Crop tour Potatoes - Week 13
Plant or wait? This is what growers of the Crop Tour do
Now that temperatures are slowly rising and the soil is starting to warm up, many farmers are itching to get going. The first participants in the Crop Tour have also started planting potatoes. Opinions differ on the ideal planting moment. With early(er) potatoes, you want to start as soon as the soil is suitable, but planting early also means that the crop will decline early in a warm July and August.
The weather in the spring of 2025 is certainly not against us with good, dry (almost too dry) conditions for sowing and planting. Now that we are approaching the end of March and the weather conditions are favourable, it is time to see how far the Gewastour participants are with the preparations for the potato season and to make a tour of the fields.
Philip Kroes from Dronten, Flevoland, was one of the first to start planting potatoes last Monday. Brian Salomé from IJzendijke in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen was also busy with the early potatoes last Thursday, but thinks it is still too early for Innovator. Daan Tap from Elst in Gelderland was also busy fertilizing the Gewastour plot last Thursday. He is spreading 40 cubic meters of cattle manure and hopes to be able to start planting this week.
Achieving maximum return
Kees Trouw from Hellevoetsluis, South Holland, has received his seed potatoes and is busy getting his planting combination ready. However, he is still keeping an eye on the weather forecast and is waiting until next week to decide whether it is time to start. "Still early enough", he notes. René Mesken from Ravenswoud in Friesland is also waiting a bit and does not want to start planting his potatoes until after 1 April. "You have to draw the line somewhere", says René. "The 1 April line is based on past experience. I want the potatoes to come up quickly."
René points out that potatoes that are planted very early are physiologically older when it becomes dry in the summer, which reduces resistance to drought. "But it is mainly a matter of feeling", he adds. Kees Trouw confirms this and indicates that it has to do with growing days: "The trick is to still have a vital crop in the period of high temperatures, late July and August. Otherwise they die off very quickly in mid-August, and that is at the expense of the yield."
Too early for Innovater
Brian Salomé also agrees and explains that he now only plants the early potatoes for delivery from the field, while the Innovators are still in the cold store. René Mesken only grows Fontane and Innovator for storage and finds the third or fourth week of April ideal. At the moment he is busy with kilning, spreading manure, and spraying potash, and still delivering old harvest. Gybert Doggen from Wouw, Noord-Brabant, emphasizes that drought sensitivity on the sand plays a major role here. "Other crops are planted first in the spring. Planting up to and including the end of May has in the past yielded few bad yields or quality", he says.
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