In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Scientists have developed a variety of Desiree potatoes that are resistant to late blight 
  
 British scientists have developed genetically modified potatoes that are resistant to the vegetable's biggest threat - blight. 
  
 A three-year trial has shown that these potatoes can thrive despite being exposed to late onset blight. 
  
 That disease has plagued farmers for generations and it triggered the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. 
  
 EU approval is needed before commercial cultivation of this GM crop can take place. 
  
 The research is published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 
  
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Lord Haskin: GM potatoes improve "cost and reliability" 
  
 Potatoes are particularly vulnerable to late blight, caused by a fungus-like organism that loves the damp and humid conditions that often occur during the growing season in Europe. 
  
 The speed with which this infection takes hold and the devastating impacts on the crop make it the number one threat to six million tonnes of potatoes produced in the UK each year. 
  
 Farmers have to be continuously on their guard and need to spray up to 15 times a season to protect against the disease. 
  
 As part of an EU-wide investigation into the potential for biotechnology to protect crops, scientists at the John Innes Centre and the Sainsbury Laboratory began a trial with blight-resistant potatoes in 2010. 
  
 Image copyright John Innes Centre Image caption The GM potato trials have been running for three years 
  
 The researchers added a gene to Desiree potatoes, from a wild South American relative, that helps the plant turn on its natural defences to fight off blight. 
  
 The scientists involved say that the use of techniques to add extra genes was crucial in developing a plant resistant to the blight. 
  
 "Breeding from wild relatives is laborious and slow, and by the time a gene is successfully introduced into a cultivated variety the late blight pathogen may already have evolved the ability to overcome it," said Prof Jonathan Jones, of the Sainsbury Laboratory, the lead author of the research paper. 
  
 "And I think it is better to control disease with genetics than with chemistry." 
  
 In 2012, the third year of the trial, all the non-GM potatoes became infected with late blight by August while the modified vegetables remained fully resistant to the end of the experiment. 
  
 Image copyright SPL Image caption Blight is a difficult and expensive pathogen to control 
  
 There was also a difference in yield, with the GM variety producing double the amount of tubers. 
  
 The scientists say that since the potatoes are grown from tubers rather than seeds, they are sterile and the issue of GM pollen escaping into the wild does not arise. 
  
 One area the scientists cannot comment on is the taste, as they were barred from eating the GM variety. However, they do not believe there is any mechanism by which the new genes can impact the flavour. 
  
 As late blight is a highly adaptive organism, the scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory are eager to find more resistance genes and add them into the plant in a "stack". 
  
 This would make the chances of late blight overwhelming these potatoes very low. However, it might make the GM variety more expensive to plant. 
  
 "The balance will be in favour of the farmer," said Prof Jones. 
  
 "Yes, they may pay more for the seed but they will spend an awful lot less on fungicide." 
  
 GM spuds squashed GM giant Monsanto attained approval for a NewLeaf GM potato in 1995. This variety was designed to protect against the Colorado potato beetle. It was initially welcomed by growers, but the high costs and the development of more effective pesticides against the beetle brought the decline of the NewLeaf, and it was discontinued in 2001. 
  
 In 2010 BASF was given approval by the EU to grow a GM potato called Amflora. This was designed to produce large amounts of starch for industrial use. In 2012 BASF decided to stop growing these potatoes in Europe owing to widespread resistance to the technology. 
  
 The scientists believe the big challenge will be in getting regulatory approval for the new variety in Europe. The researchers have licensed the technology to an American company, Simplot, which wants to grow them in the US. 
  
 "I think it is unfortunate that American farmers are going to benefit from the fruits of European taxpayers' funded work way before Europeans," said Prof Jones. 
  
 "This kind of product will likely be on the US market within a couple of years and if we are lucky within eight to 10 years in Europe." 
  
 Critics of GM crops said that no matter how big the scale of the environmental benefits, they believe that consumers will not be interested. 
  
 "Is anyone really going to grow, sell or buy genetically modified potatoes?" said Liz O'Neil, director of GM Freeze. 
  
 "The law says that they will have to be labelled GM. Experience shows that the UK doesn't want GM in its shopping basket, and British farmers are far too smart to grow something they can't sell." 
  
 Regulatory hurdles 
  
 Other researchers welcomed the development but were equally negative about the chances of these new potatoes being grown in the UK. 
  
 "Late blight of potatoes is a difficult disease to control, and using genes from distant relatives is a valuable tool," said Prof Chris Pollock, of Aberystwyth University. 
  
 "Unfortunately, the problems in the current European regulatory process, which is expensive and extremely slow, means that this advance by UK scientists is far more likely to help farmers in other countries." 
  
 Only 600 of the GM potato plants have been grown, but the scientists have had to spend £40,000 to protect them over the three years of the trial. 
  
 Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc. ||||| A NEW strain of British genetically modified potato ­appears immune to the devastating fungus responsible for the Great Famine of 1845 in Ireland, ­research has shown. 
  
 Late blight, caused by the organism Phytophthora infestans, remains the potato farmer’s greatest enemy to this day. 
  
 UK farmers spend about £60 million annually keeping the infection at bay with pesticides. In a bad year, losses and control measures can account for half the total cost of growing ­potatoes. 
  
 In the latest field trials, conducted in 2012, the fungus was unable to break down the defences of any of the GM potatoes. 
  
 Non-modified plants grown at the trial site were all infected after being denied protection from chemicals. 
  
 However, no-one can say at this stage how long the GM strain will hold out against blight, which is notorious for its ability to overcome resistance. 
  
 Scientists are now conducting further research aimed at identifying multiple resistance genes that will thwart future blight ­attacks. 
  
 “Breeding from wild relatives is laborious and slow and by the time a gene is successfully introduced into a cultivated variety, the late blight pathogen may already have evolved the ability to overcome it,” said lead scientist Professor Jonathan Jones, from The Sainsbury Laboratory. 
  
 “With new insights into both the pathogen and its potato host, we can use GM technology to tip the evolutionary balance in favour of potatoes and against late blight.” 
  
 The Irish potato famine of 1845 was a disaster for the poor of Ireland who depended on potatoes for food and income. 
  
 Over the following ten years, more than 750,000 Irish men, women and children died and another two million left their homeland. Within five years of the famine, the Irish population was reduced by a quarter. 
  
 Because of late blight, potatoes are one of the crops most affected by chemical pesticides. In northern Europe, farmers typically spray a potato crop ten to 15 times – even as many as 25 times in a bad year. 
  
 The research, which focused on Désirée potatoes, addressed the problem of ­reinforcing blight resistance while maintaining crop characteristics. 
  
 The aim was to produce a crop that could fight off blight without the aid of chemicals. 
  
 In three years of trials, the scientists grew potatoes containing a gene from a super-resistant wild strain from South America. 
  
 The trials, managed by The Sainsbury Laboratory, took place at the John Innes Centre plant research institute in Norwich. 
  
 In 2012, the researchers took advantage of a year with ideal conditions for late blight, the scientists waited for them to be infected naturally by spores blowing on the wind. 
  
 By early August, 100 per cent of the non-GM potatoes in the study were infected. In contrast, all the GM plants maintained full resistance against the pest. 
  
 The GM plants also produced a much greater potato yield. Results from the trials appear In the journal Philosophical Transactions B of the Royal Society. ||||| A genetically-modified potato, altered by a gene taken from a variety of potato that grows wild, is completely resistant to late blight, which costs farmers globally nearly €5 billion a year. Photograph: Umit Bektas/Reuters. 
  
 A genetically-modified potato, altered by a gene taken from a variety of potato that grows wild, is completely resistant to late blight, which costs farmers globally nearly €5 billion a year. 
  
 The research, published today, has provoked excitement amongst scientists, with one arguing that it offers farmers a tool in a 170-year-old battle “that stacks the odds in our favour”. 
  
 In the trials carried out outside Norwich, the Desiree potato -a strain developed in the Netherlands in the 1960s - was altered by a gene taken from a wild variety of potato, Solanum venturii. 
  
 The Desiree, a waxy variety of potato used in all types of cooking from roasting to mashing and salads, has been favoured by growers because it is fairly resistant to disease. 
  
 Over three years, between 2010 and 2012, a GM-modified version of Desiree was grown alongside non-GM varieties to test its ability to withstand potato blight, Phytophthora infestans. 
  
 In 2010, blight arrived when plants were already fully-grown and the tubers mostly developed; while in 2011 East Anglia was exceptionally cool and dry. 
  
 However, the last year of the trial in 2012 had the most dangerous conditions for blight: repeated periods in July and August where temperatures were above 10 per cent for two days at a time, along with high humidity. |||||
It's about 175 years late for those who perished in the Irish Potato Famine, but British researchers think they've created a potato resistant to blight, reports the Irish Times. They borrowed a gene from a South American spud and added it to the common Desiree potato. After three years of crop tests, they've declared success in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Not one of their potatoes fell victim to fungus, as opposed to regular potatoes planted nearby, reports the Scotsman. Researchers already have licensed the product to a US company but expect slower going with EU regulators over the genetically modified crop. "This kind of product will likely be on the US market within a couple of years, and if we are lucky within eight to 10 years in Europe," the not-so-happy lead scientist from Sainsbury Laboratory tells the BBC. Proponents say the potato will reduce the need for chemicals to protect crops, but skeptics says the "GM" label will be enough to put off consumers. And how do they taste? Researchers weren't allowed to eat any, so that's not known. (Last year, scientists zeroed in on the specific pathogen responsible for the famine.)