Co. Meath potato grower, Tony McKeever, has confirmed that his potato yields will be down 10%, year-on-year.
This is on the basis of trial digs carried out by Teagasc over recent days.
McKeever grows a combination of two varieties: Markies, for the chipping market and Rooster, for the retail packing sector.
“The white skinned chipping potatoes are already in store. I don’t have actual yield figures yet. But on the basis of the potatoes that actually came out of the ground, they will be down on last year.
“We are still waiting to harvest the Rooster acreage. This is because of the late planting date,” he said.
The Castletown-based farmer grows 80ac of main crop potatoes on an annual basis, with Rooster making up most of the output.
“It could be next week before my 2024 crops of Rooster are ready for harvest. However, two trial digs, one carried out by Teagasc, has confirmed that yields will be down on previous years,” McKeever added.
Potato yields
Significantly, McKeever, has indicated that potato prices are holding up reasonably well at the present time.
Meanwhile, a range of other harvest related activities are taking place on the farm at the present time.
“We grew a crop of forage maize under contract for a neighbouring dairy farmer this year. It is due to be harvested over the coming days.
“This will be followed by winter wheat. The break in potato harvesting is also allowing us to get other winter cereals planted out, including gluten-free oats,” he said.
Ground conditions across most of Ireland’s tillage areas remain very good. This is allowing potato growers to get on with the 2024 harvest in an interrupted manner.
There are now growing hopes that the vast bulk of the 2024 potato harvest will be in store before the end of October.
This in contrast with both 2023 and 2022, which saw significant acreages of ware potatoes over-wintered in their drills.
If a complete potato harvest can be achieved over the coming weeks, it will maximise both the yield and quality of Irish ware potatoes that will be available for sale over the coming months.
Difficult harvesting conditions over recent weeks have badly hampered harvesting operations across many parts of Europe and the UK.
Irish potato growers have confirmed that rain falling on ground at the present time is not hampering their ability to get heavy machinery into and out of fields.