What does the first trial harvest show?

As usual, this trading house only samples the Innovator variety in terms of growth development. This concerns the irrigated plots in the Noordoostpolder. Van der Linde's trial harvestings are therefore (obviously) not representative for the rest of the Netherlands; let alone the state of the potatoes in northwestern Europe.

However, there are a number of indicators that current story indicate the market. What stands out?

Not the lowest yields
The yields of Van der Linde's trial harvesting were compared with the 5 previous years. This has shown that this season has not yet achieved the lowest yield, because the 2015 and 2016 harvest years had lower yields around this period.

In addition, it appears that the average underwater weight (421 grams) is already very high for the time of year. The 5-year average comes out at a weight of 353 grams. Finally, it appears that the percentage of coarse is the second highest of the past 1 years (almost 5% is 67 millimeters upwards).

What does it mean?
In any case, it can be concluded from this that the potato plots in the Noordoostpolder do not yet clearly show the drought in the hectare yield. This also has to do with intensive irrigation (at least 3 times). However, the high underwater weights indicate that the potatoes are already well advanced in their growth development. The potatoes ripen early, which means that growth is slowed down.

If we look at the growth development of the 5 previous years, there was a growth spurt in weeks 33 and 34. Today that would only be in 3 weeks. The average yield of the past 5 years eventually amounted to approximately 62,5 tons of Innovator.

The main concern for the coming weeks is the development of the crops. In addition to the drought, the heat wave (which can even last for 2 weeks) is also an issue. And there is hardly any objection to that. You can guess how much growth potential there is in mid-August.