THE COLD spring has meant that Scotland is munching its way through the very large carryover of potato stocks from last year.

Stores filled with potatoes have halved in size since January and the prospects are that many could be empty by the time new potatoes hit the shops.

Stocks held by growers at the end of March totalled 1.3m tonnes, according to an Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board estimate. This is similar to the same period in 2015 and approximately 300,000 tonnes more than in 2017.

The high production in 2017 was the result of a 5% increase in area of 122,779ha, coupled with one of the highest average yields on record (49.3t/ha).

An AHDB analyst told The SF that it was no surprise then that stocks were so high given a production of 6.04m tonnes.

In Scotland, stocks are sitting at 273,000 tonnes (21% of the GB total) – in January our stocks were 576,000 tonnes.

Amber Cottingham, analyst at AHDB Potatoes, said: “So far this season, around 4.7m tonnes has been either sold off the field or moved out of grower-held stores since harvest. This is the highest level of movement recorded throughout this period since the 2011/12 season.

“At this time of year, growers will be weighing up the cost of storage versus possible improved returns later in the season. Movement of stock accelerated in the period from March to January, which suggests many have either decided to sell or dispose of potatoes due to quality issues.”

But, the conundrum facing growers is how to best balance the marketing season remaining until potatoes planted in 2018 come on to the market. The cool, wet spring means many crops are in the ground later than planned.

“At this point in the season we would usually expect to have around 60% of the crop in the ground, but this year there are still early growers aiming for the early market that are still planting,” she said.

“So far the 2017 season has followed a very similar path to the 2011 and 2014 seasons.”

* AHDB has a storage cost calculator which allows growers to calculate the price of storing their crop until they plan to sell – it is at potatodatacentre.ahdb.org.uk