Thousands of potatoes were lost to disease in 2016, impacting businesses like Herr’s, and researchers now know what caused it.
Michael Brooks, a South Jersey farmer who grows potatoes for Herr’s in Nottingham, finally knows what destroyed his crop eight years ago, writes Alan Yu for WHYY.
Like hundreds of other farmers throughout the region, Brooks lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of potatoes in 2016 to a previously-unidentified disease. Nearly all his potato plants withered and died after their lower parts turned black…