In the 1900s, many Dutch and Belgian immigrants began settling in the "
Banana Belt" region of southern Ontario. Many of these immigrants began vegetable farming around the towns of
Simcoe,
Leamington, and
Harrow along the shore of
Lake Erie. In the 1950s, the vegetable growers of this region began petitioning for the breeding rights and licensing for a yellow-fleshed potato like ones they were used to growing in Europe. For Gary Johnston, this began the nearly 30-year development of the 'Yukon Gold' potato. In 1953, Johnston was a lab technician in the potato development laboratory at the Ontario Agriculture College and he led a team that cross-bred two varieties to create the new type. In 1959, one of Johnston’s graduate students, a young man originally from
Peru, told him of a small, rough, deep-yellow-fleshed potato (
Solanum stenotomum goniocalyx, known as '''', Spanish for "yellow potato") Johnston also developed and brought 15 other potato varieties to market while at the Ontario Agriculture College lab, where he had been seconded by his employer, Agriculture Canada. A University publication states that "Yukon Gold was the first Canadian-bred potato variety to be promoted, packaged and marketed with its name right on the pack". Yukon Gold potatoes are susceptible to seed decay,
blackleg, early
blight, late blight, early dying,
PVY, soft rot, dry rot, leak, pink rot,
silver scurf, and
black scurf. File:Food Inspection.jpg|Leaf File:Potato12zb.jpg|Flower File:Potato12zc.jpg|Plant File:Potato12zd.jpg|Sprout File:Potato12ze.jpg|Skin File:Potato12zf small.jpg|Flesh == Storage ==