A two-speaker interview with organic potato growers discussing why they transitioned (mid-1990s), their typical rotation (potatoes with oats and clover hay on a ~3-year rotation), and scale (about 65–70 acres of organic potatoes). They describe fertility- and biology-focused management: using infurrow products and foliar applications (Rejuvenate, Accelerate, Sea Shield, and micronutrients), cover-crop/plow-down strategies to conserve nitrogen, and observed soil benefits (better moisture infiltration and many earthworms) versus neighboring conventional fields. They report improved yields, strong storability of tubers, and reflect on economic pressures for small farms and the importance of consumer and retailer support.
Chapters
When you have customers coming back to you year after year saying, you know, your product tastes better than a lot of the other stuff that we can get in the store, I mean, that's probably one of the biggest comments we get. I think a lot of people forget that your food is actually supposed to be something that has flavor and nutrition and is, you know, for your health. It's just not something that you do three times a day. We've been certified organic for, since about 96, 97 is when we started transitioning. We usually grow somewhere between 65 to 70 acres of organic potatoes and then we have oats and clover hay in rotation. So we're kind of on a three year rotation. We transitioned to organic because for one reason, being a small farm, it's hard to compete in the conventional market.
One thing, organic farming, if you're looking for an easy way to get rich or you can't handle the adversities, you're not going to stick with it. So we just kind of stuck with it.
My dad was a little bit actually leery about it at first because he had been, they'd been doing conventional for so many years. But we had an uncle that was big into organic gardening and more natural foods and stuff like that. He was an influence on us kind of switching. He kind of encouraged us to kind of go that route. So we actually got started with AE way back when John, shortly after John got started and we were, I mean there were some challenges, challenges that we were kind of facing that we were looking for answers. Actually talked to him on, directly on the phone. That's before he had all the consultants and all the support and stuff and talking about certain issues we had and what he thought we could maybe do. Potatoes are a pretty fertility intensive crop to grow, a lot of inputs. So we're trying to capture all the, what we have in the fall to make sure it's available to crop in the spring. Breaking down the residue and getting the biology and the soil going and things like that. So it's ready the next year when we're ready to plant potatoes. So in the spring we use an infurrow at planting with our potatoes. We're using rejuvenate, accelerate, sea shield and then a bunch of the micronutrients, the whole cal and the molybdenum, the cobalts, all those micronutrients. Then we use another foliar later on when the potatoes are hooking to try to get a better potato set. And then I think we're using like accelerate rejuvenate some more of the micronutrients. And then when they're bulking, we use. We use another foliar to try to get the potatoes to bulk better. You know, I can say, like, we are on the same rotation as our neighbors who are conventional growers. And you can tell like in the spring when the ground starts to thaw, if you walk on our ground and walk across the fence line into theirs. I mean, just the difference in how it feels under your feet. Sometimes airfields are kind of soggy and ours probably are absorbing, making. Absorbing the moisture and the snow melt and stuff better. But the other big difference is the amount of earthworms that you see. Like, if you look at our. In our fields in the springtime, there's earthworm holes all over the place. And you walk across the fence line into a conventional field, and you just don't see that for organic farming, nitrogen is one of your biggest things to try to get enough of. When you look at what conventional farms use for nitrogen use on potatoes, I mean, you'd think that we wouldn't get any kind of crop whatsoever with the small amounts of nitrogen that we use. But, you know, we can do decent. But I think we're figuring out ways to get better use of our cover crops or our plow downs in the fall to make sure that we're getting the best use of the nitrogen the following year. And the biology in the soil, getting good nitrogen use, doing things, other things with the micronutrients to being able to get that nitrogen available to plant better and balancing everything out instead of just hitting heavy on the NP and the k, you know, trying to get all the micronutrients and the biology so that all this stuff kind of balances out and you can make it more available and more efficient for the plant to use.
We still have some things we need to work on, but our yields have certainly improved. I think the overall quality has improved quite a bit. Our storability, I think, is excellent. We have very few storage problems. I've heard of big commercial growers having big problems with diseases in their storage, where the storage just like decays and the patillas are just kind of melting away because they're all just a massive amount of decay. Our patillas hold up really well in storage. And I personally think that it has to do with the mineralization of the tubers. The minerals are in there that they need, and the health of the plant is enough that it can carry that health through the tuber to store. And actually, I mean, that's actually a big thing. I think that hopefully translates to the health of the tuber for, you know, as a food item too, as well. Anything that you can't, you know, that doesn't hold up in storage, you have to throw out. Obviously you can't sell. So having a higher percentage of stuff that you can sell for a longer period of time, hopefully throughout the whole shipping season, I mean, that's a big deal.
I think in the end. I mean, trying to address a lot of the nutritional aspects of what the crop needs. I mean, I think AEA has been a good, a good fit for us. I mean, the range of products that they have and the knowledge and their consultants and the SAP testing and the thing with potatoes is you get one lesson every year. Although it's very frustrating as part of the fun of, you know, farming is a challenge of trying to overcome a lot of that. Seems like it's becoming harder for small farms to make a living and stay in business and deal with the pressure from the big farms. I mean, I would hope that maybe we can find another family to take our farm over at some point in the future and continue what we're doing. A lot of that will have to do with what the consumer wants. If the consumer still wants a product from. I mean, if they want to know who grows it, where is it coming from, and they appreciate that, then I think a small farm has a good future. And a lot of it, I think, has to do with the retailers too, supporting smaller farms and realizing what they have to offer.
