“On our farm in Alberta, resilience isn’t a buzzword. It’s a design principle. We’ve been building small, circular systems that integrate food, energy, carbon and data long before ‘regenerative’ became common language,” said Chris Perry in an LinkedIn post prior to his departure for Davos.

“The lesson has been clear: If something only works for one farm, it’s a pilot. If it works for many, it becomes infrastructure. When partnerships share risk, create real economics for farmers and stay long enough to learn together, adoption scales and resilience become real.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Southern Alberta networking and panel work at World Economic Forum puts Canada front and centre in international collaboration in agriculture.

Perry Family Farm near Chin, Alta., grows potatoes, green peas, sunflowers, seed canola, wheat and barley on its 5,000 acres. Invited by PepsiCo, Chris Perry said he is deeply honoured to meet among fellow agricultural world leaders and contribute on two connected conversations on two separate panels.

Partners in Possibility: Collaborating for Resilient Food Systems puts Perry alongside Jim Andrew, chief sustainability officer for PepsiCo, Andrew Walton, chief sustainability officer for Lloyds Banking Group, and Jan Christoph Kalbath, global head of sustainability and energy transition for Louis Dreyfus Co.

The discussion will focus on how collaboration across farmers, brands, finance and policy can move solutions from pilots to true infrastructure.

The Farmers First: Scaling a More Resilient Food System panel puts farmers at the centre of the conversation as partners shaping solutions.

Perry will be joined by:

• Thibaud Deschamps, a rapeseed farmer from France and part of the La Tricherie co-operative, known for sustainability leadership.

• Maria Vitória Vasconcelos, a third-generation corn grower from Brazil using agroforestry to build resilience, whose story is featured in National Geographic’s Food for Tomorrow series.

• Host Ramon Laguarta, chair and CEO of PepsiCo and moderator Jim Andrew.

“What makes this panel special is the intent behind it. To listen first. To acknowledge what works, what doesn’t and how we strengthen collaboration to scale what is already proving itself on farms around the world,” said Perry.

“Farmers invest in decades and generations, not financial quarters or election cycles. Bringing that mindset into global forums matters if we’re serious about food security, climate resilience and the future of farming. Grateful for the trust, proud to represent farmers and very much looking forward to the conversations ahead in Davos.”

It has been a whirlwind year for Perry Family Farms. Along with being invited to speak at the World Economic Forum, the farm has been featured in a Frito Lay potato chip commercial and took home the PepsiCo Farmer of the Year award.

The post Alberta farmer invited to World Economic Forum appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Jonathan Neilson, from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, said southern Alberta provides the perfect testing area.

WHY IT MATTERS: Increasingly extreme weather patterns in Alberta could put crops like potatoes at more risk for damage and loss of yields.

“The frequency and intensity of hailstorms and severe wind is increasing, and Alberta is considered hail alley for Canada,” he said.

“The other thing that seems to be a trend that’s happening is that the timing of the events is going outside of what would normally be considered the season (peak activity occurring mid-June to early August). So we’re seeing hail earlier and then also later.”

Neilson and his team have found that the timing of severe weather affects potatoes’ growth ability and quality.

A hailstorm before the tuber sets is unlikely to have much of an impact. However, a hailstorm of the same magnitude affects tuber size, shape and processing quality if it were to happen during tuber bulking.

Preliminary results from his ongoing study with heat domes is showing similar results.

The impacts of severe weather can also extend beyond the current growing season. Heat domes appear to affect tuber seed dormancy, which can have negative impacts on seed quality.

“When you get hit by stress, particularly if it happens before the potatoes have set, the plant has time to recover. They might be delayed a week or two, but they’re able to regrow the damaged tissue and not have any real lasting effects. If it happens late in the growing season, in terms of yield, there’s not as much effect, because the potato’s already been produced,” said Neilson.

