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Thank you, Wild Rose. As you can see, we're not experts. Fortunately, the Maine expression "good enough" hints at the truism that a job doesn't have to be done perfectly to be serviceable. "Perfection" is rarely affordable for Maine farmers like us. Jim

Wow! That's a lot. We grow 25 or so and I thought that was lots.

Potatoes (for me) have been the most low maintenance food ive grown.

We've just played around a little with TPS (True Potato Seed)

Thanks so much for your order! The Sarpo Una are great!

Yes, John, it's akin to not thinning carrots. Unthinned carrots are crowded and the competition keeps them small. We know of three ways to increase tuber set per acre/per hundred row feet: 1) decrease in-row-spacing, 2) increase average seed piece size, 3) treat sprouting seed with "Organic Triggrr" made by Westbridge.

it works great. we've been hoeing with it for decades

glad to hear it. thanks for your support!

Sourdough, the Potato Plantlets come to us from a Tissue-Culture lab where they are maintained and propagated to meet demand. They are disease-free cuttings from stems. That 8# per row foot with 'Sarpo Mira' is a phenomenal yield. The highest commercial yields I've heard about are grower claims in WA State that they have been achieving 950 bags/ac (95,000#) on some fields. Your yields are equivalent to 1162 bags/acre or 116,160#/acre. This was a good year for Potatoes in Maine, for sure! Jim

Great to hear

Thanks for the good report, Dan. Where are you located? Jim

@ I am in Northern California zone 9b

@@dann1232 Glad our seed did well for you! Jim

Is this Randy? I plan to stop by Wednesday morning before Potato School.

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie Yes it is. I can be at the office at 7:30. I usually am at the District Research Farm office, but will meet you in town.

@@CentralAroostookSoilWater OK perfect, see you then. Jim

Greg, I suggest over the next few years you make room to experiment with Sarpo Una, Sarpo Mira and Baltic Rose. These are game changers from Europe and belong top-of-list. Appreciate your loyalty! JIm

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie I'll add the Sarpo Mira for my 2025 order (I'll send that off in a couple weeks, tops!) I'll see what to add next...

@@gregbluefinstudios4658 Sounds good! Jim

@@gregbluefinstudios4658 Good plan! JIm

@@gregbluefinstudios4658 Sounds good!

Thank you Jan, more yet to come! Jim

Floyd, as you know, Potatoes are a cat of a different color. Wheat or Rye could be left around for hundreds of years and still sprout, grow and reproduce. But as a semi-perishable with a shelf-life of one year, Potatoes require active maintenance. Varieties like 'Green Mountain' may be maintained in tissue culture by entities like the USDA Germplasm bank in Sturgeon Bay WI. However such public entities are ever at risk to non-agricultural, uninformed political cost-cutting-crusades. I am reminded that when Pres Reagan took office over 40 years ago, in a cost-cutting-fervor, administration zealots ended a decades long Apple-breeding project well on its way to the release of phenomenal Insect-IMMUNE Apple varieties. They further ordered the destruction of the entire collection of priceless developed cultivars. I can't imagine anyone outside the Beltway who thought this was a sound idea, except maybe for the ag chemical industrial complex which loves making money from selling its toxins. Alar anyone? Jim

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie - keeping a secret like that would be nearly impossible. I wonder how much of that knowledge filtered into the (patented) scab resistant varieties put out by Cornell and PRI during the latter part of the 80's? Handling greedheads is like loading hogs- give them a taste of the corn in the bucket and you can waltz them up a ramp backwards in the dark. 😄

@@floydblandston108 The Scab-IMMUNE Apple breeding program was a parallel program to the Insect-Immune program which did not survive. We have some 'Liberty' Apple trees growing here which are a Scab-IMMUNE Cortland-type. What those scientists had been working on was next generation Organic breeding with incalculable societal and environmental benefits. To ax that program was tragic, unforgivable, penny-wise and pound-foolish.

@@floydblandston108 We have some Scab-IMMUNE 'Liberty' Apples growing (they are like a 'Cortland') and that is one example of commercialized varieties from that breeding program. Seems to me the Insect-IMMUNE program had not started up quite as early and was not as far along so trees not quite ready to commercialize? Ending the Insect-IMMUNE Apple program was short-sighted, penny-wise & pound-foolish and ultimately unforgivable.

