Arabic version: زيريلا تستعد لحصاد بطاطا البذور في كاثرين

According to ABC News, South Australian potato company Zerella Holdings is days away from harvesting its first Northern Territory crop, grown at a farm just north of Katherine. The company has planted about 70 hectares of seed potatoes, in what could become the Top End’s first successful commercial potato production in about 20 years.

Zerella planted its first pivot-irrigated crop of low-carbohydrate Maranca potatoes in May at its newly established farm. Farm manager Jacob Pye said the Katherine region had provided a fast growing season, a mix of soils suitable for potatoes and strong water conditions. The warmer Top End climate also allows a shorter production season than at the company’s other sites, helping work finish before the wet season.

The eight-week harvest will use a mixture of backpackers and local workers. Seed potatoes will be processed and stored at a newly constructed facility at Florina, NT, while a processing plant and cool room are also being built on the site. From next week, the potatoes will be loaded into one-tonne bags and sent south in refrigerated rail containers to Zerella farms in the Northern Adelaide plains.

There, the seed potatoes are expected to sprout into food-grade potatoes early next year. Previous growers had succeeded in producing potato crops in the Top End, but high input costs and competition from established interstate operations had limited commercial viability in the Northern Territory.

Feral pigs have damaged part of Zerella’s crop, presenting an unfamiliar challenge for Mr Pye, who is from New Zealand. He said the pigs root through the ground for moisture but were not wiping out whole pivots, and the company was confident it could manage their impact. Zerella also successfully navigated a significant wet season that inundated Katherine with floodwaters.