Potato Crop Managment Planning is Key

As weather becomes increasingly unpredictable, conversations around effective potato management are more important than ever. Curtis Rainboldt, a technical service representative with BASF on general crop management and application strategies.

“As the weather changes, some of our disease patterns and spectrum of diseases that come in and change, but I would say the best thing growers can do is plan ahead for the ones that are kind of reliable and predictable, and then maybe if you've got that plan that frees you up to be a little bit more flexible. If something comes in and we don't typically see every year in the Pacific Northwest, we can pretty much guarantee every year that the growers are going to see some white mold and some early blight brown spot. Those are some pretty typical diseases, depending on the weather we may see others. Hopefully we don't ever see late blight. That's kind of a once in every five to 10 years thing. We occasionally see that. But by focusing on those that we know are going to come in on having a good plan that frees us up to be a little bit more reactive to the others.”

As for mitigation suggestions,

“So with those diseases, I mentioned white mold early, we do have very effective tools that are out in the market. BSF has one that's new as Endura Pro. And those tools, whether it's Endura Pro, other fungicides that fit for those diseases, we really want to get them down lower in the canopy.”

Curtis Rainbolt with BASF.