No. 11/24 SUBSCRIBER EDITION: please go to potatostorageinsight.com/subscribe to sign up as a Synopsis subscriber.
Dear Subscriber,
Hello! This is your November edition of Synopsis, your regular monthly potato storage bulletin from Potato Storage Insight.
Finally the harvest buzz seems to be quietening down out there, with many fewer tractors hauling spuds on the roads locally and also judging by the increase in activity of the telephone in the PSI office. It has been a hard slog for many to get crops in; the key now is to keep them in good shape. Visit our regular best practice section in this bulletin for our latest advice.
This month's technical insight feature centres around Mercian's LiveTrace technology-based field and store management recording system. In addition to a full field recording capability, it offers a comprehensive way of managing your store record keeping and you can do pretty much everything from your phone.
PSI activity
Adrian Cunnington has recently taken part, along with Simon Faulkner of SDF Agriculture and Farmers Weekly Grower of the Year Mark Means from JS Means, in a series of UPL potato storage webinars. The sessions formed a trio of events run by the agchem company to focus in on best practice in storage at this time of year.
Adrian will also feature in a storage cost & efficiency workshop -speaking alongside Chris Bishop who'll be explaining the use of heat exchang ers to maximise the use of ambient ventilation in hot conditions - at the pre-Christmas CUPGRA conference (see Forthcoming events).
Big news this month from PSI is that we have at last been able to finalise the details of the PSI Potato Store Managers' Course for 2025. The event is again being offered as a two-day residential course and will be held on Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th March at the Greetham Valley Hotel & Conference Centre near Oakham, Rutland. There will be the option, as we offered for the first time on 2024, for delegates to take the BASIS Stored Potatoes qualification as part of the course, with the online examination provisionally set for Tuesday 1st April 2025. And there's one final bonus: prices for 2025 have been frozen at our 2024 rates! If you would like a prospectus, please email adrian@potatostorageinsight.com or visit our website.
Best practice
Drying late harvested crops
Some of the last harvesting heading into storage this autumn has been affected by wet weather and high levels of soil contamination which can seriously limit the speed at which the crop can be dried just when you need it most.
One way of assisting the process is to add heat and this will be particularly the case as ambient temperatures fall as they are forecast to do towards the latter stages of this month.
The picture shown here (kindly provided by Tim Kitson of Potato Solutions) shows gas heaters (typically 200-400 kW units) being used with a modulated control system to heat ambient air from 8C up to 15C but, most significantly, to drop the humidity to 60% RH. This offers some serious drying capacity for crops heavily affected by wet conditions and rotting...