This year’s Alberta potato harvest is a good and bad news story.
Yields and quality are generally good, but prices appear to be in a slump, says Potato Growers of Alberta technical director Ed van Dellen.
“It’s a good average crop with absolutely no complaints considering the type of weather we had,” he said.
Both north and south potato regions experienced poor weather.
In the south, where mostly irrigated processing potatoes are grown, the season began slowly with a cold spring. The weather turned hot and dry but heavy irrigation turned out a good crop despite the dry spell.
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North of Red Deer, which is mainly dryland production, a cold growing season appeared to threaten the crop’s outlook.
“There was a virtual lack of sunshine,” said van Dellen.
Moisture was also low in late July and early August, but it did not become a serious problem because cool temperatures slowed evaporation, he said
The cold northern growing season meant crops took a long time to mature but growers were blessed by a relatively frost-free fall and were able to get in a good crop, said van Dellen.
The wet fall slowed potato harvesters as it did grain growers, but since spud producers don’t have to wait nearly as long for wet potato fields to become harvestable, they had an easier harvest.
Prices take a dive
The good 1996 crop is disappointing to growers because prices have fallen about 30 percent from last year, van Dellen said.
Since most Alberta potatoes are grown under contract, the price drop won’t have an immediate large effect.
But over the winter when producers are making contracts for the next crop, a low price market will stop them squeezing any price gains out of the market, van Dellen said.
“When you’re in a low price market, these negotiations benefit the processors, not the producers.”
Potato prices now are too low to spark new investment in potato production, he said.
But since potato markets are volatile, van Dellen said he hopes prices turn around before the next round of contracting is finished.
