“Up until two weeks ago, growing conditions were quite nice, but we are struggling through a very warm and wet September to get the remainder of the crop harvested and put in storage,” said Andy Diercks of Coloma Farms. “The normal weather in Wisconsin presents enough challenges for growers with warm nights and high humidity, which contribute to increased risk of pest and disease pressure, like late blight. There was some limited late blight in the state this year but it shouldn’t present any issues for most growers. However, the heavy rains most areas have received over the past three weeks certainly may contribute to some storage challenges.”
“Right now, the grower returns are above our cost of production, but there is mounting pressure for prices to go down. The problem is how quickly the market responds to any news of a big crop, especially in Idaho. Both the yields and the tuber size of the crop in Idaho are larger than expected, so the nearly immediate reaction is to lower prices in hopes of moving more product into the market,” added Diercks. “In Wisconsin, we have a very manageable crop due to the good growing conditions so we’ll do the best we can to keep regional prices above cost of production.”
