Potato harvest kicked into high gear this week in Idaho’s Power County.
According to the Idaho Potato Commission’s website, about 13 billion pounds of potatoes are pulled from dirt in the Gem State and that means local growers need all the help they can get.
The fields of southeastern Idaho are right where the potato harvest begins.
“Potato harvest means a break from school and being able to earn real-life experience and be able to earn money and be able to get used to the challenges that come later in life,” says Tyler Moser, a junior at Aberdeen High School.
Moser is taking advantage of the two-week break he gets from school to work potato harvest. One of his jobs is sorting through potatoes as they roll through the conveyer belt. He picks out rocks, dirt clods, vines and rotten potatoes.
“Because if they get in the cellar, usually the rotten potatoes will spread and it will infect other potatoes in the area, and if rocks get in they could fall of the piler and split open potatoes, and we only want the best potatoes in the cellar to be able to be sold,” says Moser.
Kim Wahlen owns Wahlen Farms. He has been farming for 35 years and says he grew up having a love for potatoes. He says it’s a complicated and lengthy process to bring in the potatoes from the field.
“Potato harvest takes a lot of detail,” says Wahlen. “I think the average person doesn’t know what all goes into harvesting a potato crop because you have to know a little about a lot of things.”
Wahlen says the harvest is a culmination of what they work for all year.
“Everything we do in the winter and the spring and the summer is to have a good harvest,” says Wahlen. “Then we have about a three-week span to harvest it in and there is a lot of pressure and time is a big deal.”
Wahlen says they employ about 85 workers during harvest, 10 of whom are school kids.
The harvest break for Aberdeen students runs about two weeks, and they are scheduled to head back to class Oct. 7.
Source: KPVI News