Washington Potato Harvest

Harvesting potatoes in south central Washington during the close of the 2023 season.

[@matthewfunk4969]

Thanks a lot Jay. That turned out super cool. For anyone not in the industry who’s seeing this, we’re storing russet potatoes for a processor to make French fries, hash browns, tater tots, and other frozen products. We’re storing about 3200 tons a day. Each building holds about 14000 tons of potatoes. We fill a building a week roughly. We are sizing off smaller potatoes into a separate building for hash brown shreds and tots, the potatoes for fries are going in to the larger line in the second building. We flow about 5 tons per minute. 3 harvesters and about 2 dozen trucks. This team is one of about 11 on a large farm based around the Tri Cities area.

[@jayparkinson1884]

Thanks Matt! Had a great time catching this on camera!

[@Hermiwalle]

about how much were they yielding this year? 20ton per hectare?

[@matthewfunk4969]

Washington leads the world in potato production. This field was around 38 tons/acre (85180 kg/hectare). Our best fields are exceeding 45 tons/ac (100800 kg/hectare) and we have exceptional fields that exceeded 50 tons. Or, about 270,000 large fries at McDonald’s (figuring 90% processing efficiency).

[@Hermiwalle]

Wow thats incredible.