New Brunswick’s potato industry saw slightly above average gains after a slow start to the season.

Potatoes New Brunswick executive director Matt Hemphill told the Bugle-Observer that the planting season got off to a late start, but farmers were able to catch up as the growing season continued.

“We started the year probably seven to 10 days behind schedule,” said Hemphill. “As the growing season progressed, we have definitely caught up from that delay. We have been getting for the most part an optimum mix of heat and precipitation. Depending on where you are in the potato belt, we have been getting about an inch of rain per week. Other than a couple of sporadic downpours and post-tropical storm Arthur and storms like that.”

Hemphill said the crop is looking extremely good right now.

“I think we will have slightly above average yield if this weather continues,” he said.

When it comes to trends, Hemphill said “planted acres per table seed and processing are flat to last year”, adding that this year’s weather patterns are “anything but a trend.”

“It is a little bit of a gamble,” said Hemphill. “You do your best to put the best quality seed in the ground and obviously we depend on mother nature. Our best management practice is to produce the best crop possible.”

While post-tropical storm Arthur wreaked havoc on New Brunswick’s power lines and trees, Hemphill said the storm didn’t have much affect on the province’s potato crop.

“The potato plant is a resilient plant,” he said. “When you get a storm like tropical storm Arthur, there are places that got five to six inches of rain, which temporarily lay the plants down. Within 24 hours in most cases you would never know. The plant will stand up. Typically with that much water you would get a significant amount of washouts and soil erosion. We did see some isolated cases of that, but in general the soil did accept the water.”

Hemphill said there have been few concerns for the potato industry in New Brunswick this year, although he did note that blight has shown up with some crop recently.

“Blight was detected a few weeks ago in the state of Maine and there are now four confirmed cases of late blight here in New Brunswick but the growers are used to managing blight,” said Hemphill. “They have just implemented those practices to combat the blight. We are late in the season now.”

“It won’t be long now. In a few weeks, we will be harvesting some of the early varieties like Shepody that will go directly to McCain (Foods) for processing. Towards the end of September and early October, we will harvest the main variety, which is Russet Burbank.”