EEUU: Wisconsin potato crop to be very strong
All signs are positive for another strong season for the Wisconsin potato industry. Tamas Houlihan, executive director of the Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association, said all potato types, including reds, are thriving in Wisconsin fields.
In a mid-August interview, Houlihan said, “We have had adequate rainfall and a great growing season. Our growers got in the ground on time and we had good quality early. This is a more normal year. Last year we have very high yields and a bumper crop.”
In each of the last two seasons, Wisconsin growers have produced about 63,000 acres of potatoes. But in the booming production of 2015, there was an average of 460 bags per acre. This year the average will still be strong at 430 100-pound bags per acre. The total production for 2015 was 28.98 million hundredweight. This year this number is expected to be 27 million.
The vast majority of the acreage is harvested in September. “Our quality is excellent. We have good yields and we look for another good year,” Houlihan said.
Asked about expected prices for Wisconsin potatoes this fall, Houlihan said he leaves pricing to his grower members, “who do a good job” of marketing. But he noted that the U.S. potato crop will be close to last year in production, or down no more than 1 or 2 percent. Based on this, he guessed that prices “will be equal to or slightly higher than last year.”
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