North 3600 East Kimberly , Idaho 83341 Commercial Application of Sprout Inhibitor, CIPC, to Storage Potatoes M. D. Lewis, M. K. Thornton, and G. E. Kleinkopf Introduction Modern potato storages are designed to store 50,000 to over 500,000 hundred weight of potatoes in bulk piles. Successful long-term storage of potatoes requires using a sprout inhibitor in combination with proper storage management. CIPC inhibits potato sprout development by interfering with spindle formation during cell division. Cell division is extremely important during the wound healing or curing period after potatoes are placed into storage.
Wound healing requires the production of two to five new cell layers formed by cell division.
If CIPC is applied to the potatoes before the wound healing process is complete, excessive losses due to tuber dehydration and disease can occur. CIPC may be applied any time after the wound healing process is complete but before the tubers break dormancy in early spring. It is not recommended to store seed potatoes in a structure where CIPC was recently used, nor in a structure close to a building that will have CIPC applied. Contamination of seed lots by CIPC can occur up to one year after treatment. Currently, there are no methods to rapidly decontaminate a storage structure after CIPC application.