Potato Data

I know that the Relfster is on tenterhooks waiting for a bit of potato data.  The wait's over, Relfmeister, we started harvesting last week which explains the lack of entries.  It's a serious time of year and I am a happier and better person when we have this money, sorry I meant crop, safely gathered home.

Sorry that the tractor is filthy, it was quite wet when we started.  Things are now proceeding quite nicely.  The ground has dried up a lot in the last three days and the rain that is forecast tonight will not be unwelcome. 

The yields look a bit better here than last year and the soil conditions so far have been very good indeed.  I am hearing very varied reports from other growers, however.  The first field yielded 24 boxes of dirty Maris Piper (over 45mm) to the acre plus one tonne to the acre (under 45mm), it is likely to be one of the better fields.  I have not got a clean weight on these yet, sorry Catman, but the gross weight was averaging around one tonne for each box over 45mm.  The size and quality were good and we have sold all the potatoes from this field to a supermarket packer.  Prices are quite a bit lower than last year unfortunately and, I suspect, not far from our cost of production.

We are only running a small harvest team because we are also harvesting cut flowers but we have managed to harvest at least 100 boxes every day so far which is fine for a low cost team like ours.  I am driving one of the tractor and trailers so am catching up with my office jobs each time my trailer gets unloaded.