At last we are nearing the end of the 2012 crop. What an awful year it has been for everyone in the potato business. The dreadful weather last year caused poor crops and therefore shortages and a whole host of quality problems. The late spring has meant that we have had to manage with dwindling stocks much longer than usual but at last there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We are expecting crops suitable for baking potatoes to be ready soon and it can’t be soon enough for everyone here at Farmhouse; we are all fed up with the quality problems which have been rife in these last 2012 stocks which have had to be stored for so long. Our QA team have been constantly rejecting batches. The 2012/2013 potato market would have been even worse than it was if it hadn’t been for a huge increase in imported potatoes to the UK market. We are pleased to say that, despite the difficulties, we managed to source enough UK grown bakers for our Bannisters’ Farm brand

We are currently still working with the old potato crop but soon hope to have the first flush of new season bakers. The price of the new crop has fallen of late but it is far too early to estimate where the market will settle. The price of the earliest new crop bakers can be deceptive because when those are finished there can be a gap until the main potato crop becomes available. The growers of these early crops often plan to sell them straight out of the field and so have no storage facility available which means they need to clear them whatever the price.

The late planting of most main crop varieties suggested modest crops but the warm weather, interspersed with rain, has been ideal for most potato crops and in our area they look very well so we are hoping for a more normal potato season – if there is such a thing! The hot spell during July did adversely affect crops in some parts of the country particularly where irrigation was not available. We have had reports of early senescence; leaves yellowing and showing signs of an early end to the growing period.

Our own potato crops were not far enough into the growth cycle to need huge amounts of water at that time and it seems that most crops on the Yorkshire Wolds were not greatly affected by that hot spell. Our concern now is that the crops that look very well at the moment still have a lot of growing to do. We need plenty of sunshine interspersed with rain for them to produce sizeable tubers large enough for baked potatoes. (It would of course be preferable if the rain fell on the potato fields but not on the cereal crops so that we can get on with harvest – farmers are difficult to please!)

Reports of crop growth in the main potato growing EU countries suggest that there have been areas there which were badly affected by the weather. The general consensus is that the crops will not be as good as average in most Northern European countries but better than last year. There has been an increase in the planted area and the forecast is that this will compensate for the lower yielding crops.

In the next few weeks the picture will become much clearer. If the weather continues as it is at present the main potato crop should be good but we mustn’t “count our chickens” at this stage. There is a long way to go through the remainder of the growing and harvesting period which is usually completed – weather permitting – by the end of October. We do expect and hope that prices will steady at a lower level than at present but it is not easy to forecast; we will keep you informed as the picture becomes clearer.

Rob Bannister