County farm wins award for new potato variety

    BRIDGEWATER, Maine – Wood Prairie Farm, a family-run organic farm known for its potatoes, grains and other crops, has been awarded the Mailorder Gardening Association’s Green Thumb Award for offering a potato variety suited for organic growing.
     Developed by Cornell University and field tested by Jim and Megan Gerritsen, owners of Wood Prairie Farm, the new “King Harry” is resistant to the pests that normally bother Irish potatoes, including Colorado potato beetles and potato leafhoppers, because they dislike its hairy (Harry) leaves.
King Harry is a robust, upright plant with pale purple blossoms that yields a heavy crop of bright-skinned tubers with pearly white flesh making growing organic potatoes easier than ever.
“We’ve been cooperating with the potato breeders at Cornell for quite a few years now, and King Harry is a variety they came up with some years ago,” said Jim Gerritsen. “We’ve been growing it out for four years now.
“They decided to go ahead and introduce it, and they decided to name it King Harry this year,” he said. “We thought it was such a great variety that we would enter it into the Mailorder Gardening Association’s Green Thumb Awards.”
Noting that the “stiff competition” recognizes the top five plants of the year, Gerritsen said the King Harry variety was the only vegetable that was selected.
“Usually it’s ornamentals that capture the judges’ interest,” he said. “Potatoes deserve a lot more attention.”
The potatoes keep well, and can be enjoyed well past harvest time.
“They have a good appearance and it’s an early variety,” said Gerritsen. “It tastes like a new potato.”
Though pleased to be recognized with the Green Thumb Award, Gerritsen said the honor “goes way beyond Wood Prairie Farm.”
“A lot of the credit belongs to the potato industry for the support that they’ve given in guiding the wise use of public funds and continuing this public potato breeding,” he said, “and coming up with varieties such as King Harry that responds to both the needs of the environment and society. In the case of King Harry, you can grow the potato without the use of insecticide. Society’s getting back something that will be good for the long term.”
Prior to King Harry, the Gerritsens grew its predecessor, Prince Harry, for about five years.
“Prince Harry was a good beginning but had some serious production limitations which they had identified early on,” said Gerritsen. “We then decided to grow out the King Harry variety – as did Cornell University – and we compared notes and both concluded it was a great variety.”
A five-pound bag of King Harry double certified organic seed potatoes sells for $14.95 from Wood Prairie Farm.
“We’ve been getting a pretty good response,” Gerritsen said. “There’s quite a bit of interest in it. My 12-year-old son, Caleb, and I were recently down at State College in Pennsylvania where I gave a presentation on organic potatoes. We also had a booth which was Caleb’s little business venture and he sold out of all the King Harry potatoes we brought down.
“Long live the king,” he said. “It’s a great variety.”
The new variety of potato is good news for Maine’s potato industry, drawing attention to the state as a top potato grower and to the Maine potato industry as a whole. As it stands, the annual impact of the potato industry on the state’s economy is $540 million in sales. From the time they’re planted to the time they’re served at the table, Maine potatoes account for over 6,100 jobs in Maine. These include jobs within the industry itself (growers, processors, etc.), jobs in service to the industry (truckers, equipment manufacturers/dealers, food brokers, etc.) and jobs induced by the $230 million in personal income workers earn as a result. Maine potatoes generate over $30 million in state and local taxes every year that supports schools, road maintenance and many other important community needs.
For more information, call Wood Prairie Farm at 1-800-829-9765 or log onto www.woodprairie.com.