Wet weather expected to delay start of spring potato planting

    PRESQUE ISLE , Maine – Officials with the Maine Potato Board are hoping that last month’s rain and snow won’t make the fields too wet to start planting in the next week or so.
“We are behind last year,” said Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, “but that’s not necessarily the best gauge in the world because last year we were ahead compared to the year before.
   “If you look back over time,” he said, “we’re probably going to be a little later planting than we have been. We’ve gotten rid of the snow for the most part, but the ground’s got a ways to go before it’s in condition to get out on and start planting the potato crop.”
Flannery said with today’s technology, growers are able to make up a lot of ground in a short amount of time.
“Once the ground is ready, we plant a lot more of this crop in one day than we used to,” he said. “We can go out and plant 10 percent of this crop in a day given the right conditions. If we get started by May 10 in the county, we’re not in bad shape. A lot of our guys would like to have been on the ground in the next couple of days, but we’re not going to make it for sure. Every year’s different.
“The most impact we would see would be on the processors who raise Russet Burbanks because that’s the variety that needs the most time,” said Flannery. “If we can be out on the ground by May 10 and have the growing conditions we had last summer, we can make the time up. If we have a nice fall, we’ll probably be in good shape. It’s so dependent on the weather … not only in the spring when we plant, but during the summer and fall.”
Flannery said if the wet conditions continue through May 20 and growers can’t start planting until June 1, “that would worry me a lot more than we haven’t got anything planted by May 1.”