362 AMERICAN eOWATO JOURNAL [Vol. 39

I N S T A N T M A S H E D P O T A T O E X T E N D S T O A U S T R A L I A A great boon to the housewife has just come on to the market in

Australia with the opening of an Instant Mashed Potato Factory. The factory, situated on a 15 acre-site 3)~ miles northwest of Ballarat

in the State of Victoria, has been built by Unilever Australia Pty. Ltd., at a cost of $1,700,000 to supply all of Australia with Instant Mashed Potato.

The main factory buildings, including an Administrative center and canteen, cover an area of 60,000 sq. ft.

At present, 75 people are employed in the plant and by next year the staff is expected to double.

All the equipment used in the new Unilever plant was built and installed by Food Machinery Company (Aust .) Limited.

The instant mashed potato which emerges from the factory as thin flakes, takes only a matter of seconds to convert into fluffy, creamy tex- tured maslaed potato. The flakes are already cooked and therefore need only simple mixing with water, milk, butter and salt.

Though Australians are not the world's biggest consumers, they do eat 114 lbs. per head every year. This is slightly more than Americans eat, and about the same consumption as Italians, but well below that of West Germans and Belgians who dispose of about 350 lbs. per head a year.

Among the vegetable crops in Australia, the potato ranks high. Total production of potatoes in Australia ranges up to about 540,000 tons a year--consti tut ing half the nation's total vegetable crop in terms of weight.

---Australian Arez~,s & Information Bureau.

U.S.D.A. IS B R E E D I N G P O T A T O T H A T R E S I S T S G R E E N I N G Plant geneticists of the U. S. Department of Agriculture have found

a way to subdue the characteristic in potatoes that causes tubers to turn green when they are exposed to light. Breeding work is now underway to develop varieties with resistance to greening.

Greening is costly, since shoppers do not readily buy green-skinned potatoes. Grocers frequently must throw away such potatoes.

Most color change occurs while tubers are on display in stores, where they are exposed to daylight or to artificial light. Methods now used to harvest, store, and transport potatoes do not normally expose them to enough light to cause any noticeable color change.

R. V. Rkeley, potato breeder with U S D A ' s Agricultural Research Service, already has developed three promising advanced breeding lines that have the nongreening characteristic. In tests at Beltsville, Md.. tubers produced by these lines have not visibly changed color, even after 200 hours of exposure to a combination of daylight and fluorescent light.

In addition to having the nongreening characteristic, the new lines have high yielding ability and are resistant to all common races of late blight. Two of the lines are resistant to mild mosaic, and one is resistant to golden neuiatode. Scientists were able to select for the nongreening characteristic among large numbers of seedlings and are now studying its inheritance. They are also working to incorporate the nongreening charac- teristic along with other desirable characteristics into improved commercial potato varieties.