Spain (A Limia): The potato harvest faces a week of uncertainty

The flagship of agricultural production in the A Limia region navigated through "the perfect storm" during this year’s planting season, following heavy rainfall that flooded large portions of the farms in the spring, delaying planting. These flooding events particularly affected the lands surrounding the Antela Lagoon, which took longer to drain, delaying entry into the farms. In many cases, the delay exceeded 20 days, allowing planting to begin in late May and well into June. Adding to this delay were high temperatures—over 40 degrees—which burned the sprouts and reduced the number of tubers by more than 60%, creating a heterogeneous development within the same plot, where some potatoes are already ripe and others are still flowering. On farms located outside the former lagoon, it’s now possible to harvest the potatoes planted in April, which had already completed their crop cycle. Julio Montero explains that on August 22, he began harvesting his farms spread across Porqueira, ...