A warm planting season sped up the arrival of this year's Idaho potato season. But subsequent cool weather has offset some of the effects of this year's early harvest.“Due to warm weather during planting, the season started out about three weeks ahead of schedule,” said Frank Muir, CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission. But cold weather in June introduced some frost and held the season back. That weather, however, did little other than slightly pump the brakes on a season which got off to a fast start.
“The frost, combined with windy weather, has probably set the crop back about a week,” said Muir. “But that still puts the crop ahead of the average.”
He added that volume will be abundant enough to satisfy all sectors of the industry and quality is expected to be good to excellent. Prices are currently lower than they were last year, but Muir qualified that by noting that last season brought record prices.