Harvesting Potatoes

Getting chipping potatoes from the fields to the sheds requires a small army of hard-working employees, over 30 pieces of equipment and a whole lot of hours.

As the early September air gets its first hints of autumn, Gold Dust and the Walker Brothers farm crews prepare for potato harvest.  Like planting potatoes, harvesting potatoes is incredibly time-intensive.  Normally, harvest lasts for approximately four weeks, if equipment failure is kept to a minimum and the weather cooperates.  Most of the time, September in the Klamath Basin yields little rain.  But if the weather changes and we see precipitation, it can bog down our potato bulkers and drag our chipping potato harvest out for a week or two longer than expected.

Curious about what it takes to get the chipping potatoes from the fields to our storage cellars?  See the video below.  Shot near our sheds in Malin, Oregon, the video shows the various pieces of equipment we use to dig the potatoes as well as how we load them into our potato storage facilities.

After the potatoes are in storage, they lay in wait until the customer orders them.  To see how our shed operates, be sure to see our Odenberg Titan potato sorter video.

We hope you enjoyed the show!