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McDougal in the News

News has been released regarding preliminary data in a study involving Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Chair, Dr. Owen McDougal.

Boise State University and the University of Idaho are conducting a joint study called “Impact of Smoke on Potato Growth, Storage and Profitability.” The two-year study, funded by a $125,000 grant from the federal Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, seeks to understand the impact of wildfire smoke on crop yield and quality, and potato size and chemical composition of different varieties of potatoes commonly grown by Idaho farmers. Along with University of Idaho’s Department of Plant Sciences professor Mike Thornton, Dr. McDougal is hoping this research will lead to the identification of more resilient varieties of Idaho’s state vegetable.

Thornton and his research team at the UI Parma Research and Extension Center planted three varieties of potatoes and simulated the effects of wildfire by covering the plots with plastic and piping in smoke from a blend of hard and soft woods. McDougal’s team in the Food and Dairy Innovation Center laboratory here at Boise State analyzed the harvested potatoes, and frozen fries made from them at the U of I Food Technology Center in Caldwell, immediately after harvest, and will again after six months of storage.

Preliminary data gathered by McDougal and the FDIC suggests that potato plants exposed to extreme smoke produced lower yields and more misshapen tubers than smoke-free plants.

Read more about this study in a recent University of Idaho News release, as well as articles from various Idaho news outlets linked on the Food and Dairy Innovation Center-In the News! page.

Deron Beck, a scientific aide at the UI Parma Research and Extension Center, left, and Mike Thornton, a U of I plant sciences professor in Parma, stand by the smoker they use to simulate wildfire smoke and its effects on potatoes, as well as trays filled with different types of wood to make the most accurate wildfire smoke simulation possible.
Deron Beck, a scientific aide at the UI Parma Research and Extension Center, left, and Mike Thornton, a U of I plant sciences professor in Parma, stand by the smoker they use to simulate wildfire smoke and its effects on potatoes, as well as trays filled with different types of wood to make the most accurate wildfire smoke simulation possible. Their wildfire smoke project will be starting its second growing season. By U of I’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Smoke saturates rows of experimental potatoes at the Parma Research and Extension Center in the summer of 2022.
Smoke saturates rows of experimental potatoes at the Parma Research and Extension Center in the summer of 2022. By U of I’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.