Scientist Paul Struik says goodbye: A career of learning about how crops grow

As such, he studied the process of photosynthesis in various crops. This process, by which plants extract energy from sunlight to grow, may be more efficient. That seems beneficial for yield, but that also involves processes at the crop level. 'You would think that a plant needs as many and as long as possible large, green leaves to capture light,' Struik explains. 'But our research with rice shows that this is not always how it works. In fact, making and keeping leaves green also takes energy for the rice plant, at the expense of filling the rice grains.' Moreover, crops with less leaf green seem to distribute light better across the foliage.

Growing potatoes from tuber and seed

Of all the crops Struik researched, potatoes have had his special attention. For example, he helped potato farmers in Africa improve their seed potatoes. Unlike in the Netherlands, there is no central control system there that monitors the quality of seed potatoes. Farmers themselves select which potatoes will go into the ground next season after harvest. 'That system is hugely susceptible to disease,' Struik knows. He and colleagues developed a method by which farmers monitor their potato plants during the season. 'They can then save the best seed potatoes for the next season.'

The future of potato farming, however, seems to look completely different. Struik released a book about this this year: Impact of hybrid potato. In fact, innovative genetic research laid the foundation for a new way of breeding potatoes that can be grown from seed. This technique used to cause major problems, but one particular gene has remedied that. And then this form of breeding and growing from seed has great advantages. 'Breeding is faster and can lead to new varieties that are more resistant to disease or more extreme weather,' Struik says. 'Soon farmers may no longer buy seed potatoes, but seeds or small plants grown from seed.'

5 facts about the potato

1. There are more than 5,000 varieties of the potato plant as well as a large number of wild varieties.
2. Some varieties of potato bloom very profusely and smell like hyacinth.
3. You can recognize potato varieties by the sprouts that grow from the tubers if they are kept in the light.
4. In many countries around the equator, potatoes are grown in different seasons each calendar year. Short germ rest is therefore a desirable trait there.
5. Viruses pass through the tuber from one generation to the next, but not all tubers of a diseased plant are equally infected with the virus.

'Commotion is part and parcel'

His work is right in the middle of the practice of agriculture. He looks back with a smile at the times when his research findings or opinions led to commotion. Now that sometimes happens on social media, in the past in other ways. 'When I started in the 1980s, it was also a turbulent time. Arable farmers feared for their livelihood and were on the highway with tractors back then, Struik recalls. He sat on all kinds of agricultural councils back then, and research was also more "politically driven," as he calls it.

At one point, he encountered angry farmers and manufacturers' representatives at a lecture on research into the effects of a particular crop protection product. 'They almost asked for the results to be adjusted. Of course, they couldn't.' The next day, he was visited by a journalist who tried to "borrow" a report from his office, even though it was not allowed to go public until two days later. That plan failed but showed how desirable the results of Struik's research sometimes were. Still, he shrugs off the commotion then and now. 'If you throw a bat in the henhouse, you can expect the chickens to fly up.'

From molecule to farmer

Struik hopes that much of his work will eventually find its way into practice. Breeders who at first had to know nothing about potatoes from seed are now working on that themselves. Much of the new knowledge about rice has been gathered in collaboration with companies that see value in it. 'I expect researchers to convert a lot more molecular and other knowledge into something the farmer can use. That's the future.

On Thursday, November 23, Paul Struik delivers his farewell address at Wageningen University & Research. The potato and dozens of other crops play a starring role in his talk."

Career of Paul Struik

• 1978 - 1981 doctoral assistant Agricultural University (WUR)
• 1982 - 1986 researcher Agricultural University (WUR)
• 1986 - 1995 Professor of Arable Farming in Temperate Climate Regions, Agricultural University (WUR)
• 1995 - 1998 Professor of Crop and grassland science, WUR
• 1998 - 2023 Professor of Crop Physiology, WUR