The Potato Growth Cycle
Potato growing in Ireland has many challenges. The main potato growing areas of Ireland are situated in Wexford, Meath/Dublin and Donegal. We are one of the few main crop growers in the Munster area.
Suitable potato growing land consists of deep free-draining loam soils with little stone content. We take great care in land selection each year and ensure that we enhance the nutrient content of the soil through our fertilisation programmes.
Mother Nature works with us and provides suitable windows of opportunity to plant, grow and harvest our crops. In extremely dry conditions we have to roll out the irrigation equipment during the growing season. Strangely, we sometimes are praying for rain – not too much, just the right amount…
Technology plays a huge roll in potato growing. Our harvesters have 15 cameras on-board watching the flow of potatoes as they are lifted from the ground and passed over the rotating cleaners. Our tractors navigate using GPS technology during the planting process – look at how straight those drills are!! Our crop records are managed through an App and downloaded to our server at head-office.
Storage capacity at Castlecor is in excess of 7,000 tonnes of potatoes. Once harvested potatoes are dried using special drying programmes in our stores and then plunged from ambient temperature down to between 2 and 4 degrees. There they will sit in the cold darkness until required for packing.