“It’s that middle spot where you see the most impact. So around here, that would be in July-August, and that’s where you start seeing an impact on the total yield. You’ll see fewer tubers. You might get double sets. And then beyond the yield, it starts affecting the quality. In Canada, most of the potato growing here is destined for the processing market for french fries, chips, breakfast stuff. How the plant allocates carbon is really important. It’s an overall reflection on how much growth you get. So it could affect the size profile. You could get a mix of big potatoes and undersized, and that’s going to affect how much of your crop actually gets converted into whatever your end market is.”

Neilson said extreme heat is being seen more frequently as all-time temperature records continue to be broken.

However, it is not about how much the temperature spikes but if it remains elevated for a prolonged time.

Potatoes tend to like warmer days with cooler nights, with different parts of the plant having different thermal optimums. Depending on the temperature, it could favour root growth or shoot growth.

This year, Neilson did a greenhouse trial with heat domes at different parts of the growing season.

“We found if you got a lot of extreme heat later in the growing season, the potato tubers were coming out of the pots already sprouting. So we know that’s going to have effects on when they go into storage,” he said.

“It also potentially affects the seed industry because the seed is already going into storage, kind of ready to sprout. It’s going to have an impact on how that seed performs late.”

The research is now developing a risk-assessment tool. The hail/wind research is finished, an Excel spreadsheet has been built and there are plans to build a more robust tool in the future.

“You put in the developmental stage the plant was at, how badly you got hit and it will give you an estimate on what your potential losses could be. We’re looking at total yield, but we’re also looking to add some of these quality metrics on to it, and then also doing a similar thing looking at the heat domes,” said Neilson.

“We’re also looking at the use of biostimulants to try and offset some of these effects. We found … some sprays in controlled environments are known to increase growth and resistance to stress. When we apply those before we experience a simulated hailstorm, we’re able to lessen the negative impacts. The yields are higher, the sizes are larger.”

Researchers have also been working on ways to better assess the colour patterns of potatoes because heat stress moves carbons into the sugar pool instead of starch. When fried, the french fry can produce uneven burn/colour patterns, resulting in the potato being downgraded for less profit.

Neilson’s research is funded by the Results Driven Agriculture Research fund, Potato Growers of Alberta and the Alberta Potato Investment Fund.

“We need grower buy-in to translate what we are learning into actionable, useful things,” he said.

The post Hail research hopes to benefit potato growers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

CP Farms is family owned and operated with 2,500 acres near Barnwell, another 1,000 in Vauxhall and 500 in Raymond.

The farm primarily grows potatoes, but grain, corn, and sugar beets helps fill out four-year rotations to suppress disease and resistance.

Much of its equipment comes from Europe.

“Our soil type is a lot more similar to Western Europe versus the U.S. A lot of the U.S-built equipment are built to operate in very sandy conditions, where we have more of a clay soil. So the European equipment works way better with that,” said owner Michel Camps, a husband and father of four.

“I would say 50 per cent of the acres in southern Alberta are harvested or handled with European equipment.”

Camps prides himself on the quality seed he uses.

CP Farms multiplies about 50 per cent of its seed itself once, shipping high-generation seed from the Lacombe-Red Deer-Edmonton area.

Planters can plant about 100 acres a day with tillage capabilities, and cover crops are used in rotations to shelter soil from the windy conditions of southern Alberta.

Plenty of science and technology is used to power CP Farms, including fertilizer spreaders that have weather stations and radar. CP Farms spreads 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes of manure or compost on its land every year to improve soil health and nutrients.

“It will correct its spreading patterns reading the winds. It’s very precise in applying fertilizer. Fertilizer is very expensive and we want it where it belongs,” said Camps.

As well, receiving lines for the potatoes have Sputnik Airsep, which separates the rocks, vines, leaves and lumps from the valuable crop.

CP Farms grows four varieties of potatoes and stores 24,000 tonnes in eight bins at its Barnwell-area operation and another 9,000 tonnes in Vauxhall.

Seventy per cent of the farm’s potatoes end up in McDonald’s french fries, although McCain’s also sells to other local quick-serve restaurants as well.

Camps said not every potato is created equal for consumption.

