b'ROUNDTABLEwith tarps or enclosed trailers. If youre digging chilled or slightly frozen tubers, its important that you wait until theyve warmed up. If theyre dug cold, the bruising typically is a lot worse than if theyre allowed to warm up. Field frosted, chilled or wet tubers need to be held in storage for two to three weeks at warmer temperatures to allow for wound healing and to dry the surfaces down. And then of course, if theres any tubers with visible breakdown, those need to be removed, graded out. SJ: Run the fans continuously without humidity because if there are cool and wet conditions, theres plenty of humidity in the mud with the potatoes and in the air. The curing temperature is right around what youre bringing the potatoes toPotatostorage. So, at that point if you have air, bring itsuffering from in. If it is very humid outside and youve managedpink rot. to dry off some of the mud and soil that has comePHOTO: KHALIL I.AL-MUGHRABIin with potatoes, it may be drier inside the build-ing. And at that point, you may shut the building down so youre not bringing in external air, youre just moving air through there.SS: Should air storage flow be set based on potato end use? We will use hotspot fans. We will put SJ: The different end uses require differentfans with tarps over. There may be a load amounts of air flow. I have some numbers down here. Seed at .8, table at .8 cubic feet per minutethat got rained on, you thought you might per hundred weight, french fries at one and chipsget away with it. at one and a half. I dont think theres any problem going higher than that. I think that probably mostSTEVEN JOHNSONpeople would, if I was designing storage, I would design it for more than that airflow going through there. Simply because you can always back off that, but you cant add more to it. like an inner tube or a tarp around to the fan andsome breakdown and its better to pull rotting it does a pretty good job, but its going to be onpotatoes out on the packing line then have them SS: How do you handle soft rot inthere for a good three weeks or more. go into plastic bags.storage?SJ: If youve got a high percentage of soft rotSS: How do you handle pink rot inSS: Where should sensors be placed in loading or in early stages of storages, youre look- storage? storage?ing for basically zero humidity and lots of airSJ: The best thing to do with pink rot in fieldsSJ: Despite where theyre placed in the storage, We dont have information to support the use ofis delay harvest, let the potatoes rot in the field.and theyre often placed there by the storage bactericides in ventilation. We cant seem to getWhen pink rot is brought in, the potatoes areconstruction and not necessarily placed by a these materials to show anything through thegoing to be splattering all over the lags. Curestorage manager, I like them in the plenum. Not humidification system. So, I dont recommend it.the potatoes cooler than you want them, but notnecessarily by the fans or where the humidity We will use hotspot fans. We will put fans withcold. And if theyre quite bad, rapid cooling mayis introduced. Usually sensors are placed in the tarps over. There may be a load that got rained on,be warranted. Really bring the temperature downmiddle of a plenum, or the far end, away from you thought you might get away with it. Those arefast. However, if these are going into the tablethe fan.fairly easy to target either by looking at the pile orstock market, the tuber should be warmed upFor more information on potato storage visit with an infrared temperature gun or hotspot fans,for at least a day and a half to two days beforeSpudSmart.com and watch our latest webinar about a one-third horsepower fan. I generallytheyre put in the bag, because they may haveabout it. 52 SPUDSMART.COM FALL 2020'