Members of the North Dakota and Minnesota potato industry have helped to establish a $1.5 million endowed professorship for Susie Thompson, a North Dakota State University potato breeder.
Thompson in November 2024 was named the first Johansen-Thompson endowed professor in potato breeding at NDSU. Thompson, an NDSU associate professor of plant science, has been NDSU’s potato breeder since 2001. The late Robert Johansen was an NDSU potato breeder from 1946 to 1992.
Named faculty endowments are one of the highest honors awarded to members of the academic community and one of the most significant ways to recruit and retain high-quality faculty who do important research and are excellent teachers, the NDSU Foundation said in a news release.
North Dakota and Minnesota potato farmers, the North Dakota Challenge Grant and regional potato industry supporters provided funding for the endowment which will be used to enhance NDSU’s potato breeding program.
“It’s very humbling to have the potato industry support this,” Thompson said.
The impetus for the establishment of the endowment was when McDonald’s accepted Thompson’s variety, Dakota Russet in March 2022, six years after it had approved a russet variety.
Thompson made the cross to develop Dakota Russet in 1999 and selected the potato in the single-hill nursery in the fall of 2001. Dakota Russet now is being grown not only in North America but in several countries around the world.
The Dakota Russet often is called a “grower’s potato” because it is high yielding, doesn’t require as much fertilizer and water as some other potatoes, and doesn’t have some of the disorders, such as sugar end, which cause french fries to have dark ends, Thompson said. Meanwhile, she said it’s an ideal potato variety “that is uniform and blocky with a golden Russet skin and creamy white flesh,” she said.
Supporters of the Johansen-Thompson endowed professor in potato breeding include the Northland Potato Growers Association, North Dakota Potato Council, Minnesota Area II Potato Growers Council and the North Dakota Certified Seed Potato Growers.
“We hope this endowment will build upon and expand the work Susie and her colleagues are already doing, and to show that we, the growers, value the work of our land-grant University and are willing to support it with our check-off dollars,” Casey Hoverson, Northland Potato Growers Association chair said in a news release.
Initially, the investment earnings from the endowment can be used for attending educational events or exchanging ideas with colleagues who are experts in their fields, she said. As the earnings grow, they could be used to purchase laboratory equipment, such as a rapid phenotypic machine or field plot equipment., such as a tractor or robot for weeding.
“So many of our grants do not allow us to buy equipment. By having dollars in an endowment, we can buy equipment,” Thompson said.
Another future use of the investment earnings could be to provide a salary for a graduate student.
“I think the endowment is going to be a wonderful recruiting tool for new candidates,” Thompson said.
The Johansen-Thompson potato endowed professor in potato breeding, together with the potato research facilities in the recently completed NDSU Peltier Complex and Bolley Agricultural Laboratory which is under construction and expected to open in the fall of 2026, put the university’s potato breeding program is in a good position, not only for the present, but also for future researchers, Thompson said.
“Some really wonderful things have happened. I just think the program is going to be in such a great position when it is time to pass it on,” she said.
Ann is a journalism veteran with nearly 40 years of reporting and editing experiences on a variety of topics including agriculture and business. Story ideas or questions can be sent to Ann by email at: [email protected] or phone at: 218-779-8093.
