SEPTEMBER 2024 POTATO CROP UPDATE FROM GREEN GIANT™ FRESH
ID Russets
The new season of russets is off to a good start! The weather has been good, and Idaho potato growers have not had to deal with high temperatures. We do not like seeing pulp temperatures of the potatoes above 64 degrees at harvest, and most of them have been below that.
The maturity has been good, so we are seeing very little skinning. We have not seen a lot of issues other than the occasional greening and bruising, which is normal from year to year. Initially, we are seeing a bigger size profile than anticipated. However, it’s too early in the harvest to know if that will be the trend.
Harvest is off to a slow start with the lower market, and growers have pushed back their kill dates to try and gain more yield and a bigger size profile. A lot of the growers will start harvesting in the middle of September when the nights are cooler. This helps the process because when they go into the storage, the cool air can push the harvest heat out of the potatoes.
The goal is to be done with the harvest by the first and second week of October before it gets too cold. As for yields, it’s too early to tell. It will be the end of September before we get a good idea of where we feel that will be.
WA Russets
As for our Washington russet crop, there are some skinning issues, but otherwise normal yields. Most of our storage russets are killed at this point, and our quality is much better compared to last year’s crop.
Current availability is drawn towards the mid-size range (60-80 ct), as 40ct/50ct are very limited. We expect normal yields with size profile down.
Big Varieties
The big red and yellow varieties have gotten off to a good start so far this season, including our Green Giant™ Fresh exclusive CarbSmart variety of potatoes. The quality looks good on the first fields. Yields look to be average to a little bit above average.
The sizing looks good overall, as well. However, there are some sporadic profiles early on, tracking back to early frost that hit in early growth cycles. A few fields are either a big profile, from dropping off smaller sets, to the opposite of dropping the first couple sets and having a smaller profile. This represents a small percentage of the total acres, so the outlook seems to be normal this season.
Mini Potato Varieties
We are off to the best start for our mini potatoes ever! We are 25% complete on harvest right now, whereas we have been around 10% in previous years. Size profiles look excellent this year! Quality is also up. We will know more details of the quality as storages get filled and samples are taken.
Yields look to be just above average – about 10%-15% increase over the 5-year average. We are finished with the previous season’s storage crop and taking new crop in without any loss in production through the transition.
There is plenty of supply and the great Green Giant™ Fresh quality that our customers expect! We expect this to remain through the rest of harvest.
