Guelph University Research Team Successfully Grows Potato Chip Cultivar

Ontario Potato Field-FNT-SmallGUELPH, ONTARIO – Two first-year research students in horticultural science at the University of Guelph have successfully completed an experimental small-plot olericulture study in growing a potato chip cultivar. The students were able to produce two different varieties of potato chips, plain and ripple.

Alfred Carver, twenty-two, one of the researchers, who is from the Musquodoboit Valley in Nova Scotia, said that the results have yet to be ratified by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, but he is “one-hundred percent confident” that the project was a “major step in food science.” The other member of the research team is Jeremy Winslow, twenty, from Kinuso, Alberta.

“We’ve been able to grow both kinds of chips right from scratch and eliminate the potato processing plant completely,” Carver said. “Straight from the tuber to the table, so to speak. No slicing, blanching and deep frying necessary.”

Their supervising professor, Jason D. Ancaster, said that the results of the project were all the more remarkable in that the two varieties of potato chips that were successfully grown weren’t started from gene-bank plantlets or microtubers. “They just planted plain old garden-variety chip sections that came straight from the grocery store,” he said. “You know, the odd-sized crumbly pieces that you usually find in the bottom of the chip bag.”  He also cautioned potential large scale potato chip growers that the small-plot yields of the university study might not spool up to produce commercial yields. “Best wait a bit,” was his advice for impatient commercial growers. “By next season, we’ll have more of the bugs worked out. The guys are planning a ketchup-flavoured variety that should be worth the wait.”

Winslow, said that growing the chips from “the gound up” was a challenge, but “a way cool thing to do.” He admitted however that there were a few setbacks along the way.

“The low sodium variety that we tried didn’t work out so well,” he said. “They turned out to be soggy and stale as soon as we dug them out of the ground. We think it was a salinity thing with the soil.”  Source: FNT Staff

Photo credit: Original images by Purple Sheep Wikia and WebstrauntStore

Canada Announces Time Zone Swap Credits Program To Launch in 2027

Canada time Zone Swap System-FNT-newOTTAWA – The Canadian government announced today that it is launching a federal Time Zone Swap Credits Program (TZSCP), to begin on January 1st, 2027.  The program is similar to the existing carbon credit system adopted by governments to trade greenhouse gasses worldwide.

The new program, called “revolutionary”  and “cutting edge” by Monty Hardstraton, the newly appointed deputy minister in charge of TZSCP, will allow citizens in any Canadian province or territory to swap their time zone for another one anywhere in the world, if they get tired of the one where they are currently living.

“The aim of the program is to give people more choices,” said Hardstraton, in an exclusive interview with CBC national news anchor, Rhonda Pierpoint, on Friday. “We have completed a number of early studies and we know that’s what they really want.”

He also said that the reason that the TZSCP was initiated was to put an end “once and for all” to the tedious and time-wasting debate that currently takes place in Canada twice-annually about ending daylight savings time. “I don’t want to be guilty of cliché,” he stated, “but we have much more important fish to fry in this country.”

Hardstraton was unable to provide a lot of detail as to how the program would actually work, citing the ten-year planning process ahead. “We will be doing extensive consultations with people across the country,” he said. “Collaboration is what this government is all about.”

A leaked draft TZSCP policy document however showed that one of the early ideas under consideration allowed for citizens to purchase TZS Credits at ATMs or on their smartphones.

Hardstraton was also asked about the flexibility of the new program. Could, for example, Canadians who swapped their time zone for the one in Malta swap them back if they got tired of living on Malta time?

“We haven’t quite figured that out yet,” he said.  Source: FNT Staff