SCRI’s unique potato display – an eight feet (2.4 metre) polystyrene model of an Andean mountain – has won silver at the Dundee Flower and Food Festival.

The mountain – and its accompanying video, text and computer displays – was awarded silver for best horticultural trade exhibit.

The polystyrene peak has already delighted audiences at this year’s Royal Highland Show and at SCRI’s own industry event, Potatoes in Practice.

The model was the brainchild of potato specialists Dr Gavin Ramsay and Gaynor McKenzie. Both members of the SCRI team work with the Commonwealth Potato Collection.

The award winning display illustrates a mountain scene, complete with many types of potato grown on cultivation terraces and with the added attraction of an Inca settlement.

Gavin Ramsay said: "We’re keen to show visitors something of the origins of potato and the habitats of its wild relatives, and relate this variation to the problems we face breeding crop plants in a world undergoing climate change today."

The mountain was produced in collaboration with a Shropshire company, Bakers Patterns of Telford. Their work normally involves mannequins and models for the TV and film industries.

SCRI is the home of the Commonwealth Potato Collection, a major genebank containing around 1500 accessions of 80 different species related to the cultivated potato S. tuberosum L.

More information from:

Phil Taylor, Head of Communications, SCRI, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA. Tel: 01382 562731.