Pleasing British potato crop despite rain delays to lifting season

Despite a stop-start lifting season as a result of regular rain showers, harvested crops in Britain have yielded well and there are few quality issues being reported. An improvement in weather in the eastern counties has allowed growers to progress well with potato lifting, with around 70 per cent of crops harvested. While skin set has been a challenge, yields in the South East have been the best they have been for the past two years, according to Norfolk agronomist and grower Andy Alexander. He says: “Skin set has been slow. We had a reasonably good growing season, so crops have kept growing and have not come under stress to force them to shut down. We have had to desiccate quite green crops this year, hence we are getting bigger yields, but we cannot have it both ways.” Mr Alexander believes there may be some storage losses, bringing the overall saleable yield down. More