Wisconsin potato industry positioned well for winter and spring shipping
Wisconsin potato industry positioned well for winter and spring shipping
Amid their winter potato shipping season, Wisconsin potato growers are enjoying a very positive season, according to Tamas Houlihan, executive director of the Antigo, WI-based Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association.
In a Jan. 11 telephone interview, Houlihan indicated that Wisconsin’s potato volume is down about 8 percent from the 2015 crop. One reducing factor was too much rain in August and September. Furthermore, 2015 brought Wisconsin a bumper potato crop. Wisconsin harvested 26 million hundredweight in 2016, down from 28 million the previous season.
Tamas Houlihan
The 2016 crop yields about 430 hundredweight per acre. In the previous growing season, the figure was over 450 per acre. Furthermore, there was a 1,000-acre drop in 2016 plantings from 63,000 acres the previous year.
“Wisconsin growers are still doing a good job of marketing and getting value for their crop," Houlihan said. "We have excellent quality.”
Wisconsin potato growers are expected to slow down their shipping volume “since supplies are a little lower," he said. "We will have to pace out shipments to match supplies through the spring and summer. A lot of the bigger houses ship through the year but they may need to pace it out to make it through the spring and summer.”
Of the national potato business, Houlihan added, “I don’t think prices will be quite as high.”
Red River Valley growers endured “tremendous rain” late in their harvest season, so “they’re short,” he added. But the shortage in the Red River Valley and Wisconsin “maybe will be made up” by the large potato volume coming from Idaho.
Houlihan praised Wisconsin growers who, “I think have capitalized on their outstanding reputation in producing a high-quality crop.” Badger State growers have also built their reputation “by being very responsive in customer service; in a lot of cases bringing delivery overnight. “When customers need it tomorrow, they find a load and get it on time when the customers need it.”
Houlihan also credited Wisconsin growers’ “outstanding environmental stewardship” toward building a strong reputation.
Wisconsin’s importance to the national produce industry comes in part from producing all potato varieties. These include reds, russets, yellows, fingerlings and other specialty varieties.
“We have what a buyer needs,” he said. .
