USA: New WSU–USDA Plant Biosciences Building Gives Potato Storage Research State-of-the-Art Labs
A research building more than 20 years in the making is now home to Washington State University’s post-harvest potato team, giving the group state-of-the-art storage rooms and a dedicated research kitchen.
A research building more than 20 years in the making is now home to Washington State University’s post-harvest potato team, WSU announced on 14 October. The new facility houses USDA Agricultural Research Service and university laboratories working on soil science, wheat, legumes, potatoes and weeds, and gives the potato group state-of-the-art storage rooms and a dedicated research kitchen.
The building stands on the Pullman campus site of Johnson Hall, a 1960 building demolished to make way for it, and completes the V. Lane Rawlins Research Education Complex, physically linking Vogel Hall and the Plant Sciences Building. According to WSU Board of Regents project documents, Congress allocated US$104.9 million in FY2019, with a further US$20 million added in the FY2023 omnibus, against a construction cost target of about US$105 million. The US Army Corps of Engineers managed design and construction; the groundbreaking took place on 1 August 2023 with the US agriculture secretary and the Washington congressional delegation in attendance.
For potatoes, the immediate gain is capability. Jacob Blauer, assistant professor in WSU’s Department of Horticulture, said the new laboratories bring two direct benefits: improved potato varieties and better storage research that will help the industry cut waste. “For storage, we will have better control over the atmospheric conditions to evaluate shelf-life,” Blauer said in the university’s announcement. Storage losses are a cost carried by every ware-potato supply chain, and controlled-atmosphere work of this kind feeds directly into how crops are cured, ventilated and held through winter.
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The opening also consolidates a federal–state partnership that Washington’s growers have relied on for decades. “Every member of the Washington delegation supported this building,” said Kristine Growdon, former WSU federal relations coordinator. WSU scientists in plant pathology, crop and soil sciences and horticulture work alongside ARS researchers, a model the university describes as one of the strongest federal–state research partnerships in the country.
What to watch: the first research outputs from the post-harvest team’s new storage facilities, and how the improved environmental control translates into practical storage guidance for growers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Sources: WSU Insider, 14 October 2026 · WSU Board of Regents meeting book, November 2023 · Wheat Life, November 2023.