“The McCain french fries you you see in the grocery store are not from here; they came from Manitoba,” said Camps.

“We grow four different varieties and they are all McDonald’s approved. In Manitoba, they grow 10 to 15 different varieties. Some varieties, they do really well on the retail side, which is usually a shorter cut and a shorter fry. McDonald’s prefers the longer skinnier fries.”

CP Farms can load potatoes 365 days a year and store them in a climate-controlled environment.

The storage bins are insulated to three times the regular house standards to protect against the swings of southern Alberta weather, which can range from harsh winters to cooking summers. Storage temperature is kept at about 10 C and 98 per cent humidity.

“It is important we have a constant and steady environment for potatoes,” Camps said.

“If the temperatures go up and down all the time, the potatoes are going to produce sugars. The sugars will caramelize in the frying process and make your fries look dark, which isn’t what we want.”

He said the farm uses about $15,000 worth of power a month when the bins are full.

The longer a potato is stored, the higher its price to compensate for the greater input costs that are required to keep the potato in top shape.

“We grow about 40,000 tonnes of potatoes, and 15 per cent of that volume gets harvested and sent straight to the factory (direct delivery),” he said.

“There are no farmers who have direct delivery exclusive contracts. If you want to grow potatoes in Alberta, you have to have the ability to store.”

He said direct delivery are the cheapest potatoes in his contracts.

“You have power, building depreciation, interest costs. The potatoes they buy from refrigerated storage in August, don’t forget, there’s $3 million worth of potatoes in this building if it’s full. If I had that in an investment, making four or five per cent, that all has to be accounted for. Every two weeks my contract price goes up. The potatoes are mine until they are on the scale, so I take all the risk as well (in storage). It’s still a living crop.”

There are only three weeks of the year — from around Christmas to early January — when CP Farms has no full-time staff. The operation buzzes with activityfor the rest of the year to keep it running.

“Not only do you have to run the farm, I also have to keep the shop busy. I have to order the parts. We have 200 pieces of equipment we have to service every year. That takes a lot of planning” said Camps.

“That is when I do all my crop planning, I order my fertilizer. I put my plan together for this year and next year because I know where my 2026 potatoes are going to go, but I need to know where my 2027 potatoes are going to go because that’s where the grain is going to go this year. It’s a multi-year plan.”

The post CP Farms showcases its spud production appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In its second year of existence in Alberta, Spuds in Tubs Farm to School took the lead from British Columbia and has seen keen interest in incorporating potato growing in the provincial school curriculum.

The Spuds In Tubs Program began in British Columbia several years ago by a potato producer, Bill Zylman, now chair of the Canadian Potato Council. He came up with the idea to teach kids in schools about agriculture and give them an opportunity to grow potatoes in tubs.

Zylman reached out to B.C. Ag In The Classroom, and they worked out the details to run the program.

“B.C. has been doing this for 15 years or more. It started there. It would be the second year (in Alberta),” said Deb Brewin, communications and promotions director at Potato Growers of Alberta.

“We doubled our numbers this year. We have 87 kits that have gone out across the province. That equals about 4,000 students who have been involved.”

Potato Growers of Alberta is in charge of the greenhouses for the program in the province, including Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge, Taber and Medicine Hat. The association also sources the local potatoes for the kits.

Ag For Life has a website that handles registrations and manages communication with teachers who take advantage of the program.

Students learn about plant biology, soil health and sustainable food production while growing potatoes. It allows them to observe and nurture the process in the tubs, making it easier to protect the potatoes from pests, weeds and Mother Nature. It can also be used as a teaching tool for a variety of school subjects.

“It gives them a hands-on experience to grow their own food. We built it around the Alberta curriculum, so this program can fall into social studies, math, science, a ton of subjects for kids Grade 3-9. That is where the focus is,” said Brewin.

“Students have already planted. We chose an early-variety potato that will be harvested for when kids are out of school in June. At that time, they’ll have their harvest party and reap the benefits of potatoes in their pots and hopefully cook them up.”

