POTATO INDUSTRY NOT SMALL POTATOES: IT'S POTATO PICKING TIME IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI

Norma Garza, left, and Gloria Zomara of Charleston remove bad potatoes from the grader belt at the Black Gold potato grading area.

A self-propelled potato harvester digs and loads potatoes in a truck near Charleston. The potato harvest lasts about six weeks.

At a worth of more than $100 billion a year worldwide, the potato industry is no small potatoes.

And while it hasn't supplanted soybeans or cotton in Southeast Missouri, the industry has carved itself a comfortable niche in area agriculture.

Potato-growing is a 12-month a year industry in the United States. There isn't a month in the year when potatoes aren't being planted, cultivated or harvested.

The season in Missouri, though, usually runs from March through early July.

"The growing season ranges from 90 to 120 days," said Mark Bula of Bula-Gieringer Farms, which grows 500 acres of spuds near Malden. "We try to slip in the time slot between southern and northern growing seasons."

Bula-Gieringer Farms are headquartered in Wisconsin, where the company plants up to 2,000 acres of potatoes.

"All of our Missouri spuds go for potato chips this year," Bula said. "The Wisconsin crop will be divided between chips and French fries."

Potato production in Missouri usually tops 1.5 million hundredweight a year.

Potato growers weigh potatoes in 100-pound units referred to as bags. Growers throughout the world produce more than 6.5 billion bags, with the Soviet Union growing the lion's share with about 1.6 billion bags a year.

The United States is fourth on the list of world potato-growing countries, producing about 404 million bags. In between are China, with a billion bags a year, and Poland with 805.7 million bags.

Every state grows potatoes, headed by Idaho with 102.5 million bags.

Missouri ranks 22nd in potato production. Farms in the Show-Me state plant from 7,000 to 9,000 acres a year, with average yields ranging from 200 to 250 bags an acre, resulting in an $8- to $9-million-a-year industry.

The bulk of Missouri's potatoes are grown in Southeast Missouri. The Missouri Agriculture Statistics Service reports that as many as 7,000 to 8,000 acres of potatoes are planted in Southeast Missouri.

A number of potato farms are found in Mississippi, Scott and Stoddard counties.

"We plant about 1,500 acres of potatoes each year," said Joe Pattengill, Missouri Farm Manager for Black Gold Farm, headquartered in North Dakota. "We're in full harvest now."

The Black Gold Farm is south of Charleston and has a processing center just north of there.

"The majority of our potatoes will be used for potato chips," Pattengill said. "Only the smaller potatoes will go for other uses."

Black Gold Farms produces potatoes in North Dakota, Indiana, Texas and Missouri.

Farmland is rented in its Mississippi County operation.

"This is a four-month operation," Pattengill said. "We planted potatoes March 1 this year and started harvesting June 10. We should finish the harvest soon."

Southeast Missouri soil is ideal for potato production. Although plants grow and are visible above the ground, the actual potato grows underground.

Farmers have special potato combines to harvest the potatoes. The combine digs plants out of the ground, separates potatoes from the plants and loads potatoes into trucks. The combine can dig two to four rows at a time.

Potatoes are then taken to a packing center, for washing and grading, according to size.

The larger potatoes are shipped to potato chip companies, Pattengill said. The smaller potatoes are sent to canneries.

Another big potato operation is Heartland Farms in the Blodgett area, which includes 475 acres of potatoes.

The heartland farm, operated by cousins Jim Bula and Gary Bula, is headquartered in Wisconsin.

"We have about 1,200 acres of land here, and raise potatoes on 450 to 500 acres of it," said a farm spokesman.

Several hundred varieties of potatoes are grown throughout the United States, but four varieties -- Russett Burbank, Norchip, Kennebec and Katahdin -- account for 70 percent of the nation's crop.

"These are thin-skinned and light-colored potatoes," Bula said. "We also raise snowdens and Atlantic varieties."

The potato is not native to the United States. Spanish explorers in South America were the first to eat potatoes and introduced them into Europe in the mid-1500s. Potatoes were introduced into North America in the early 1600s but did not become an important food crop until after Irish immigrants brought them to the United States when they settled here in 1719.