Gerry Gilmour | editor
SABIN, Minn. — Randy Schmidt kicks a clump of alkaline dirt atop a potato plant with a well-worn boot.
The exposed plant is filled with golf-ball sized spuds, which will need optimum attention and care to reach your table late this fall.
“We are seeing tons of blight,” he says. “Our yield will be down tremendously, a good average of maybe 30 percent.
Randy is the middle man in a three-generation farming team still growing spuds here in the Red River Valley, along with his father, Rodney, and son, Scott. His father, Clarence, since deceased, started growing potatoes on this 2,800-acre farm in the early 1930s.
Today the family grows beans, corn and wheat along with their potatoes, which compose as many as 25 varieties, all headed to the bin this fall as seed potatoes for future crops: Red Pontiacs, Russett Burbanks, Russett Norkotas and Irish Cobblers, to names a few.
The Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota is the nation’s third most productive area, behind Idaho and Washington, respectively.
Weather this year has been tough on the taters in the valley.
“This is going to be an interesting year,” says Neil Gudmonson, a plant researcher at North Dakota State University in Fargo. “The biggest issue is, too much moisture. That is going to affect quality. It has not been an optimal potato season.”
Standing water and soggy soil make harvesting difficult. Farmers in some areas are seeing brown-out, a condition in which the plants have taken on too much water, and suffer from a lack of oxygen.
Pembina (on the Canadian border) and Griggs (northwest of Fargo-Moorhead) have been particularly hurt by wet conditions. In some of the irrigated fields on the valley’s eastern and western edges, “the ground is a little more forgiving,” Gudmonsan says.
Potatoes were generally planted late this growing season, by two to three weeks, as growers were delayed by a cool, wet spring. A hot July further hampered growth as nighttime temperatures failed to fall below 70 degrees. That again, limits the oxygen to the plant, which need the right combination of water and carbon dioxide to produce the sugars which give potatoes their bulk and flavor.
Weakened conditions make plants susceptible to blight
Like apples, one rotten potato can spoil the bunch. “A potato storage bin is not a hospital. You can’t put lousy potatoes in there and nurse them to health,” Gudmonson says.
With crops such as beans and corn, a grower can harvest even into November and December. Potatoes need to be lifted through a much shorter window of time.
Longtime grower and potato researcher Duane Preston sums it up this way.
“God is on your side until Oct. 10,” Preston says. “After that, you’re on your own.”
Current supermarket prices are high right now. A spot check of two Fargo-Moorhead grocery stores: $5 for a 5-pound bag, $10 for a 10-pounder.
Gudmonsun says that price inflation is more related to last year’s market than what is going on with growers this year. “The industry is just short of potatoes right now,” he says. Planting in 2010 was held down because of recession fears. With more people brown-bagging it, fewer are eating out and ordering fries with their meals.
Just 15 percent of today’s valley crop is composed of red potatoes, ready to baker or boil and mash, while 65 percent are russets destined to be frozen French fries, tator tots, hash browns or the like. Another 10 percent are grown for the potato chip industry while the other 10 percent are grown as seed potatoes for planting.
Nobody grows more potatoes than Ron D. Offutt. His valley-based company contracts growners almost exclusively for the frozen market. RDO Inc. potatoes grown in the valley are sold and processed through Simplot in Grand Forks, N.D., Lamb-Weston in Park Rapids, Minn., and McCain’s in Clover, Wis.
From those plants, frozen potato products are shipped to giant restaurant companies such as McDonald’s and Taco John as well as large food-service companies, which in turn distribute to schools, hospitals and supermarket chains.
“Because of drown-out, some growers are going to have a hard time reaching their budgeted deals,” says Clark Camilli, Midwest operations controller for RDO. “But we’re still optimistic that in Minnesota we’ll be able to obtain our budgeted yields.”
Chuck Gunnerson, retired from farming near Ada, Minn., is president of the Northern Plains Potato Growers’ Association out of East Grand Forks, N.D.
“Right now, we’re behind anywhere from seven to 14 days,” Gunnerson says. Some growers have lost up to 40 percent of their crop to excessive rain. Others have been spared. “One field might get 3 inches in a rain event and one across the road just two-tenths of an inch. It has been a crazy year.”
He says there is a late blight concern, with spores in the northern valley carried by wind and threatening fields to the south.
Despite the less-than-optimal conditions, prices for table and frozen potatoes should be similar, or just slightly higher, once harvest is completed, Gunnerson says.
“When there are fewer potatoes on the market, the consumer pays a little more,” he says. “But as far as food values go, potatoes are still a bargain.”