It’s been a very tough year for potato growers in some areas of North Dakota. The 2016 crop in the northeast corner of the state is being described as one of the worst ever because of excessive moisture.
But outside of the northern Red River Valley, this year’s production is much better.
Dawson Farms in Kidder County is in the middle of another good harvest.
This potato field is a couple hundred miles west of where a majority of North Dakota’s spuds are produced.
“It’s been a phenomenal place to grow potatoes. We’ve got a great aquifer here and have great quality ground. It’s sandy; it’s everything you need for good potato production,” said Dawson Farms manager Michael Sitzmann, Tappen, N.D.
Twenty years ago, Dawson Farms took a chance on growing irrigated potatoes outside of the Red River Valley, and it’s worked well.
“On dry land it was so unpredictable. If you got rain or didn’t get rain or at harvest time if they didn’t have the right moisture they got a lot more dirt than potatoes,” said Mike Sitzmann, owner of Dawson Farms in Tappen, N.D.
Dawson Farms planted 3,000 acres of potatoes this year, they’re yielding 40,000 to 50,000 pounds an acre.
Michael Sitzmann said: “It’s been a pretty good year, we had some weather events. We struggled with that but as for the overall crop and crop health it’s excellent.
Most of the potatoes will be turned into French fries.
“I’ve always said Idaho has nothing on us. They’re always the French fry capitol of the world, but North Dakota gives them a good run,” said Mike Sitzmann.
It takes eight harvesters and 50 people to bring in this crop. Dawson Farms expects to have all of their potatoes out of the ground by the end of September.
Farmers planted 80,000 acres of potatoes this year. The most recent crop report rates 36 percent of the crop poor to very poor, 30 percent fair and 34 percent good to excellent. North Dakota ranks fourth in the nation in potato production, harvesting 26-million hundred weight, or 2.6 billion pounds of spuds a year.
Source: KFYR-TV
