POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) – The 55th annual Idaho Potato Conference and Eastern Idaho Ag Expo is underway at Idaho State University. Farmers from across the area have gathered to learn the latest in news and research affecting the state’s most famous crop.

“It’s an exciting time to be in agriculture because you’re really seeing some of the technological innovations that have impacted us in our daily lives, like cell phones. Now that that technology is really changing agriculture too,” said Mike Thornton of the University of Idaho.

Technology such as communication systems. The same technology that allows your smartphone and laptop to interact; will now do the same with planters, trucks and harvesters.

“We’re getting to the point where all the different appliances and pieces of equipment we use in agriculture are now starting to share information so that they function better. Harvesters are seen as they go through the field in real time. So it’ll speed up or slow down based on how many potatoes are coming in the front of the vehicle. And then it’s also communicating, with the truck that’s running right alongside that harvester,” Thornton. said

Experts are also sharing advancements in disease prevention.

While it’s too early to predict the weather and what diseases will appear in the 2023 season. Farmers now have new way’s to identify pathogens.

While in the past, they’d have to find sick plants and work their way backward, now they can identify a virus by spores.