A Little About Our Potato Farm
With great soil, good weather and lots of experience in the fields, Walker Brothers are set for success every season.
Our potatoes are grown under the careful management of a team with collectively over 75 years of experience raising potatoes in the fertile soils of the Klamath and Tulelake Basin. In addition to chipping and frying potatoes, we also grow hay and wheat as rotation crops to ensure the future quality of our soils. Each year our farming professionals evaluate the needs of our customers and alter the fertilization, irrigation, and growing season of our potatoes accordingly. In this way we tailor our crop to create potatoes which vary by size, grade and physical appearance to fit our customer’s specific needs.
On the Oregon side of the border, Walker Brothers farms fields in the Merrill and Malin area. Just over the border in California, we farm around Tulelake, including the federal lease lands. In total, we are farming roughly 15,000 acres. This includes chipping potatoes, grain, hemp and hay crops. As our operation grows, so does the number of acres we farm.
Part of what allows us to farm as many acres we do is the equipment we use. From the Spudnik hoppers on the back of the spud trucks to the John Deere tractors pulling Lockwood bulkers, our equipment helps us harvest our chipping potatoes in a timely manner promoting higher yields. To see an excellent example of our crews and equipment at work, check out chipping potato harvest video. Shot in a field near our sheds in Malin, Oregon, the clip shows what it takes to get chipping potatoes from the field to the storage facilities.
While good soil and fair weather are a part of our equation for successful yields, much more of the credit goes to the people in the fields. John’s decades of crop management experience has given him the knowledge to even make fields with poorer soil fruitful. This knowledge is being passed down to our Junior Partners and our farm managers, ensuring another generation of continued success. Our dedicated farm crews are another key to our success. We have some of the hardest working people in Southern Oregon and Northern California on our farm crews, and the quality crops they help us provide are proof of their commitment.
