Recently, the Canadian province of Manitoba reported having seeded around 60% of its potato crop, with quick growth anticipated over the next few days.

“Potato planting started in western Manitoba on April 27, as opposed to May 11, 2022, and April 23, 2021. Snow cover and mid-April snowfall delayed planting by about a week,” the Manitoba Potato Weather Network reported.

The province’s western region has between 60 and 100 percent of its planting done. The central potato-growing regions near Portage are 0–50% finished. Nearly 20% of the province’s southern region has been planted.

“Overall, potato planting is around 60% complete in the province. With good weather in the forecast, planting should be over 75% within a week. In comparison, in 2021 over 75% of planting was completed by mid-May, but only about 15% in 2022,” the Manitoba experts added.

The week of May 8–14 saw daily maximum temperatures in the potato-growing regions range between 25.5 and 28.5 degrees Celsius, while nighttime lows fell between 1.5 and 8.2 degrees Celsius. In comparison to the same week in 2022, the daytime highs were about 8 degrees Celsius warmer. A warmer start to the season is indicated by the GDD, which is 125%+ above average with a base of 5 degrees Celsius.

“Generally, soil temperatures were much warmer at planting time than last year. At 5 cm depths, the temperatures were similar to 2022, but much warmer at 20 cm depths. 2022 soil temperatures at 20 cm stayed below 10OC till mid-May but are much warmer in 2023,” the experts declared.

At a depth of 5 cm, the soils in Winkler and Treherne were colder, which would have slowed emergence. Winkler, Treherne, and Glenboro were cooler than other chosen locations at a depth of 20 cm.

While air temperatures have varied greatly and in some places reached above 30 degrees Celsius, soil temperatures have remained mild.

“The weather highlight for 2023 so far has been the lack of rain. This has led to all potato growing areas being significantly below normal for precipitation (12 to 62% of normal). At the same time in 2022, the rains in most potato growing areas were 86 to 287% of normal),” the weather experts of Manitoba summed up.