10/31/05 BMP research on potatoes

Bryan Hopkins was able to find growers in Idaho, Washington and Oregon who were growing potatoes using what he considers to be best management practices. HOPKINS "They follow research based recommendations. They don't go out and put on excessive amounts of inputs. They put on what is needed, they use things judiciously, they scout their crops and apply things more on a prescription basis rather than just a 'this is what worked last year so that's what we're doing this year.'" For the past four years this University of Idaho researcher went into the fields, selected plots and tried to maximize yields by adding about one hundred to 150 dollars in additional inputs. HOPKINS "And the bottom line is that at the end of the four years what we found is that the bmp's come out ahead in almost every case. Not always in yield but almost always economically were ahead of the game." Hopkins doesn't tell anyone to jump into this full speed ahead. Rather he says be cautious and study it out before making changes. Speaking of change, how about crop rotation changes. There's more to that in our next report. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott