My father once told me that farmers were the biggest gamblers he knew. Investing money that may or may not pay off while dealing with Mother Nature changing the rules—it all made for very uncertain growing seasons. I know he was trying to explain farming, but it didn’t make much sense to an 8-year-old boy in Raft River, Idaho, who didn’t think cultivating sugarbeets, moving wheel lines, and changing pivot tires made for a very fun summer.
When we started farming, we followed the same patterns and processes of other farmers in the area. Almost like driving through a subdivision where all the houses were designed and built by the same builder, most of the farmers used the same kinds of equipment, tillage practices, inputs and, in general, had the same philosophy about growing the best crop: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” As I look back now, however, I ask myself, If farming conditions weren’t the same year after year, why did all the practices stay the same?
Change is a difficult thing, especially in the farming industry, where reliable results might take several seasons to collect. Inherently, people are hesitant to be the first one to try something new. Whether it’s a new variety, a change in row spacing, or even a new piece of equipment, we would rather have our neighbor try it first; if he’s successful, we might be a little less skeptical. In my experience, however, farmers are smart and will consider changes if they see accurate data from their own farming area and have a solid assurance that the new practice won’t narrow their margins even more. Even then, change usually starts small.
The high risk/high reward nature of potatoes makes adoption of new practices even slower because the process to gather good data is slow and extremely small in scale compared to typical commercial farms. For example, a new potato variety may take 12to 15 years of small plot evaluation before it’s named and available for commercial use. This is followed by additional years of in-field evaluations by the potato industry before the variety is planted on larger acreages. New cultural practices such as changing row spacing or using different tillage equipment sometimes require modifications that can be expensive and take time. Changing in-row spacing can be fairly simple; a sprocket change or button push is often all it takes. Changing row widths, however, requires the movement of planting units on the planter—or a new planter—which is time-consuming and expensive.
New varieties could be considered low-hanging fruit when it comes to change. The drawback is that they’re new, untested on a commercial scale, and unfamiliar. To give growers an advantage, new varieties are evaluated over several years and regions to identify strengths and weaknesses, ideal fertility requirements and in-row spacing, and their tolerance to herbicides and disease. The results of this extensive testing identify poor-performing varieties, which are thrown out, and better performing varieties, which often have greater yield, quality and resistance to various pests and diseases than varieties that have been grown for decades.
Like people, potato plants come in all shapes and sizes and grow best when they have access to plenty of light, nutrients, water and competition from neighboring plants. Changing in-row spacing increases or decreases competition and results in changes in tuber number and size profile. Because the effect isn’t as strong between rows, some varieties might be able to be planted closer, maximizing land use efficiency without sacrificing size and number. Identifying the ideal spacings that provide the greatest return to growers will help maintain, if not improve, the sustainability of potato farming.
It’s difficult to accept row width trial data illustrating success in one region and assume it will work in another. The impact of growing season conditions can be vastly different between growing regions, and even throughout a state; just because it works in, for example, eastern Idaho, doesn’t mean it will work even in the western part of the state. However, this type of project may provide data to help fine-tune new and old varieties alike.
Reasons to continue with a “business as usual” approach are abundant. But tradition and familiarity with typical practices often lead to a hesitancy to try something new, which could result in time and money savings being left on the table. The “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” attitude isn’t something we can afford if we plan on continuing to be sustainable and profitable while providing high-quality potatoes.
I am leading a project that will take on research trials that examine new variety development and evaluation of agronomic cultural practices such as fertility, spacing and storage in an effort to provide the Idaho potato industry with solid data to determine whether changes in current practices are warranted.
As is the case with most researchers, I want to be able to share my findings, and I am also interested in suggestions and ideas for additional projects that may benefit the industry. Feel free to send me an email at rhetts@uidaho.edu with thoughts you may have.
Author Rhett Spear is an assistant professor based at the University of Idaho’s Aberdeen Research & Extension Center. His work focuses primarily on agronomic and economic evaluations of new potato varieties through cultural management trials and new variety selection.