Potato salad and potato chips at July Fourth celebrations could likely be made from North Carolina potatoes.
In Pasquotank and Camden counties, where potatoes are big business, about 60 percent of the local potatoes are sold for potato chips. The rest are sold as "table stock,"which is what most consumers see in the grocery store.
Record high temperatures in early June stopped most of the potato plants' growth early, said Tom Campbell, agricultural extension agent in Pasquotank County, resulting in lower local yields.
But as evidenced in a test field harvested Wednesday, the quality of those potatoes is good.
"Overall size and yield were down with the primary culprit being the dry weather as the varieties were entering the later part of the bulking phase,"Mark Clough, a researcher for North Carolina State University's Potato Breeding and Genetics Program, wrote in an e-mail. "That said, the quality was very good, there were few pick outs (culls) and low incidence of internal problems."
