“For the growers that had potatoes, it will be a decent year,” says Paul Dolan, the manager of Associated Potato Growers, Inc., a potato-packing co-op in the Red River Valley of eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota
Having potatoes if you’re a Red River Valley grower wasn’t necessarily a given for the 2016 crop.
The river valley that runs between North Dakota and Minnesota was plagued by rain early in the fall and then more rain—and mud—at harvest time. It was so muddy that even the toughest field equipment couldn’t conquer the mire in many fields.
Dolan said after many potatoes were entombed in the mud for a certain length of time, the quality was beyond hope and the potatoes were simply left in the field.
On the other hand, in the Grand Forks, N.D., growing area to the south, the losses weren’t as bad.
Dolan says Associated’s major packing shed in Grand Forks will be shipping potatoes until June.
To the north, growers working with Associated’s two smaller plants in Grafton and Drayton, N.D., have about half a crop. “They will finish early,” he says.
But, on Jan. 5, Dolan said that hundredweight prices for A-sized red potatoes were in the $19 to $20 range, which, for that time of the year, is the best pricing in three years.
“The movement is so slow,” he added. “There is a tremendous amount of cheap russets on the market. That is hurting red movement … The movement has been slower than normal by quite a bit. Our movement is 70 percent of normal. But it’s been a little better this week.”
Because Red River Valley potato stocks as a whole are below normal, “we are not alarmed by slow movement,” Dolan says. “If this movement had come with last year’s [large] crop, we would have been in serious trouble.”
This shipping year, Associated Potato Growers “will do okay” on its profits. But Dolan emphasizes that Associated is all about the growers it represents and “those with potatoes will do all right. But those who left them in the ground won’t get much money.”
Approaching the second week of January, Dolan said that Red River Valley growers were starting to find buying interest from Wisconsin red potato growers, who “are getting down on red supplies.”
Red River Valley growers will be watching Florida for new crop red potato supplies. Florida’s growing weather had been good, at least through the early part of the winter. Of course, Florida potato availability will be influencing market prices across the country.
Looking toward spring planting in North Dakota, Dolan says there is still three feet of snow on the ground in most areas.
Normally, the spring thaw in the Red River Valley begins sometime between late March and late April. Dolan says it’s best for growers if the thaw starts early so there is a slow melt and the Red River doesn’t flood the area’s low-lying potato fields.
Source: The Produce News