Varieties are included in chipping tests if they have dry matter contents of greater than 20% or if their breeder has claimed chipping and/or crisping as an end-use.  Fry colour and its consistency, internal discolouration and peeling efficiency are assessed on selected varieties after harvest and after storage.  Details of the characters and their methods of assessment are provided below and in the Appendix.

Potato tubers are metabolically active during storage and this is most readily seen as they begin to sprout.  Storage temperature affects fry colour.  Colder store temperatures slow down sprouting and prolong storability but produce darker fry colours. Varieties that produce light fry colours when stored at colder temperatures would be highly desirable. AFBI Crossnacreevy has recently introduced assessment of fry colour after storage at colder temperatures as well as the regular storage regime.  Preliminary results can be obtained by contacting the potato team at AFBI Crossnacreevy

The chipping tests include the following assessments:

Fry colour after chipping 500g freshly cut chips at 190C for 4.5 minutes.  

Colour is assessed using the USDA chip colour chart which has seven grades: 000 – 00 – 0 for light coloured chips and 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 for darker coloured chips.  The numbers and weights of chips in each of the grades are recorded.  This scale is converted into an AFBI 1-7 scale, where 1 = ultra light and 7 = very dark, for ease of computation.  The results have been presented as the following characters:

Varieties suitable for chipping should have a golden (USDA: 1, AFBI: 4) colour, possibly light (USDA: 0, AFBI: 3) in a few varieties and occasionally dark golden (USDA: 2, AFBI: 5) in some varieties.  Ideally the chips should have no variation in colour (0) or be highly uniform (0.01 – 0.25) or uniform (0.26 – 0.50).  Fry colour may deteriorate slightly and colour often becomes more variable during storage.  

Internal discolouration of the chips may occur.  This greying of the flesh is similar to that assessed in after-cooking blackening of steamed tubers.  It is assessed by slicing 20 chips and determining the discolouration on a 1 – 9 scale where 9 = no discolouration.

Internal discolouration of varieties should not occur (>9.0) but is often very slight (8.5 – 8.9) or slight (7.0 – 8.4).  Internal discolouration frequently becomes worse during storage.

Peeling efficiency is determined from weights of the tubers before and after peeling and is reported as a %.

A high peeling efficiency (>80%) is desirable in chipping varieties with many varieties achieving good peeling efficiency (70 – 79%).  Peeling efficiency deteriorates slightly in most varieties during storage.

Full details of the scales for all characters are given in the Appendix.

Good resistance to disease, including viruses, is indicated by a high figure on a 1-9 scale. For some varieties, resistance to dry rot has been determined separately for Fusarium coeruleum (F.c.) and Fusarium sambucinum (F.s.). Resistances to potato cyst eelworm, Globodera rostochiensis and Globodera pallida, are usually presented as S (susceptible), PR (partially resistant) and R (resistant) but, more recently, a numerical 1-9 scale has been introduced for new varieties similar to that for fungal and viral diseases. This information on diseases and pests mainly summarises results of tests conducted during the two preliminary years of evaluation for National List purposes in the United Kingdom. Resistance scores on some varieties have been based on tests conducted by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, Cambridge.