..Potatoes
WALLIS POTATOES
Hayden Wallis .. Martin Wallis
Penventon Farm, Helston TR13 ORA
Tel/Fax 01326 572714 email: martin@newpotatoes.net
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New Potatoes
I have often been asked how do you grow potatoes?
This I hope will give you an idea of planting and harvesting the potatoes in the west country.
loading potatoes Seed potatoes arrive at the farm just before Christmas. We put the seed potatoes into trays so they will begin to form "shoots". When it is time to plant we put the potatoes into large boxes and take them out into the field. The JCB then tips them up into the planter.
potato planter This is the planter. The potatoes go in the large red box at the back of the tractor and then straight into the ground.
Destoning

Before we can plant the potatoes the ground has to be prepared correctly. The field is ploughed, cultivated, bedformed then destoned.

This photo shows the destoner. This machine picks up the soil, takes out the stones and puts the stones to one side of the bank. (These stones are later distributed back into the soil after the crop has been harvested).
Bedformed land This photo shows on your left land that has been destoned, the middle row has been bedformed ready for the destoner with the stones placed in the trench on its right. In the top right had corner you can see the rows already planted.
potato land This machine comes along and cultivates the soil leaving it 'light and airy' ready to be planted.
planting potatoes The potatoes are planted by this machine. They are placed in the middle of the banks 15cm - 25 cm apart depending on the variety of potatoes.
Potatoes?loe Pool The potatoes grow well in the warm Cornish climate and are ready to harvest the first week in May.
potatoes being lifted

When the potatoes are ready to be harvested we lift them with a potato harvester. This gently digs under the bank and lifts the soil complete with the potatoes up onto a large web. The potatoes travel up the web and the soil drops down through the bars. The potatoes then travel over a picking table and here four people pick out all the seed potatoes and stones left behind by the harvester.

 
Potatoe harvester table This is a photo of the picking table on the potato harvester. Here you can see the soil and leaves being picked off by hand. The potatoes are lifted into a trailer, from here they are taken into the packing shed.
Wallis Potatoes
 The potatoes are brought into the packing shed where they go over the grader and into bags ready to be transported to the markets.
Washing and sorting In July we grow "crisp potatoes" on contract. These potatoes are red and hard and can only be used for making crisps.The photo shows the bunker of the "cleaner"on the left. This takes out most of the soil and stones. The Potatoes are then conveyed into a "Washer", then the "Stone Trap" which removes all the stones before going onto the picking table to be hand picked. Here we just take out seed potatoes and any potatoes that do not meet the required standard. They are then loaded into large lorries (see below)
potato lorries We grow for MBM and these potatoes go direct to the factories for processing.