MANITOBA Dan Sawatzky, General Manager, Keystone Potato Producers Association Heat and lack of rainfall highlight the growing conditions for Manitoba this season. Above 30 C days were double the normal, which will have some effect on yield and quality. 2011 was the most recent year where we experienced similar heat, which resulted in significant yield losses. Dry conditions were carried over from last fall and winter, where little precipitation fell. This summer’s…
BRITISH COLUMBIA By Hugh Reynolds, Reynelda Farms, Delta, B.C. B.C. has had near endless rain in January with a very cold February and a wet, cool March forecast. This puts B.C. behind for our famous early potatoes. With today’s excellent planters, we will only need a good week to pound in many acres of potatoes, but they will be a little later this year. In B.C. we have a regulated quota for potato delivery…
ALBERTA By Terence Hochstein, Executive Director, Potato Growers of Alberta Alberta’s 2017 crop turned out to be a mixed bag. While quality remains excellent, our yields were all over the place. Some fields had Russet crops going down mid-August which greatly affected their yields. The ones that stayed green until mid-September were quite a bit better yielding. Like many growing areas across Canada, the increasing occurrence of Verticillium wilt (early die) is…
ALBERTA By Terence Hochstein, Executive Director, Potato Growers of Alberta Alberta’s spring got off to what most would consider a normal spring, with good weather and normal moisture. Planting got underway in the south about April 20, with the north seed areas starting about three weeks later. It’s a good thing we had early spring moisture because that is the last that most growing areas received. The south has not received any…
MANITOBA By Dan Sawatzky, General Manager, Keystone Potato Producers Association Growers in Manitoba experienced an excellent start to the season, seeing good potential in the crop this year. Although planting began a little behind last year, the majority of the crop did get planted during the first 10 days of May, bringing it in line with average planting completion. Crop development was rapid, with row closure beginning by the third week of…
MANITOBA By Dan Sawatzky, General Manager, Keystone Potato Producers Association Our annual conference, Manitoba Potato Production Days, was held at the end of January with excellent attendance. Industry support of this event is exceptional and is instrumental to the conference success. The Manitoba Potato Partners Seminar is held the end of March with updates from UPGC and APRE, followed by our provincial potato research reporting activities. Usage of the large crop in…
ALBERTA By Terence Hochstein, Executive Director, Potato Growers of Alberta The 2015-2016 crop year was anything but normal for Alberta process potato growers. An early April start turned into a long fall with not a lot to show for it. A cool summer with less than average heat and growing degree days (GDD) left Alberta growers with just an average crop. The quality is excellent but the 2016 yields come up rather…
ALBERTA By Terence Hochstein, Executive Director, Potato Growers of Alberta Spring came early to Alberta this year, and with that, the crops were planted about two weeks ahead of normal. April and May were unusually warm and gave the crop a great start to the season. Optimism was abundant that the processing industry would have another bumper crop on their hands. June, July and August rolled around and the weather kind of…
Prince Edward Island By Alex Docherty, Chairman, Prince Edward Island Potato Board Lower volumes of snow in early 2016 meant we had a more of a normal spring in P.E.I. A stretch of wet weather in June however, resulted in growers playing catch up trying to get field operations like herbicide sprays and hilling completed. Only as we approached the longest day of the year did temperatures turn seasonable, and growers were looking ahead…
Prince Edward Island By Alex Docherty – Chairman, Prince Edward Island Potato Board The P.E.I. Potato Technology Expo was held in Charlottetown, P.E.I. on Feb. 26-27. Unlike many previous years, the weather was great for travel and there was an excellent turnout for both the seminar sessions and the trade show. The conference was well attended by industry members who heard from a number of keynote speakers, including Tom Wolf of Agrimetrix Research and…