After such a wet spring it was surprising to hear a news report about numerous wild fires causing mayhem in the north of the province. Fires were rushing across the countryside uncontrolled, consuming everything in their paths. Sadly, one community was also affected. Around 7,000 residents of Slave Lake were nervously monitoring the course of the fire and were thought to have had a lucky escape.

Unfortunately, the wind changed direction and 62mph winds blew burning embers into the town, which ignited and resulted in two-thirds of the town being obliterated. Some residents reportedly had less than 15 minutes’ notice to gather all essentials and evacuate. Most fires are now thankfully under control.

The south of the province, however, has had steady rain and puddles, ponds and lakes are reappearing in fields once again. Thankfully, due to a decent stretch of good weather at the start of May, most crops are now in the ground.

The potato planting campaign was a rather frustrating affair this spring. I was constantly battling reliability issues with our Spudnik 6-row planter. If it wasn’t broken down, it was getting stuck. The tow rope became a permanent feature at the front of the planting tractor for a second season. Planter output was disappointingly slow. The stressful ongoing struggle caused several bouts of increased blood pressure, not to mention the air surrounding the planter turning blue on numerous occasions.

With a late planting into a cold soggy seed-bed, our yield potential has probably been reduced. To try and alleviate these factors we narrowed the spacing slightly from 30cm to 28cm between seed tubers. This will achieve a higher plant population a hectare and more tubers/yield, albeit at a slightly smaller size profile. We also cut the seed at a larger average weight than typical to increase seed vigour and possibly additional stems a plant.