Conditions are looking good for another season of quality red, white and yellow potatoes from growers in Washington and Oregon.
The 2024 harvest is expected to get underway sometime between late July and early September, with start dates varying slightly by grower.
Burlington, Wash.-based Double-N Potatoes, ships red, yellow and white potatoes and a few purple ones, said Ryan Schols, chief financial officer.
Harvest will start the first or second week of September, he said. This year’s volume should be similar to last year’s.
The company was still planting in late June because of wetter-than-usual weather. There were no extended sunny periods during which the tubers could be planted, he said. Schols was hopeful that planting would be finished soon.
Double-N Potatoes ships from September until the end of April.
Burlington-based Valley Pride Sales LLC also will kick off its 2024 harvest in early September, said salesman David Clark.
The company, which ships potatoes year-round, offers white, red and yellow potatoes and some small potatoes for consumer packs.
Although the growing area had some cool, wet weather, Clark did not expect the less-than-ideal conditions to impact the quality of the company’s potatoes. But he did say volume could be a bit lighter than usual.
Although based in Iona, Idaho, Eagle Eye Produce has a year-round potato program out of Mattawa, Wash., said Coleman Oswald, director of sales.
“We never gap at all,” he said.
The 2024 harvest should start the first week of August.
Weather has been “sporadic,” he said, with periods of cold, wet, windy days mixed with a few hot days.
“It’s been a little bit all over the place,” he said. “But there’s nothing that concerns us in a major way.”
“We haven’t had any wild weather — no hail damage on fields and no drought conditions or anything like that.”
The company’s acreage will be down this year because of crop rotations and an industrywide oversupply.
“There’s been an oversupply situation, so grower returns are below the cost of production,” Oswald said. “We’re hopeful, with this upcoming season, that will get corrected, and we’ll get supply more in line with demand, and we’ll be able to get prices back up to sustainable levels.”
Potandon Produce, Pasco, Wash., expects to have a higher-quality crop of russet potatoes this year than last year, said Sean Davenport, marketing manager.
“Last year had its ups and downs,” he said.
This year’s crop should be more consistent.
The 2024 harvest should get underway at the end of July with no gaps, he said.
“It should be a smooth transition from the old crop to the new crop.”
But Davenport said there could be some relatively minor price changes at the end of the crop year, depending on factors like yields and quality of the existing crop.
There were no frosts or hot spells this year in Potandon’s Washington growing area, so good quality is expected, he said. Yields should be similar to last year.
If growing conditions remain “normal,” there should an even distribution of sizes, he added.
The company ships out of Washington year-round.
Washington and Oregon potato growers are coping with the same inflationary pressures as growers everywhere, though some say the rate of inflation is slowly dropping.
“Costs to grow are definitely leveling out a little bit compared to the major increases we saw the last few years,” Oswald said. “It’s still costing us more than it ever has, but at least the increases in the cost to grow are smaller this year.”
Davenport said the inflation rate seems to have slowed, but it’s still rising. And costs remain higher than past years.
The cost of labor is up at Potandon, Davenport said, but freight rates have remained relatively steady.
Costs for fertilizer, pesticides and water have gone up this past year, which creates a challenge for growers when there’s an oversupply of product and low market prices.
But consumers aren’t leaving potatoes off their grocery lists.
Potatoes are one of the lowest-priced items in the produce department, they go with every meal and they’re very nutritious, Davenport said.
“Cost per serving, it’s still one of the best values out there,” Oswald said.
Washington, Oregon potato stats
USDA estimates that Washington produced 99.7 million hundredweight of potatoes in 2023, about 10% of which was destined for fresh market.
Total potato production this year will be down due to a reduction in acres planted, said Chris Voigt, executive director of the Moses Lake-based Washington Potato Commission.
“We planted about 16,000 fewer acres this year,” Voigt said. “So far, the growing season has had perfect weather for potato production, so we expect our yields per acre to be up.”
Voigt predicted an overall drop of about 8% in Washington’s potato production compared to last year.
Total potato acreage in Washington is projected to be down 10% to 12%.
Growers in the state have planted an estimated 144,000 acres of potatoes, of which about 16,000 acres are for fresh market.
Oregon’s growers produced about 27.4 million hundredweight of potatoes in 2023, according to USDA.
About 10% of that volume is for fresh market, estimated Gary Roth, executive director of the Portland-based Oregon Potato Commission.
Oregon grows about 43,000 acres of potatoes, he said.
