Around Uetze and Burgdorf towns in Germany, the first early potatoes are now seeded in the still cold sandy soil, due to the spring-like weather during the weekend that has drawn farmers to their fields.
“Although they [i.e. – the potato seeds] do not feel comfortable there, low frost temperatures do not hurt either,” Joachim Hasberg, Managing Director of the Lower Saxony Early and Processing Potato Producer Association said, according to Landvolk Niedersachsen.
Hasberg explained also the special characteristics of the early potato region, which allows a normal planting start despite the adverse weather in February.
“After all the precipitation, this is only possible on sandy soils, which dry quickly and warm up well,” he added.
A cover with foil or fleece keeps the heat of the sun’s rays in the ground so that the pre-germinated mother tubers begin to grow. Around 700 hectares of the 2,900 hectares of early potato area in Lower Saxony are prematurely in this way. In addition to table potatoes, which the consumer can already look forward to in combination with quark or asparagus and ham, these are also processed goods for French fries production.
If the temperatures cooperate, the farmers are aiming for the harvest of the first tubers of the year for the beginning of May, which they will offer in small quantities in their farm shops. From June, customers in the supermarkets can look forward to fresh potatoes from local cultivation.
