Insiders expect the 2020 Polish potato crop to be bigger than last year. A larger potato area and favorable growing conditions are the building blocks for this expectation.
At the beginning of June, Poland's official statistics office announced that the potato area increased by over 5% (or 17.000 hectares) has increased to approximately 325.000 hectares. The statistics office also reported an expected average hectare yield of about 25 tons per hectare, which in theory could result in a harvest of about 8 million tons of potatoes.
That expectation has already been raised by insiders. The combination of a larger potato area and the favorable growing conditions of this season are reason for them to now expect a yield of 9 million tons. On light soils there is sometimes even talk of a yield of 50 tons per hectare. This would make the harvest clearly larger than last year.
Favorable weather conditions
Although the combination of cold and drought was initially not very conducive to crop growth (sometimes frost was even a major problem), the situation on most potato plots improved considerably in the second half of May. Although there was higher pressure due to phytophthora.
In addition, the summer period has so far been characterized by fewer major heat waves and droughts, while there was plenty of this last year. Insiders in the Polish potato market therefore assume that this year's potato harvest will be significantly higher than last year.