One of the top potato breeders in the country has just embarked on a career change, with Finlay Dale moving from the James Hutton Institute (JHI) to Perth-based potato firm Caithness Potatoes.
Here he talks with David Andrews about this move, his aims and the challenges facing potato breeding.
Q For more than three decades you have worked with the JHI and its predecessors. Why have you now made the move into the commercial world?
A I always planned to change at some point and had flagged this intention up several years ago.
This was a suitable crossroads, with changes at JHI.
I had been working with Caithness for some time so I know their people well and their export expert, Peter Chamberlain, has just retired
Q What are your targets in your new job?
A To continue much of the work already started by Peter in improving opportunities for exports and making exports more efficient.
It will also involve bringing together the trial work Caithness does for both the UK and export markets.
Q What will you miss about not working at JHI?
A Anyone who moves does miss some aspects of their previous work, but the research and breeding work at JHI will go on.
Identifying sequences in the DNA of the potato genome will continue, and they have made an appointment for someone to commercialise research findings. That side is secure.
Q How far do your roots go back in the potato industry?
A I suppose you could say they go back to my childhood. I worked on the farm belonging to Jim Smith of Stralochy, who later became a good friend.
From the age of 10 I picked tatties on a half bit.
I graduated from that but still remember my bit always seemed to be bigger than anyone else’s. But it did not put me off.
I strongly believe it is educationally good for research workers to experience work on farm. In my spare time, I worked on farms for 20 years, doing a lot of hands-on manual work.
Q Where did you go to university?
A I studied agricultural science at Edinburgh University under Professor Macer, who was a big influence on my life. He was a distinguished academic and very respected in animal and plant breeding.
After my degree he advised me to go to Birmingham University to study for my PhD. The department there was noted for the number of influential scientists it had produced and who went on to make a big contribution to plant genetics.
Coincidentally, I recall a discussion I had with Professor Macer almost 40 years ago when he claimed Scotland had more research stations than its population could afford.
At that time, there were half a dozen different institutes. He thought there was only justification for one concentrating on animal science and one on plant science.
Even to the present day, people have different views on whether the number of research establishments we now have is right or wrong.
Q After university what job options opened up for you?
A There was a vacancy for a plant biologist or agronomist working in the sugar beet industry.
I was also offered a job in breeding new cultivars of grasses.
But I realised the direction I wanted to go in was breeding potatoes. They are an important crop, and plant breeders can influence what goes on in the countryside.
I was interviewed for a job at the potato breeding station at Pentlandfield by George McKay, who last month was awarded the Potato Council’s top honour for services to the industry.
Q Am I right in thinking that Pentlandfield was where the Pentland potato varieties were bred?
A Yes, but that programme was completed before I arrived in 1979.
There was, however, still a very strong team of scientists there and a great deal of very good breeding work took place.
I would stress that good teamwork is essential in bringing out new varieties and in carrying forward research.
Q Pentlandfield then moved to the Scottish Crop Research Institute at Invergowrie. Is that when you came back to this area?
A Yes. At that time the director of SCRI was Professor John Hillman, who did a great job in integrating fundamental science with field work. He was a large personality. He believed that the production of new varieties was the end product of fundamental science being followed by applied science.
New varieties were the last mile on that scientific journey.
Q Do you feel a sense of pride when you see varieties such as Mayan Gold and Vales Sovereign, which you bred, growing in a field?
A Of course I do. I actually see them more often on supermarket shelves.
But, I also recognise that success in plant breeding is down to serendipity as a big proportion in success is marketing. Good varieties can fall by the wayside if they are not marketed well.
Sometimes good varieties can fail to catch on for no rhyme or reason.
Plant breeding does its best to pull all the good traits in a new variety together but, say, if we have produced a processing variety it can be difficult to get a trial sample down a commercially operated processing line.
Q How do you see the potato industry developing?
A More than half the potato crop is now going through some form of processing, and less and less is being sold fresh.
More and more people are looking for easily cooked food, and that has been one reason why there are more salad potatoes now being produced.
The export market will continue to be a major feature for Scottish seed potato producers. There is a big industry out here, and we need new varieties for that market.
Q Do you have concerns about the criteria used by supermarkets to introduce new varieties?
A The big problem is that the people who are selling at the coal face are twice-removed from actually producing potatoes.
This means they might like a variety with good skin finish, but during the growing of the variety the chemical input can be beyond what is acceptable.
This issue is becoming more important as EU regulations are tightening up on the pesticides that are permitted.
Q What are you most proud of?
A My family. I have three beautiful daughters and a wonderful wife who has supported me throughout my career. I am enormously proud of them.
In work, the team I have led at JHI have improved the efficiency of production in breeding programmes.
We used to produce about 100,000 new seedlings every year as the base for new varieties, but we have reduced this to 10,000 while producing more successful varieties with the reduced numbers.
Going back 40 years, when we were growing the 100,000, it seemed as if we were hamsters on a treadmill.
Now that we are more efficient we can spend a lot more time assessing what we are doing.
Q So far we have not talked about tackling diseases in potatoes. What about that part of your work?
A We have carried out a great deal of work on tobacco rattle virus or spraing.
The project has 12 months to run, but we now know how the disease works and how it spreads.
Q Unravelling the DNA for potatoes has brought genetic modification back into the limelight. Have you any views on this?
A Things have moved on since GM first came on to the scene. We are now much smarter with what we are doing.
Most of the rest of the planet is using GM apart from Europe.
I believe it will happen in this country in the next 10 years.
The public did not understand when it first came on the scene, and the first example was bad in that is was a herbicide that provided no benefit to anyone apart from the grower.