Potato farmers in Skagit County suffered big losses last fall after they were unable to harvest some of their crops as a result of early and heavy rainfall.
An estimated 2,000 acres of potatoes — valued at $3,000 to $5,000 an acre — went unharvested this season, said Don McMoran, director of the Washington State University Skagit County Extension. He estimates farmers’ losses added up to between $5 million and $10 million.
He said it’s common for farmers to not harvest some acres each season, but that 2,000 acres are rare.
Darrin Morrison, of Morrison Farms south of Mount Vernon, said an unusually wet September — and a storm early in the month that dumped up to 2 inches of rain in a few days — was a setback for growers.
“It saturated the soil and we didn’t have a cushion to take normal rains we get (later in the fall),” he said.
He said his farm left about 45 acres unharvested, but he knows another grower who was unable to harvest more than twice that amount.
Losing an estimated $5,000 an acre is a huge financial hit to farmers, he said.
“It’s probably going to prevent us from upgrading equipment (this year),” Morrison said. “It’s not going to ruin our farm. It’s a bigger impact for growers that had 100 (unharvested) acres or more.”
McMoran said farmers are also worried about the condition of the potatoes they harvested that are sitting in storage.
“When you harvest under wet conditions, you’re going to have the potential for more disease concerns,” he said.
Potatoes are the county’s most valuable crop, bringing in about $60 million to growers annually, according to extension statistics. About 12,000 acres are planted each year.
“We’re fortunate in that the market was good and it helped us recover a lot of that loss,” Nelson said.
McMoran said farmers’ crop losses in the Midwest following flooding meant that Skagit County farmers got a higher price per pound for their potatoes.
As for the upcoming season, Nelson said the farm may try to plant more of the varieties of potatoes it can harvest earlier in the season when the weather is drier, and varieties it can store longer.
The majority of potatoes grown in Skagit County are red, white, yellow, purple and specialty varieties.
John Thulen, of Pioneer Potatoes west of Mount Vernon, said a wet January made it difficult to catch up on the harvest.
“We were recovering from the back end of September, even though November was really dry,” he said. “There were some other (crops) we didn’t harvest, some of our beets.”
Farmers’ losses are a bounty for the trumpeter swans and geese that have come to flooded fields to feast on spuds still underground.
Thulen said the potatoes that don’t rot or go uneaten by birds may sprout up in a field next year, which can be problematic if a farmer plants a different crop in the same spot.
He said it can be a good idea to let the affected fields go unplanted for a year to manage them. But with limited farmland available — especially for spinach, beet, and cabbage seed crops that require isolation distances to prevent cross-pollination — it will be a challenge.
Source - https://www.goskagit.com
