Potato harvest is slowly creeping on

A significant amount of precipitation fell in many places last week. As predicted, a lot of water fell, especially in the coastal areas. At the end of September, the southwest already received a lot of precipitation, which means that the plots are now saturated. A considerable amount of water has also fallen in Belgium and France. An exception to the rule is Limburg, where harvesting was still possible last week.

Still harvested
Aviko Potato, who monitors harvest progress every week calculate, shows small progress for all Dutch areas. Only North Holland remains unchanged, although this province has the highest percentage harvested: 55%. With barely 20% cleared, most remains to be done in the southwest. This figure fits the opinions of insiders. The main crop of ware potatoes is still in the ground almost everywhere. Drought, heat and the fact that plots were not sufficiently dead have meant that little progress has been made previously.

It is striking that Aviko puts the harvest in the southeast at 20%, with only 2% of the acreage having been delivered in a week. Yet it was possible to harvest here. Some clearing was also done on the sandy soils in the northeast at the beginning of the week and on Saturday. A few plots in Flevoland were also cleared a week ago, after which work came to a complete standstill.

Only 8.000 hectares cleared
Europe-wide, the greatest concerns lie with Belgium, where less than 10% of the potato area has been cleared. This means that of the estimated 78.400 hectares of ware potatoes, less than 8.000 hectares have been harvested. The situation is slightly more advanced in France, but there too the vast majority of the potato harvest still needs to be harvested. Compared to 2019, this autumn is significantly behind. This is due to the precipitation that fell from the end of September.

If we look at the east of Europe, a different picture is visible. In Germany, almost three quarters have been cleared and Poland is almost approaching the finish line. It also rained there, but this improved rather than deteriorated harvesting conditions. Yet the area is also very wet, but the harvesters keep driving. In the United Kingdom, about 60% has now been cleared. The clearing work there was largely at a standstill last week.

Better weather expected
There is no panic among growers yet. Hardly any precipitation is forecast for the next 14 days, which means that the clearing work can be resumed from about the middle of the week. Night temperatures drop to just below 5 degrees, which does not cause many obstacles. Growers in Belgium and Northern France are also expected to start harvesting work, although the pace will not be very high after all the rainfall.