While growing sustenance for the body, the program also grows students’ appreciation for the time and care that is required in agriculture, from planting to harvesting and delivering it to the dinner table.

Brewin recalled a story where a teacher had a special needs student who was so into the project that they wanted to forgo recess to tend to the potato project because it brought them more joy.

“Hearing those types of stories really fills my heart. Teachers are supposed ot fill out a post-project report, and we get a lot of information on what they learned and things maybe we can improve on,” said Brewin.

“Ag For Life is a pretty big deal. They supply tons of ag-related resources to teachers, they go to schools with talks on programs as well. We have a very good partnership with them.”

Russet sponsors for the project include ​Alberta Potato Industry Associates, Cavendish, Edmonton Potato Growers, FW Seed Potatoes, Independent Crop Inputs, Lamb Weston, Miyanaga Farms Ltd., Old Dutch Foods, Simplot, SLM Spud Farms and Woordman Farms.

Tuber sponsors are Grassy Lake Potato Company and Jakeco Holdings.

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To date, the Canadian Potato Council, the Prince Edward Island Potato Board, the Province of PEI, and other stakeholders have been involved throughout the development of the new response plan, the CFIA said in a news release yesterday.

Recommendations from the International Advisory Panel on Potato Wart and input from previous consultations have also been  incorporated.

The plan will be one of several complementary processes used by the CFIA to help manage potato wart and prevent its spread alongside measures like a national potato wart survey and phytosanitary export certification procedures, the CFIA said.

The final plan will replace the current Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan, and will apply to new detections of potato wart anywhere in Canada other than Newfoundland and Labrador.

The consultation closes January 6, 2025.

In late 2021, two processing potato fields on the island were confirmed infected with potato wart.

On U.S. trade concerns, the federal government shut down fresh potato exports from the province. Most trade resumed in April 2022.

The 2021 cases were followed by confirmations in February, July and December of 2022, bringing in export restrictions and mitigation orders.

The most recent national potato wart survey found no cases of the disease.

The post Potato growers’ feedback wanted in final response plan consultation appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The south, central and Peace regions of Alberta wrapped up their harvests, while the northeast and northwest reached 97 per cent done.

The province’s sugar beets were 90 per cent harvested, the least advanced of the crops left to finish. Oats were next at 97 per cent completed, followed by canola at 98, then spring wheat, barley and flax at 99.

Average spring wheat yields came in at 44.7 bushels per acre provincewide, ranging from a low of 39.5 in the south to a high of 50.8 in the northwest. Barley gleaned 57.2 bu./ac. with a low of 52.6 in the central region to a high of 69 in the northwest. Oat yields were 67.9 bu./ac. overall, with the least in the south at 48.8 and the most in the northwest at 79.4.

Canola averaged 33.3 bu./ac. across Alberta, with the south at 27.1 and the northwest at 38.6. For dry peas, yields came in at 35.3 bu./ac. provincially, with the south at 34.3 and the Peace region at 38.4.

Surface soil moisture levels remained an issue at 41 per cent good to excellent, slipping four points from the previous week. Regionally, the south lost five points at 50 per cent good to excellent, the northeast was down three points at 24 per cent, and the northwest shed one point at 30 per cent. On the plus side, the south added five points at 43 per cent good to excellent, and the Peace gained six at 93 per cent.

As fieldwork continued, the fall-seeded crops were rated at 53 per cent good to excellent provincewide, 11 points below the five-year average. Pastures in Alberta dipped one point to 33 per cent good to excellent, two above the five-year average.

The post Alberta harvest wraps up appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The southern Alberta farm is in its fourth generation, operated by brothers Ryland and Lyndon Nakamura. As they head into the growing season, they’re looking forward to another year of growing spuds and digging a bountiful harvest that will become potato chips and french fries.

Quality spuds recently earned them the North American Grower of the Year award from the processor, only the second time it’s been awarded to a Canadian operation and the first for a western Canadian farm. The husband and wife duo Gabriel Blouin and Marie-Josée Lepage of L’Île-d’Orléans of Quebec won in 2022.

