“The weather has been perfect since the heavy rains fell in late June,” Ted Kreis said in mid-September. “I think we’ll have a nice crop.”
Tad Thompson reports in an article published by The Produce News, that Kreis, who is the marketing director of the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association, added that in the Red River Valley, “the crop is coming along very well. We had some losses in late June with heavy rain. We thought we lost 10- to 15-percent of the crop at that time. We have possibly recovered some of that through plant recovery and higher yields. So overall, it looks like an average-sized crop,” he said.
Red River Valley growers began harvesting Sept. 4. “Without interruptions from too hot weather or too much rain, the harvest goes about eight weeks,” Kreis said. He expects the harvest to end in late October.
Kreis said the market price for fresh red potatoes was good going into late August. “But now we need more movement as prices have come down substantially with the summer crop coming in.”
Source: The Produce News. Read the full article here
