N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 POTATO GROWER 5 valley had yet to be harvested. The news isn’t all good, there were some abandoned acres that were too wet to harvest. In addition, some frost damage is likely to be realized after potatoes have been in storage for a while. But all in all, the harvest turned out much better than people expected on October 10th. Red River Valley Fresh Crop Production is Down Despite the fact that much of the fresh crop survived the cold and snowy fall, the Red River Valley pro- duced nearly a million fewer hun- dredweight for the fresh market this fall than it did last year. A nine per- cent cut in acres and lower yields made this year’s crop much closer in size to the 5 year average. Yellow potato production remains strong and now accounts for 20 percent of the Red River Valley fresh crop. North Dakota Certified Seed Acres Up; Minnesota Down North Dakota certified seed potato acres were up this year more than 1,700 acres compared to last year, totaling 13,681 acres. The Umatilla Russet was far and away the most popular variety accounting for near- ly 14 percent of all seed acres in North Dakota. Meanwhile, Minn- esota certified seed acres dropped nearly 30 percent totaling 4,135 acres. Red and Dark Red Norlands combined for 28.5 percent of Minnesota’s certified seed acres. Process Production to be Determined As of the first week in November, we did not yet have a good handle on process production. Acres were up a bit but some process growers out- side the Red River Valley did not get the protective snow cover and may have experienced greater frost dam- age.