The award recognizes potato quality and also the practices used to grow them. When the Nakamuras travelled to this year’s Frito Lay Potato Expo in Austin, Texas, they intended to meet other farmers and enjoy a few days of professional development. They ended up leaving with heavier suitcases.

As awards were handed out during the banquet evening, they sat at their table enjoying a beer. That’s when the emcee began to speak about the Grower of the Year. As a description of the farm was read, it became evident that Nakamura Farms was the subject.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” says Lyndon, adding it’s not an award solely for the brothers. The farm employs 45 people at high season who are critical to the farm’s success.

“It takes everybody, not just Ryland and myself, to plan, prepare and organize. It also comes down to the hands on deck and the boots on the ground that put it all into action. Everybody’s got a role to play at the end of the day. They play a part to make it all successful.”

The Nakamuras sell to five major processors in southern Alberta, including Frito-Lay. Their records must be precise and include everything from dates and times of field passes, crop protection applications, products and rates, even the number of times a field was scouted and what was found. It’s all logged for quality control purposes.

With huge commitments from potato and fry producers, such as regeneratively grown potatoes and sustainable metrics to market to consumers, the brothers know their farming practices are under a microscope. It doesn’t bother them one bit.

“We’ve been doing it for a long time,” says Lyndon of regenerative practices. “We’ve always cover cropped because we don’t want to lose topsoil.”

They lay down a multi-species blend of cover crops each year and focus heavily on fertility, reducing overall tillage, making space for wildlife habitats and doing what they can to improve biodiversity. They share field records with their processors, which also have high standards they must adhere to, in order to receive certain certifications.

They haul potatoes every two to three weeks year-round.

“You could just haul grain once in a while, but when you’re a potato farmer, you get to supply those plants year-round,” says Ryland. “There are spuds coming out of storage and then sometimes you’re digging fresh for a different plant at the same time.”

Having grown for Frito Lay for many years, the brothers value the relationship with the nearby processor and plan to continue doing business with them and the others indefinitely.

“There’s a lot of pride growing for Frito just based on their branding and their connection back to the farms,” says Lyndon. “There’s pride growing for all of them, but especially Frito Lay.”

He says the company keeps farmers in the loop about its production process, upcoming varieties and what next year will bring for demand and production needs.

The brothers’ biggest challenge this year will be Mother Nature. The last few years have been very dry. A mild winter and minimal snowpack have many in the region asking questions about water availability.

Their current water allocation is eight inches, half of what they’d typically require to produce quality potatoes. If they receive little or no rain, like they did in 2023, they’ll have to make tough decisions.

The priority is always potatoes. Those spuds are already under contract, unlike their other crops.

“We’re going to put grain on a lot of our pivots and then if it’s not looking that good, partway through the year we’ll just stop watering the grain and transfer all the water to potatoes,” says Ryland. “That’s the only backup plan we have as of yet. We’ll keep our head down and keep grinding and hopefully have enough water.”

With so much effort put into producing the vegetable at Nakamura Farms, the brothers have no desire to shift gears.

“We invested a pile [of money] and all our investment is in there,” says Ryland. “To start up potato farming is pretty hard. We’re just lucky to have inherited the farm which already had investments in the buildings and storage. You kind of have to stick with potatoes and it’s for the best. It’s a lot more work, but it’s worth it in the end.”

The brothers continue to seek land to purchase or rent to expand their potato acres.

The post Nakamura brothers win major potato award appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

But when it comes to sustainability, they’ve got a hurdle to clear because there’s no escaping some level of soil disturbance when growing and harvesting.

That doesn’t mean the relationship between soil health and the potato sector can’t improve, according to Cam Ogilvie of the Institute for Soil Health.

“I’m part of an institution that’s based on science, so what I want to share with you is some real data-driven ways that we are thinking about soil health and particularly what that means in potato systems,” he said, speaking to potato growers at an industry event in Brandon, Manitoba in early 2024.

