Although the potato is New Hampshire’s state vegetable, the state ranks low in spud production. So far. As dairy continues to wind down in northern New England, some growers are eyeing those fields for vegetable crops, such as potatoes.

Jay Savage of Savage Farms LLC, which raises potatoes and sod in Deerfield, Mass., bought a former dairy farm about 50 miles north in Walpole, N.H., last spring and set right to work growing 185 acres of potatoes.

A second, 200-acre former dairy he purchased in Chester, Vt., another 15 miles north, was planted to corn, awaiting another season for potatoes.

The Connecticut River is less than a mile away from the Walpole farm. The river-bottom soils have few stones and are excellent for vegetable production.

So, why potatoes?

“That’s what we’ve always done, and we’ve done well with it. We’re looking to expand our business,” Savage says.

He was a little surprised by how warm the area is. “This area is not a lot different. It’s like a little microclimate here, not as cold as I thought,” he says.

Spud in his blood

Savage’s great-grandfather began farming the Deerfield land in 1910, starting with tobacco and potatoes. Fifty years later, after the tobacco industry withered, the family added sod production. Today, they grow 250 acres of turf, but potatoes are still the mainstay. In 2024, the farm grew 700 acres — 200 acres for chips and 500 acres for fresh market.

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Most of the crop had gone into potato chips until the business lost its major contract. They shifted to growing more table stock potatoes, such as Silverton russets and Colomba yellows.

Savage’s fresh-market potatoes are trucked to Masser Family of Companies, a grower, packer and shipper of potatoes in Sacramento, Pa. Chip potatoes are sold to Pennsylvania-based chip producers like Herr’s and Utz.

Fresh potatoes can bring a higher price, depending on quality, but there are obstacles. The price fluctuates through the season. And standards are strict. Buyers are looking for a “pretty” potato, Savage says.

“They have to look good, nothing with a crook or bend, or funny bump,” he says. “Any blemish makes them next to worthless, and we get a lower price for them. There’s nothing wrong with them, but the grocery stores want them to look perfect.”

RELIABLE LABOR: As on many Northeast farms, labor is scarce. Savage Farm has hired H-2A workers since 1986 to help offset the problem.

Savage buys seed potatoes from northern Maine and Canada, and planting starts in mid- to late-April. Harvest begins in mid-August, continuing through fall. The farm has no storage capacity yet, so all the potatoes must be harvested to order. A windrower and harvester dig the potatoes out of the field, then debris is graded out on the farm.

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Disease is the biggest production headache. Besides using fungicide and other sprays, Savage rotates the potato fields with corn and turf, and he is looking to rotate with other crops. In Deerfield, he often swaps land with other farms.

But those low-lying fertile fields along the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers flood quite often. Savage has some insurance but not much, and crop insurance is expensive.

Savage plans on building storage in the future, but it won’t be an inexpensive project. The building will have to be outfitted to provide high humidity, temperature control, good ventilation and air conditioning.

“But we’ll be able to put more potatoes in storage and wait to get a better price for them later,” he says. And they’ll have more flexibility for harvesting around weather and labor. “It’s all just more efficient.”

Small but mighty industry

Massachusetts grew 3,500 acres of potatoes for fresh market and processing in 2022, a number that has stayed steady, according to University of Massachusetts Extension.

The commonwealth has many small- and medium-sized growers who raise fresh-market varieties like Yukon Gold, Dark Red Norland and Katahdin. A few large growers produce between 500 and 1,000 acres for fresh market and chip processing. All the chip potatoes — varieties like Norwis, Atlantic and Snowden — are grown in the Connecticut River Valley.

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New Hampshire, on the other hand, produced just 113 acres of potatoes in 2022, an increase from 107 acres in five years. Most producers in the state sell directly to consumers or restaurants, and potatoes are just one of their crops.

“Many vegetable farms diversify to enable them to both grow the range of the vegetables their customers want and to spread out risk because a bad year for one vegetable may be a great year for another,” says Heather Bryant of University of New Hampshire Extension.

Cheshire County, where Savage has started growing, dropped from 18 acres to 13 acres in 2022. But thanks to Savage, that’s a statistic guaranteed to make a big jump in 2024 and beyond.

Banner year for Maine spuds

While overall U.S. potato production dropped this year by more than 5%, Maine potato growers had a banner year.

“From what we’ve seen this harvest, the crop looked great this year,” says Jeannie Tapley, executive director of the Maine Potato Board. “The weather was really a great balance of warm sun and needed rainfall at almost perfect intervals. I would say yields are about average or slightly above average this year.” 

Robbie Irving of Irving Farms Marketing Inc. in Caribou agrees.

“Fantastic,” he says. “Yields were probably slightly higher than average and great quality.”

According to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service forecast, Maine harvested 53,700 acres of potatoes, about 18.26 million cwt, up from 16.8 million cwt in 2023. The state planted 1,000 more acres this year than in 2023, and yields per acre rose from 320 cwt to 340 cwt. Maine is ninth in the nation in potato production.

Ninety percent of the state’s potatoes are grown in northern Aroostook County, where Irving farms.

“We had sufficient water and certainly plenty of heat, and a really, really mild harvest, so it was easier to get out of the ground,” he says. “Usually, we have a lot of rain in October. Last year was a terrible harvest. We’d get 2 inches of rain and couldn’t get into the fields, so it put everything behind.”

Not this year. “We were early getting the crop into the ground and a great growing season, and then started harvest early,” Irving says.

The current drought in Maine had little effect on yields as late-summer rains helped alleviate the dryness. And more than a quarter of Maine’s potato acreage is under irrigation.

Irving Farms, which raises only table stock, started growing Caribou Russets in 2017. The dual-purpose potato was developed nearby at the University of Maine’s Presque Isle farm. It has good size and early maturity, so growers aren’t pushed into planting early or harvesting late. It’s also drought resistant. All those qualities made it the top-selling seed potato variety in Maine last year.

“It’s a great dual-purpose potato, but we market it as fresh,” Irving says. “It really opened markets up for us. Before we couldn’t go into food service, but culinary-wise, the Caribou Russet is a super potato.”