2026 R&D Forum: How old is your seed potato?

A new approach could make it possible to measure the physiological age of seed potatoes in less than a day, potentially giving growers a much faster way to assess how seed is likely to perform.

Physiological age can have a significant influence on seed potato performance, but determining exactly where a seed lot sits on the physiological-age spectrum has been difficult. Existing methods can take weeks to deliver a result.

Dr Nathan Tivendale and a team from the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture is working to change that. Presenting his research at the PotatoLink R&D Forum in Ballarat in July, Dr Tivendale outlined progress towards a new physiological-age assay based on biomarkers that could provide a result in less than a day, at a time when the information can still be useful for production and planting decisions.