American Ag-Tec International, Ltd., a seed marketing firm located in Delavan, Wisconsin, recently patented a new biomanufacturing technology for potato minitubers that could eliminate five to seven years of field plantings from traditional seed multiplication schemes. The original minituber technology originated in China and was brought to the attention of UW-Madison plant pathologist Tom German in 1993 by its inventor, Professor Wang, a member of a visiting Chinese delegation. German had just finished a research study funded by University-Industry Relations in which he studied alternative planting procedures for potato minitubers. He recognized the significance of Wang’s protocol and alerted Ag-Tec’s President, Robert G. Britt, that "...this could change the way potatoes are grown around the world...." The company teamed up with German to test the multiplication scheme under Wisconsin growing conditions and also under controlled conditions in growth rooms at the UW-Madison Biotron. During the Biotron study, Ray Bula, who was then director of the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR) , a NASA-sponsored Commercial Space Center located in UW-Madison's College of Engineering), joined the researchers and computerized the growing process, as well as implementing proprietary technologies developed for growing food in outer space. The current WCSAR director, Weijia Zhou, fine-tuned the technology into an earth-bound commercial biomanufacturing system, Quantum Tubers™.

The Quantum Tubers technology allows the company to produce pathogen-free minitubers, i.e., zero generation nuclear seed potatoes derived from in vitro tissue culture plantlets and used for the first stage of seed potato multiplication. Presently, the subsequent seed multiplication steps require annual plantings for up to seven years. The rapid-growth biomanufacturing system can produce millions of minitubers that economically allows for field multiplication to be limited to just two generations– saving the producers the time and energy required to plant, cultivate, and harvest the crops in those five to seven years. The environmentally friendly Quantum Tubers protocol also eliminates the added fertilizers and pesticide applications that would be applied during that time frame. The company can now produce 10 million to 20 million tubers throughout the entire year; a new variety can be available in very large commercial quantities within two years of release. For example, the 597 minitubers, weighing 0.3 to 0.5 grams each, shown in Figure 1 produced all the first generation potatoes (356 pounds) illustrated in Figure 2 for a total volume increase of 673 percent. The technology is especially promising for seed potato production in developing countries where independent producers can bring newly developed or native cultivars into commercial production before diseases and pests gain a foothold in the seed stocks. Quantum Tubers biomanufacturing systems are presently being planned in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe with the first facility going into production in Poland later this year.

For more information on the Quantum Tuber technology, check out http://www.quantumtubers.com

(posted 3/1/00)