New season Comber Earlies heading for the shops now

The Wilson’s Country grower is harvesting a crop of Dunluce earlies, which was planted out on March 17th.

“Yields will be in the region of five tonnes per acre,” Hugh explained. “Tuber size will be average but eating quality is excellent. We haven’t had rain of any note in this part of the world since the end of March.

“The crops look really well but the lack of moisture has impacted on yields to a fair degree.”

Wilson’s Country supplies key retail outlets throughout Northern Ireland with Comber Earlies. Company agronomist Stuart Meredith called in at the Chambers’ farm just as digging was about to get underway.

He commented: “It is still very dry in many regions across the country. Reported soil moisture deficits in some areas are greater than 90mm.

“Some rain is forecast. But there is still some uncertainty as to how much there will be into next week.”

He continued: “Obviously, with soil moisture deficits where they are, it will take a lot of rainfall to do any good.”

Turning to the prospects for main crop potatoes, Stuart confirmed that it will be critical for them to receive moisture over the next week. He said: “Comber Earlies have grown well this year, despite the lack of rainfall. This is due to the fact that they were planted early in the spring. The crops were also ridged-up before the drying weather came.

“However they’ve also endured some challenging conditions. Heavy frosts in mid May and the gale force winds that swept the country a fortnight ago didn’t help their cause.”

Stuart concluded: “Comber yields are expected to be average. Numbers of tubers per plant are quite high but they have been slow to fill into size over the past week, due to the damage caused by the wind.

“Some rain wouldn’t go amiss to allow damage-free harvesting over the coming days.”