Soil is the medium in which dead tissue is absorbed, recycled and rejuvenated into living tissue. In poetic terms, it’s the shop floor of nature’s factory.

“Soil health is the continuous capacity of a soil to function, being able to do the things that we depend on it to do,” Ogilvie said. “I like to think about five different types of soil functions.”

First, soils cycle water and nutrients, two major raw materials required on that metaphorical factory floor. Secondly, soil contains a complex ecosystem that helps regulate pests and diseases. Certain organisms within the soil are themselves pathogenic to crop-damaging pathogens.

Third, structure and stability creates pore spaces within the soil profile that contain air and water. Fourth, those spaces provide habitat in which different and diverse organisms live and work and fifth, all those components filter and buffer pollutants, breaking down and detoxifying them.

Those functions work together to create a living medium on which plants depend, Ogilvie said. Understanding how they work is key to developing better ways to manage soil, so their performance must be quantified.

“We went to 124 long-term experimental sites in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico that compared soil management practices over 10 years or more,” he said. “We collected soils, ran over 30 different tests on them so we could figure out which ones are effective across North America.”

Using that data, the institute focused on three metrics that it has applied to soil sampling efforts.

The big three

The first test measures carbon mineralization potential, or the amount of carbon dioxide given off by soil organisms as they eat, digest and decompose organic material like roots and other tissue. Results indicate the size and activity of the microbial community in a given soil sample.

The second test is aggregate stability. According to Kelsey Greub of the University of Arkansas, this is “the ability of a soil to maintain its physical structure and withstand external forces.

“It’s related to physical, chemical and biological soil properties, and is sensitive to changes in soil management.”

The third measurement is soil organic carbon.

“A lot of us are familiar with soil organic matter and this is just the carbon fraction of it,” Ogilvie said. “Organic matter is made up of carbon, nitrogen, all sorts of other things. With soil organic carbon, we’re just looking at the carbon portion, which is roughly 50 percent.”

Using the factory metaphor, the three tests are equivalent to measuring the labour output, structural integrity of the building and fuel stores. The better the quality of all three, the better the work and product.

And, like a factory, quality of management will affect those measures. Ogilvie indicated four basic management principles to keep the metaphorical factory running well.

“We want to minimize soil disturbance such as tillage or chemicals. We want to maximize soil cover. We want to maximize the amount of living roots in the soil and we want to maximize biodiversity.”

A natural grassland, for example, ticks all those boxes, something often noted by Canada’s cattle sector.

In potatoes, limited soil disturbance is a challenge, but not a lost cause, said Ogilvie.

“There are some different ways that you can do this. You can completely remove a tillage pass or you can take two tillage operations and you can move them into one. Some people are starting to direct-plant their potatoes rather than making hills and planting as a separate one. That reduces erosion.”

Manitoba farms are among those trying new minimal soil disturbance strategies.

In 2020, Chad Berry of Under the Hill Farms near Glenboro, Manitoba hosted a demonstration trial of his own reduced-tillage efforts. In co-operation with J.R. Simplot, he looked to put yield impact numbers to his direct-seeded potato acres.

On the same field, acres were divided so that half were conventionally managed and half were direct planted into canola stubble using a one-pass hilling system brought to Manitoba with help from genAg.

Results showed no significant yield or quality difference between the conventional and direct-seeded acres. There was a slight emergence delay on the direct-seeded half, but stands caught up to their conventional counterparts during the season, and no difference in harvest date was noted.

“It definitely helped with soil erosion,” Berry said in 2021, after the project wrapped up. “It prevented any blowing.”

Berry also noted fuel savings.

Cover crops are another soil health tactic in potatoes, designed to keep residue in the field to feed soil biota and maintain living roots for as long as possible.

Brendon Rockey of Rockey Colorado Farm in the U.S., uses cover crops in regenerative potato production.

For him, the main goal was better water infiltration and holding capacity, but versions of cover crops using mustard have also garnered attention for biofumigation against pathogens like verticillium wilt.

