The 2024 potato harvest continues apace with most growers hoping to have field work wrapped up before the middle of November.

This is in total contrast to the situation that prevailed 12 months ago when continuous rain and atrocious ground conditions made the digging of potatoes almost impossible.

Growers are reporting that the potatoes yields are of excellent quality. However, reported yields are back by up to 2t/ac on normal levels.

This is a direct consequence of the late 2024 planting dates: a legacy of the much delayed spring.

Compensating for the slight drop-off in yields is the projected increase in Ireland’s 2024 potato acreage.

And again, this is a legacy of the late spring with many growers opting to plant potatoes in ground that had been originally earmarked for spring cereals.

Growers across the board are expressing deep satisfaction at the opportunity now presenting itself to harvest potatoes with ground conditions universally acknowledged as being exceptional.

This ensures that tubers going into cold store are in excellent condition.

Potato harvest

Meanwhile, the advancement of technology is helping potato growers to enhance their decision making processes, where both crop management and harvesting are concerned.

One example of this is the development of a new integrated camera and software-based crop analysis system and one of the companies behind these new developments is the UK-based business, HarvestEye.

Its system has the potential to allow farmers and packers to comprehensively assess the yield and range of potato sizes produced by a specific crop while the harvester is still in the field.

Could the benefits offered by new harvest analysis technology have an impact on the Irish potato sector?

Agriland saw at first hand how the system is currently being assessed under commercial harvesting conditions by the Wilson’s Country potato packing operation.

Company agronomist, Stuart Meredith, said: “HarvestEye comprises a camera, which is placed above the picking table on the harvester, and a computer tablet, located in the cab of the harvester.

“Every potato coming across the picking table is photographed with the associated software delivering a same day report which confirms the yield generated at each location across a field plus the range of tuber sizes and shapes that are harvested.

“All this information is then made automatically available to the grower, packer or processer.”

He added: “As a yield mapping tool, the technology will allow growers to future plan their crop management activities more effectively.

“From a packer’s perspective, it provides real time information on the potatoes that are going into cold store.”

He has highlighted that “Irish potato farms are quite different to English and Scottish businesses” because many of them have little, if any, cold storage facilities to cover the volume of potatoes they are growing.

“We at Wilsons Country grow and store our own crops. However, we also buy potatoes from 25 preferred growers across the island of Ireland.

“The bulk of these potatoes are purchased at harvest time and loaded into our cold store facility in Co. Armagh.

“This carries lot of the risk for the business as we could find ourselves storing these potatoes for up to 8 months. So we need to get as much information as possible about the crops that we are purchasing,” Meredith added.

He said the company is able to get daily report from the system it is currently assessing to allow them to see the marketable yield.

Meredith said: “This is achieved by measuring the size of reach potato passing over the picking table on the harvester.

“Our marketable size band within the business is 45mm to 85mm. The use of HarvestEye will allow us to percentage of a specific day’s digging that falls outside this specification.

“This, in turn, allows us to agree a more accurate potato prices with growers.

According to Co. Down based potato grower, Derek Irwin, in contrast to 12 months ago, both weather and field conditions remain good.

He said: “Yields are down slightly on last year.

“This is a direct result of the late planting dates and the fact that we had very little sunshine throughout the summer period. However, the quality of the potatoes we are digging is very good,” he said.

According to Irwin technology can be useful because “information is king within any business” and he said that any technology that can deliver a “full breakdown of what tonnages of potatoes we are lifting on a daily basis and the actual size ranges they fall into” is welcome.

Potato harvest

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Wilson’s Country

Watch: How is the 2024 potato harvest going?