Harvest record for potatoes

UNUSUALLY dry weather saw few harvesting interruptions for most crops, which for Simplot potato growers resulted in a early finish to the season.

Simplot Processing Potato Grower Committee chairman Leigh Elphinstone said it had been a great finish to the season for many growers.

“Harvesting is totally finished, they finished earliest they have ever finished,” he said. “So, it’s the best harvest we’ve ever had.”

Mr Elphinstone said harvesting was basically wrapped up by the first week in July.

“It’s been a good combination of a fantastic harvest season, so absolutely no interruptions with rain,” he said.

He also said that the extra storage capacity of  about 55,000 tonnes put  in by Simplot and the fact  it was all online and being used this year definitely helped speed up harvest.

Mr Elphinstone said the extra storage capacity had enabled crops to come out of the ground and into the factory much faster.

“Other years you’d probably get held up because the stores end up filling but this year there were no hold ups,” he said.

“They had the capacity to handle all the spuds in the ground.”

Mr Elphinstone said while the very dry conditions had meant extra irrigation costs for many growers, overall it had been a positive season.

“It was probably slightly above average overall, but it wasn’t a huge amount above average,” he said.

“There was some untimely rain, which did cause some rot issues for some growers.”

Price negotiations between the grower committee and Simplot for the upcoming season are underway and are expected to be finalised in the next couple of weeks.

Mr Elphinstone said the aim was to negotiate a price that would enable growers to maintain the gross margin.

The long irrigation season had added some extra production cost for most growers this year.

“It definitely did add a fair bit of pressure in the gross margin with the extra pumping costs but some years it’s down, so we try to look at the average over five years,” he said.

“Anything to do with freight or using diesel has gone up and the price of seed has gone up as well.”

Despite the rising costs, Mr Elphinstone said the seasonal conditions had helped inject some confidence back into the industry.

“Having a really good planting season, a half decent growing season, albeit a bit tough with irrigation, and probably the best harvest season we’ve ever had, confidence is a lot higher than it has been,” he said.

“You need those good positive years in there too.”

TasFarmers Vegetable Council chairman Nathan Richardson said overall it had been a good season for most vegetable crops including potatoes.

“Sometimes the early potato growers are planting a crop when they’ve still got potatoes to be harvested but that’s not going to happen this year,” he said.

“It’s been a reasonably good growing season and planting season and definitely good harvest season.  All in all, I haven’t heard too many complaints about last season.”

Mr Richardson said after a long and dry season some growers were concerned about the lack of rain.

“Up until a couple of weeks ago I think a lot of people around here were getting quite nervous, but we’ve finally had some runoff,” he said.

“It’s still fairly dry though so we’ll need some more.”