Planting around the province wrapped up at the beginning of June. It’s not very often that the north and south are planting at the same time, but in the south we experienced many rain delays.
It was also cold leading up to planting so that made it a short and very busy shipping season for our seed growers; however as soon as shipping season was over, the north area growers quickly switched into planting. In the south we started planting on time in the middle of April, but it ended up dragging on for six weeks, where normally it would take us half that amount of time.
It was very dry coming into planting and we were all praying for rain, but the rain came and wouldn’t stop. In the south we received up to 8 inches, which is almost unheard of in the month of May; some farms received up to 4 inches in one storm. It took a while for things to dry up before planting could resume. There will be some spots lost to flooding, and some farms had to adjust their plans and plant potatoes in a different field than originally intended. Overall, growers are happy with the moisture we all received. All crops are now thankfully in the ground, and we can focus on top dressing fertilizer and spraying.
With the cool, wet start the potato crops are a little behind normal and are just popping through the ground. Now that everything is planted, we could take a little more rain, and some sunshine.
By Alison Davie, board chair of the Potato Growers of Alberta