“When we integrate cover crops into our cropping systems, we increase the size and activity of the microbial community,” Ogilvie said. “We improve soil structure and we sequester more carbon in that soil.”

Some farmers in Alberta have combined fall hilling with cover crops. Freeze/thaw cycles help mellow the soil structure in the hill, while the greater surface area of the hill allows soil to warm up quicker in spring Ogilvie said.

“An extra benefit that comes is that you can get some roots in that hill.”

There are cautions, however. Producers concerned about water availability might want to skip cover crops that overwinter so they don’t take up water that could otherwise go to the potato crop.

Switching focus

There is still a lot to learn. Chemical soil traits have typically reigned supreme in agriculture, Ogilvie notes, and only recently has soil biology started to earn more attention.

“For me, this is what I think about when I use the word ‘regenerative,’” Ogilvie said. “If you’re improving how your soil is functioning, if you are improving the services that your soil provides by using soil conservation practices, that to me is what regenerative is all about.”

The post Making potatoes friendly to soil health appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The CFIA in its 2023 national potato wart survey tested for the soil-borne fungus in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

This marks the second year the survey turned up no cases of potato wart, though the 2022 survey did not include P.E.I, which struggled with the fungus in 2021 and 2022.

In late 2021, two processing potato fields on the island were confirmed infected with potato wart.

On U.S. trade concerns, the federal government shut down fresh potato exports from the province. Most trade resumed in April 2022.

The 2021 cases were followed by confirmations in February, July and December of 2022, bringing in export restrictions and mitigation orders.

Earlier this year, the federal government asked for producer feedback on new potato wart guidance documents and plans.

The post Potato wart survey comes back clean appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

At 32.063 million hundredweight of potatoes this year, Alberta vaulted from third to first place as it improved on the previous year’s crop of 26.813 million. Manitoba moved into second spot from third with its harvest of 29.760 million cwt. following last year’s 26.139 million. Prince Edward Island saw its output reduced in 2023 to 25.813 million cwt. from 27.789 million. In 2023, the trio combined for 68 per cent of Canada’s total potato harvest of 128,801 million cwt.

Victoria Stamper, general manager of the United Potato Growers of Canada, noted production in Eastern Canada was mostly down in 2023. She said PEI was hit with rain during its harvest, while Quebec and New Brunswick contended with wet conditions through their summer and during harvest as well.

Stamper said Manitoba and especially Alberta saw greatly different conditions in 2023.

“Alberta has been in drought conditions for a few years now. They’ve been helped out with irrigation. Even that was getting tough. There were some growers who moved some their irrigation to from other crops to potatoes,” she commented.

StatCan calculated 397,232 acres of potatoes were seeded in Canada in 2023, of which 387,061 were harvested. That’s an improvement from 385,146 and 379,955 respectively in 2022. The average yield was up for a third consecutive year at 332.8 cwt. per acre compared to 325.1 in 2022 and 318.7 in 2021.

Alberta’s planted potato area came to 80,100 acres in 2023, up from 73,080 the previous year. Harvested acres rose to 76,440 from 71,325. Yields pushed past the 400 mark this year, at 419.5 cwt./ac. compared to 375.9 in 2022.

In Manitoba, planted acres nudged up to 81,000 in 2023 from 80,500 and those at harvest rose to 80,000 from 79,250. Yields improved to 372 cwt./ac. this year versus the 329.8 in 2022.

PEI’s potato acres saw some slight adjustments, with planted at 84,500 this year from 83,300 and harvested acres dipped to 83,000 from 83,200. Yields retreated to 311 cwt./ac. this year from the 334 in 2022.

As for the rest of the provinces, their potato crops were: New Brunswick 14.879 million cwt., Quebec 13.492 million, Ontario 8.602 million, British Columbia 2.140 million, Saskatchewan 1.780 million, Nova Scotia 222,000 and Newfoundland and Labrador 50,000.

Manitoba is scheduled to mark its Potato Production Days at the Canad Inns in Brandon from Jan. 24 to 25.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg. 

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