Wisconsin seeing one of its best potato crops ever
Wisconsin seeing one of its best potato crops ever
“This is one of the best crops ever,” Tamas Houlihan was recently told by a potato grower-member of the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association. “He told me it was the best crop he’d ever seen. It is a beautiful crop. There are no problems in any aspect.”
Houlihan, executive director of the Antigo-based association, said Wisconsin “yields are very good. The quality is excellent. Our yields could average 440 to 460 hundredweight per acre. For a statewide average, that is pretty high.”
Tamas Houlihan
As a reference point, he said Wisconsin averaged between 410 and 420 per acre last year, “and that was a good year.”
The total national potato crop will be “a little smaller in overall hundredweight” vs. 2014, so Houlihan expects strong prices as shipments pick up this fall, running into 2016.
It’s not only the fresh-market crop that’s flourishing in the Badger State. The “seed crop is looking good. The chip stock is looking good and the processing potatoes for McCain (Foods) are looking good.”
Wisconsin growers are not expected to finish harvest until mid-October.
The Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association will be exhibiting at the Produce Marketing Association Fresh Summit in late October. In Atlanta, industry members can register to win the association’s revitalized giveaway of the customized “Spudster” Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The bike was given away at the PMA show in previous years. A few years later, this program has changed and the final drawing will take place late in the calendar year.
Also at the booth “we will have delicious potato chips available and we will have a few other goodies to give away.”
