’s another plus — storing the plant material indefinitely is a form of food security.

Read more at KTVA 11