Harvest yields quality spuds
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — Maine potato producers are harvesting a quality crop this season.
With 85 to 90 percent of the crop already harvested, growers are having a successful growing year and are storing a good crop of potatoes.
“The quality is great,” said Tim Hobbs, director of development and grower relations for the Maine Potato Board. “I think a lot of people have been pleasantly surprised at how things turned out.
“Yields on some of the early season varieties were a little bit light. Some areas — because of the variability of rain — suffered more yield decrease than other areas, but on the later season types, such as russets, yields have been good,” he said. “The later season varieties stayed in the ground longer so they bulked up, but the overall quality is excellent.”
Maine potato growers planted a total of 59,000 acres of potatoes in 2012. The potato industry employs 2,650 people directly and 2,400 indirectly.
“Maine has approximately 380 potato farmers, and although the majority of family-owned potato operations are in located in Aroostook County, commercially, potatoes are grown statewide,” said Walter Whitcomb, Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry commissioner. “They are Maine’s largest agricultural crop and a huge economic boost to rural Maine.”
In Maine, 65 percent of the crop is sold for processing, with pre-season contracts; 20 percent is sold as seed potatoes primarily to East Coast producers; and the remaining crop is sold as fresh/tablestock potatoes.
Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, said this year’s crop is expected to be a yield in keeping with the 12-year average of 290 hundredweight per acre. The final amount won’t be known until about six months from now after the entire crop is sold.
“Right now, there appears to be an adequate supply of fresh potatoes with no shortages due to the drought conditions affecting the Midwest,” Flannery said, noting that he did not expect price volatility post harvest.
“We expect everything to store well,” he said. “Last year, there were storage issues because of the amount of rain during the season, but this season has been a drier year.”
Brent Buck, who operates Buck Farms in Mapleton with his brothers, Bruce and Barry, said he was pleased with this year’s crop.
“Some portions of my crop have been a disappointment; others have been a reasonable return. The early season round whites didn’t seem to bulk up; there wasn’t the crop there that we had hoped for. The later season Burbanks, however, have turned out to be a good, solid, average crop,” said Buck. “There’s no bumper crop, but the quality has been excellent.
“I’m encouraged that the quality is very good and it should store, ship and be received well. That makes my customers happy,” he said. “Tonnage is down, but quality is up. I think our quality is probably above average. Sometimes having good quality can bridge the gap of a smaller crop. If I had to assign a letter grade to our crop, I’d give the quality a B and either a C or C+ for the quantity, so when you average it all out I’d give the crop a B or B-.”
The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (ACF) supports Maine potato farmers specifically through certifying seed potatoes, inspecting and evaluating fresh market and processed potatoes and certifying them according to state and federal regulations. As of September 2012, a total of 11,444 acres of seed potatoes, managed by 121 growers, were certified. The most common varieties were Frito-Lay propagated varieties, Russet Burbanks, and Atlantics, according to ACF’s Animal and Plant Health Division.