@@floydblandston108 The Insect-IMMUNE program - I believe - started somewhat later and so were not as close to commercialization as were the Scab-IMMUNE. We have some Scab-IMMUNE 'Liberty' planted and they are a good Cortland-like Apple. Jim

Our pleasure

Thanks for your support and for the good idea, Theresa! Jim

Yes, a lot of steps but each one necessary to keep these rare Potato varieties alive and available. We received 10" of snow on Thanksgiving night. You must have snow in the Catskills, right? All the best! Jim

We grow certified organic seed potatoes for farmers and Gardeners for the last 50 years

It's funner by hand

Thanks for your comment! In southern New England they sell rocks by the pallet. Up here some farmers just dump their rocks into the woods to be rid of them. Mostly, we build our roads up with our picked rocks. JIm

How about that! Thanks so much for taking the time to reply! Oooh, I sure wish I could have your rocks to help with erosion. I live on a salt marsh. I'd love to plant grasses amongst your rocks on my banks. All the best to you!

@@thereseboogades8498 Appreciate it! Jim

Absolutely, Betsy! These collected field rocks make an excellent foundation for a road or a building. Before we built our barn and Quonset repair shop we used hundreds of yards of rocks to level out the building site. It still pains me to see farmers just dump their rocks over the bank on the edge of the woods to get just rid of them! Jim

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie Always great to repurpose stuff which you guys seem to be experts at. Happy Thanksgiving.

@@BetsyMassie-pe7bv Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Wow - that's dedication! Jim

We started out 50 years ago picking rocks by hand. And yes, machines are a big improvement! Yet farmers in this area to this day all go over their fields after potato planting and remove by hand at least the odd big rocks which would otherwise break equipment. JIm

Potato farmers are cut from a different cloth. Potato farmers look at a field and we think to ourselves, "Get them rocks outta there and that field would grow a pretty nice crop of potatoes." Jim

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie I love potatoes, so God bless you. Our farm in Minnesota is as flat as a pancake, not a rock on it, and grows great potatoes, but it has a real potatoe beetle problem. I guess it is just easier to grow canning crops and 250 bushel corn. Although, it never made sense to me that the area gave up on potatoes.

@@greggergen9104 The competition in the potato industry is fierce. A lot of good growers from the Red River Valley east to PEI have gotten out of growing potatoes because the numbers don't work anymore JIm

A lot of farmers got rid of their chisel plows once everyone figured out that chiseling deep brought rocks up towards the surface. We're big fans of chiseling because it allows us to loosen up the soil down deep plus get away more from traditional moldboard plowing where less is better. Everything's a trade off. For us the chisel plow has way more benefits than costs.

Thanks for watching, Wild Rose.

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie Hope your family has a nice Thanksgiving!

@@wildrosetreasuresva1837 You too! Snow overnight and more on the way. Jim

Greg, years ago a customer called to relate that in a sack of 'Butte Russet' seed we'd shipped her, there was an imposter-rock which looked just like a potato. Some rocks are dead ringers for potatoes in shape and color and even after grading the crop 4 times we had missed it. With tongue-in-cheek she asked if she planted that rock would they multiply up for a big harvest? I told her "Yes."

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie now that is funny! I hope she took it so, too!

@@gregbluefinstudios4658 We have the best customers in the world and she brought it up in order to have some fun and not to complain.

@@gregbluefinstudios4658 Absolutely! We have the best customers in the world. Jim

Very interesting, Floyd. Always appreciate you sharing your farming stories. Jim

Brian, Aroostook County pioneered the use of 11-peck Cedar Potato Barrels for harvesting and handling potatoes. It's fair to say that the Barrel innovation was one of the biggest factors which propelled Maine into dominance in potato production. Bradbury Barrel here in Bridgewater is last-man-standing in making barrels. Almost 50 years ago I worked there as a Cooper (barrel-maker) in the winter.

Yes, Sarah. There's one company in Iowa which makes a tractor implement which you pull through the field with a tractor and it grinds up the rocks. Great concept, for sure. Unfortunately, their smallest machine requires 130 HP and costs $50,000. We have the HP, we just don't have the $50,000!

I don't remember ever seeing a stone fence up here. I'm not certain why, but two points of speculation come to mind. 1) Aroostook County was the frontier and settled relatively late. 2) Never that much livestock up here (because potatoes offered better returns?).

Once you get the rocks out it's pretty good soil. Once you take a rock out of the field, you never have to worry about it again. Nothing of value comes easy. That's what farmers tell themselves...

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie As well, if it was easy everyone would be doing it!

@@aileensmith3062 Right!

@@Jim_at_WoodPrairie Except, as he just said, you have to remove the rocks again every 4 years.

@@greggergen9104 Those are new rocks. Once a rock is out of the field it's a goner, never to be handled again. So with a finite rock supply, every four years there is a smaller and smaller pool of rocks that need to be removed. Eventually, with enough generations of rock pickers, humans win, rocks lose.

Poor Iowa & Illinois....rock-challenged.