The heart of northeastern North Dakota’s potato country was devastated by baseball-sized hail that lasted up to 35 minutes last week.
The worst hail damage was along Highway 18 from Mountain to Hoople in Pembina and Walsh Counties; heavy rain, hail and strong winds caused damage to a much larger area extending south into northern Grand Forks County and east to the Red River.
The Crystal, N.D., area was hard hit. Some growers that had previously lost 20 percent of their crops from heavy rains saw that number jump to as high as 80 percent. Property damage was also heavy.
A drive through the area on Thursday evening saw a lot of devastation, especially from excess rain. There were some pockets that looked okay, but the leafy canopy on closed rows can be deceiving, hiding damaging water standing between the hills.
Andy Robinson, an extension potato agronomist with North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota, says the pores on tubers open up searching for oxygen on wet fields, only to let in water with disease-causing bacteria.
Robinson says some hail-damaged potatoes may be able to harvested, depending largely on the maturity of the field and how quickly they dry out, but yields will be greatly diminished.
To add insult to injury, Robinson says with more late blight finds in western Manitoba, recent thunderstorms had a good chance of carrying late blight spores into the region. Once exposed to potatoes, the disease takes five days to manifest and become evident. Robinson urges increased diligence in scouting fields and recommends applying fungicides to protect fields from late blight infection.
So far, late blight has not been reported in North Dakota or Minnesota, although there have been at least nine confirmed finds in western Manitoba's Carberry area.
The extreme northeast corner of North Dakota grows mainly fresh, seed and chip potatoes. Some estimate as much as 40 percent of the fresh crop has been lost. This follows a year that saw the largest fresh crop since the 1970s.
Source: Northern Plains Potato Growers Association