Potato Planting Progressing

Apr 30, 2021

Potato planting has started in Manitoba.

Vikram Bisht, with Manitoba Agriculture, gave us an update.

"They started last Friday," he said. "They were hoping to go about a week earlier but this cold weather snap, and the snowfall, basically delayed the plans. We are now about normal. We were thinking that it might be earlier planting. The ground is a bit dry, some of the growers may have to find sources of water and soon."

He expects to see a few thousand acres more than last year, which saw 70,000 plus acres grown in Manitoba.

Bisht says its important for potato growers to wait for the soils to warm up, adding the slower the potatoes emerge, the greater the chance of disease.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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