Bionica. A special story.

Bionica is a potato which has a history of about 35 years.

The story begins in the Andes of South America. Researchers of Wageningen University discovered wild varieties that looked like potatoes. Some were growing in trees and others had hardly any tubers. However the miracle was that they didn’t get any blight. This is a much feared potato disease which turns the leaves from green into black and the plants die. This caused the great Irish potato famine.

Scientists invested in the search for a stronger potato variety based on the wild species of the Andes.

After 15 years of breeding they found something that looked like a potato. Another 10 years later the potato Firm Meyer in Kruiningen had made a crossing from which about 500 seeds were harvested. One plant of all these 500 trials of the seeds has been left out. This new variety has been named –Bionica- This selection process took another 10 years at the farm of Niek Vos.

Today blight is still a big problem in potato farming. Sometimes this problem causes a rather small potato harvest. When you see Bionica ..strong and green ….growing next to the ill black leaves of other potato varieties, you can tell… this is a miracle.


The grower,

Niek Vos