At the beginning of November, having endured six inches of rain since October 13, it began to look like we were going to be left with about 15 per cent of our potato crop in the ground over winter.
Nature came to our rescue and, with colder weather, the rain stopped. We finished harvest on November 19, 11 days later than last year, which was also wet.
The land left to lift should have been cleared by the end of September, but wasn’t due to the weather of last winter and this spring, so we had to wait longer for the well-bodied land to dry out before we could start planting. The cold spring and dry summer meant the crop only started to grow properly when it received two inches of rain in the latter part of August, so when we tried to desiccate it in the third week of September it just didn’t want to die off, and the lifting date kept getting put back.
With all our crop now in the barn, we are about 12 per cent down on yield compared to last year, which I put down to a combination of lack of summer rain and the physiologically immature age of the seed we planted, which meant fewer potatoes were set by each plant. The trade is trying to hold prices down, but if our yields are typical, there should not be a surplus and storage may pay for a third year in a row.
I hope all potatoes in south Lincolnshire have now been safely gathered in, and a big thank you goes to all farm employees for their hurculean efforts.