Potatoes harvest edges past halfway mark

The maincrop potato harvest has passed the halfway mark, and the consequences of a challenging growing year are coming home to roost. Reports from growers and the industry suggest potato crop yields are down by 15-20% this year. This is mostly due to a late spring, which delayed planting by four-to-six weeks for many growers, as well as a poor growing season.

The Irish Farmers Journal spoke to several farmers and industry representatives to assess how the harvest was progressing.

Progress slows

Good progress was made with the harvest, helped by decent working windows. Of the farmers spoken to, all were more than halfway through their harvest, but only one had fully completed it. Each farmer agreed that ground conditions this year are much better than during 2023’s harvest, which left many farmers digging crops up until the new year.

However, recent wet and stormy weather in the south of Ireland in particular has left many potato farmers waiting to harvest their crops.

Dublin-based farmer, Peter Garrigan said that he was lucky with good conditions so he was quick to get the harvest done.

“The ground conditions are much better than last year, it’s an awful lot drier,” he said.

“We went hell for leather at it [this year] because I didn’t want to be caught like last year where you’re digging the week before Christmas. We just got as much stuff dug as possible when the weather was good.”

On the other side of the coin, Cork-based farmer John Griffin said that after Storm Ashley, many farmers in the south haven’t been able to touch their fields in over two weeks.

“In Cork, we’ve had a weather warning for rain every weekend for the last four weekends. We are struggling a bit at this stage.

“We’re getting no spell of good weather to get a run at it. We’re doing it for a couple of days and then we’re stopping for four or five days. It’s just got messy here.”

Late-sown crops

The size of potatoes being harvested this year was smaller than expected, with earlier April-sown crops faring better.

“The number and the size weren’t there. When you look back at the longest day, the crops were only coming over the drill at that time. We all knew that this was going to have an effect later on. If we knew the weather was going to be good then we would’ve let them grow on a little bit,” said IFA potato committee vice chair Barry Mitchell.

Donegal-based farmer, Donald Logue said “Any that was sown after [late April] or into May hasn’t fully matured yet. It has no bulk and size.”

Potato quality

Despite the low yields, quality is very high with good eating quality and dry matter content.

“What helped this year was when the potatoes were forming in the ground, there were no drought conditions; they had moisture the whole way through. The only thing it was lacking was a bit of heat” said Donald Logue. He added that he has had small issues with scab but mainly with organic crops.

Desiccation

We also asked farmers how they are handling potato haulm desiccation without the use of spray diquat.

Two farmers changed to using another spray which both found a much slower process.

Griffin decided to top and flail his crops this season which he thought worked well, however, this method adds to a farmer’s workload and has caused a small bit of greening he added.

Garrigan was able to use a small amount of diquat, after emergency use authorisation was granted late in the season, and he said it is still the most effective method.

“We really need the likes of diquat. I think it’s madness that it’s gone off the market and I tried to raise it at the Dublin potato council meeting. It’s not even a problem for potatoes itself, it’s only a problem with the operator; it’s not a consumer problem.”

“I think it needs to be revisited why it was taken off the market” he said.

Market demand and price

Pressure has come on prices again. With yields back this year, crops destined for the peeling market (which is typically the lower end of the market), could struggle to break even.

Most of the farmers agreed that demand is on par with last year, but that the growers are under pressure. “When you’re looking out and only able to dig a couple of tonnes each day and everybody else is in the same situation, it does put a panic on. It’s very hard to win in this game,” said Mitchell.

When it comes to the business of potatoes, the farmers said that although the reward can be high, the cost of production is climbing. “Potatoes are a very expensive game to be at; growing them, storing them, everything is expensive about them,” Logue added.

Blight

Met Éireann issued a number of blight warnings throughout the late summer and early September.

Mitchell said that while farmers were keeping an eye for the EU43 strain of potato blight, most farmers were on the ball with spraying.

“The weather was kind enough to us; I know it was strong and overcast but we hadn’t as much pressure as we did last year. I could see people watching their crops a little bit more because of the new strain, in case it was going to creep in.”

However, IFA potato committee chair Séan Ryan said that it will be harder for growers with the dwindling number of sprays they can use.

“There’s only a certain amount of sprays out there now like some of the products that were working well, they’re after taking them off the market. It’s getting more difficult especially with more strains of blight coming in.”