Manitoba saw a dramatic jump in potato acres this year, due largely to construction of the new Simplot processing plant at Portage la Prairie.
The province’s growers planted an estimated 103,000 acres this year, said Garry Sloik, secretary manager of the Keystone Vegetable Producers Association. That’s well beyond the 85,000 acres that were grown in Manitoba a year ago.
The bulk of the production will go for processing into french fries and other frozen products. Potatoes also are grown in Manitoba for seed and for the fresh market.
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Sloik said the expanded potato acreage can be linked mainly to Simplot’s new $130 million potato processing plant at Portage.
However, he noted that a number of growers fell short of meeting their production contracts last year, prompting them to plant more potatoes this year as a hedge against that happening again.
The plant is now moving into regular production, said Fred Zerza, a spokesperson for J.R. Simplot Co. Once full production is reached, the plant will be capable of processing 5.5 million hundredweight of potatoes, the equivalent of production from 20,000 acres.
When plans for the plant were announced, the company made it clear that it would take a couple of years to reach full production, partly because Manitoba’s potato acreage will take time to build. This year’s expansion in potato acres will help Simplot move a long way toward that goal.
The expansion was scattered throughout the potato growing regions of the province, and extended into areas that have not traditionally grown the crop. Part of the expansion was driven by established potato growers, but there were also new entrants to the industry, Sloik said.
Darrell Carlisle, who farms east of Souris, Man., was among those testing the crop’s potential for the first time this year. He farms in an area where commercial potato production is not common, but he chose the vegetable after deciding it was time to explore another crop.
In co-operation with another farmer, he planted 80 acres to potatoes under contract with Simplot. Although he farms on soils that are heavier than the norm for potato production, he said the yields should be at least average. That was also in spite of the fact that the water source for his irrigation dried up this summer because of the hot, dry weather.
Sloik had some concern earlier this year that the jump in planted acres, plus good growing conditions in the spring, would result in a glut of potato production in the province.
However, this summer’s extended dry spell combined with extreme daytime temperatures stressed the crop, even where it was under irrigation. That limited the prospect of a bumper crop and large surpluses.
Sloik expects potato yields in the province to be variable this year, because of the challenging growing conditions. He said fields around Portage, Carberry and Glenboro that were not irrigated will be among those most affected by this summer’s drought-like conditions.
