Potato harvest scrubbing up well

THIS year’s potato harvest has been so bountiful that some farmers around the state have already stopped harvesting for the season.

Last year growers didn’t stop harvesting until the first week of July.

However, a second year of unusually dry conditions kept rot to a minimum and promoted bigger than expected crops.

Yum Tasmanian Gourmet Potatoes owner Terrance Rattray said this year’s harvest was relatively stress-free.

“It’s been a breeze this year,” Mr Rattray said.

“We’ve been able to get plenty of spuds out and all the crops are yielding more than we budgeted, so we’re chock-a-block.”

Mr Rattray said Yum’s storage facilities were overfilled with potatoes.

“We’re rotating them out of storage and through the fresh processing lines,” he said.

"We’re harvesting as quickly as we can, but we are certainly in front of previous years with our harvest.” Mr Rattray said he was prepared for an excess of potatoes.

“It was looking like we were always going to have quite a large surplus,” he said.

“We’ve got really good demand coming from the mainland at the moment.”

With better weather for growing, Mr Rattray said the harvest had yielded rewards.

“We’ve had plenty of sunshine and a good summer,” he said.

“We haven’t had an early autumn break, which you sometimes get where you aren’t back in the paddock again until October.

“But I’ve had a very kind autumn for harvest.”

Big rainfalls in late November to early The lack of rain also helped potato growers.

“When you’re chasing your tail irrigating, you always get your best crops and spuds,” he said.

“You can pour water on them, but you can’t pour sunshine on them. If it’s not raining, you’re getting sunshine.”

Simplot potato grower committee chairman Leigh Elphinstone said despite a mostly successful harvest, areas such as Sassafras and Latrobe – as well as patches of the Midlands and North-East – had lower yields.

“Those areas were affected by the December,” Mr Elphinstone said.

“But overall, it’s been a really good harvest as the dry autumn has allowed for a pretty fast and efficient harvest.” Mr Elphinstone said the harvest was similar to last year’s.

“We had a good autumn, which resulted in a fairly fast harvest that allowed people to get their spuds out of their paddock and into a shed.

“It’ll be very unlikely to get three seasons like this in a row.” Mr Elphinstone said Simplot had harvested about 99 per cent of the potatoes it had grown this season.