Jaap Remijn grew up on a potato farm in the Netherlands but decided to pursue mechanical engineering after high school. When he immigrated to Canada, the opportunity arose to buy a potato farm in Alberta. Remijn decided it was something he couldn’t pass up. “It was just something I wanted to do for myself,” says Remijn, whose father started farming potatoes in Holland at the age of 19. “I guess farming potatoes…
Rainfall in the week (Tuesday, Sept. 2 to Monday, Sept. 8) was extensive in distribution in the province, but not as heavy as last week. Though only a few sites recorded close to 1-inch of rainfall, most fields don’t need anymore rain. The maximum temperatures were generally warm, but the minimum temperatures have gone below zero in a few sites. Table1. Weather Data – Sept. 2 (Tuesday) to Sept. 8 (Monday), 2019….
With increased input costs and skyrocketing land prices, profit margins are shrinking — it’s never been more important to have a good handle on what’s happening in your fields. Data generated from yield maps provide insight on how to manage your crop to improve your profit margin, your yield, or both. Whether this is your first season or your fifth using a potato yield monitor, our guest speakers will make sure you’re…
According to Mark Van Oostrum, a few growers will start digging the storage crop this week, but the majority will start next week on September 16. All the best for the storage crop harvest! Pink eye and road-mapping are both physiological problems that have been detected recently in a few fields. The photo above shows what pink eye looks like on tubers when freshly dug; the lesions will dry up and turn…
“Both industry and the public have increased awareness efforts with the intent of returning Alberta to late blight-free status,” explains Robert Spencer, commercial horticulture specialist at the Alberta Ag-Info Centre. “No cases of late blight have been reported as the 2019 growing season wraps up, despite favourable conditions for the disease in some parts of Alberta and some spores caught in monitoring traps.” He recommends that commercial or home garden potato or…
During his presentation at the official opening of the 11th African Potato Congress in Kigali, Rwanda, World Potato Congress President, Romain Cools, announced the continuous effort of his organization to be a partner of the African potato sector. President Cools illustrated this statement by referring to the active role of African potato specialists in WPC’s global organization: Dr. A. Jooste of South Africa and B. Lemaga of CIP who are both members…
The North-Western European Potato Growers (NEPG) estimates the 2019 forecasted potato harvest between 27 and 27.3 million tons for the five leading potato countries. This is three per cent more than the five-year average and 12 per cent more than last year. At this stage, the estimations are mainly based upon trial digs. Nevertheless, the NEPG stresses this is an estimation — final trial digs will take place at the beginning of October — and…
Yesterday, I checked a variety trial near Alliston that was planted late, on May 27. There was a moderate to high population of small black cutworms in the plots of late varieties, those that still had green foliage. Although the worms were small, there were also tubers with feeding damage. Small larvae of the black cutworm feed on the foliage in the evenings and remain buried in the soil near the plants…
Harvesting fresh market and field fry potatoes continued over the long weekend. Quality of both are very good, but yields are variable depending on the field. The storage crop is being top-killed according to the planting date. The spore traps keep detecting DNA of late blight in Dufferin, Simcoe and Norfolk Counties. This is a very important alert for growers in Dufferin County where there are still fields that will need at…
São Paulo – McCain Foods, the world leader in frozen french fries, potato specialties and appetizers, and one of the top 10 most valuable food brands in the world, announces its investment in its first french fry factory in Brazil. With this investment, McCain continues to strengthen its expansion strategy in the Brazilian market. After acquiring 49% of Forno de Minas, who specialize in bread snacks and appetizers, in 2018 and 70%…