How much still needs to be harvested?

On reference date October 25, it was estimated that approximately 60% of the Dutch consumption potato area was still in the ground. That honey Aviko Potato. According to Aviko's figures, this was still just under 1% on Friday, November 20.

Unique situation?
Earlier on connected we calculate these percentages. The area for consumption potatoes for the main harvest for the Netherlands amounts to 56.320 hectares. This would mean that more than 46.000 hectares have been cleared and 10.000 hectares are still in the ground. However, these figures are not leading for the Netherlands, but they do provide some guidance and a realistic picture. The fact is that the area to be cleared was not that large on November 1 in recent years.

If we look at harvest progress per province, most work still needs to be done in North Holland. There would still be 40% in the ground. This is followed by the Northeast Netherlands (75%). The most has been cleared in the southeast, because 95% of it is behind the planks. When we look at the figures, they correspond quite well with what insiders think. It is expected that approximately 15% still needs to be cleared in the southwest and this is also the case for Flevoland. Most of the potatoes are still grown in the Noordoostpolder. Priority has been given to onions and seed potatoes.

Onion harvest almost ready
There were still quite a few, especially in the center and north of the Netherlands, at the end of October onions on the land. The insiders estimate that the area to be cleared and loaded is 5.000 hectares. Currently approximately 95% harvested, that's what they think. Approximately 250 hectares are still on the land. This is partly because conditions did not allow harvesting. Transport was the bottleneck, especially for land deliveries. Customers were not able to arrange transport on time everywhere and there was no possibility for emergency storage. The quality of the late onions varies, but can be considered averagely good.

Progress has been made in all European countries with regard to the potato harvest. Despite the 25% progress, the United Kingdom is now at the bottom of the list, with 20% still to be harvested. In France and Belgium, about 1% has been cleared in 20 week. Germany and Poland are preparing for the last hectares, as Aviko figures show.

Expectations
The question now is: when can the harvest resume? Last weekend, between 5 and 20 millimeters of water fell in the Netherlands. Relatively much precipitation fell, especially in the southwest. However, the soil is often still saturated, which means that every little bit is too much at the moment. Slightly changeable weather is expected this week, which means that harvesting progress will not be as quick as last week. This makes it realistic that not everything will be harvested before mid-November.

Rain also fell in Belgium, France and Germany. However, in slightly lesser quantities. The harvest will probably go better here, because a minimum amount of precipitation is also expected in the coming days. The situation is particularly tense in the United Kingdom, because a fair amount of water has fallen there and there is flooding.