Potato is an annual plant native to South America. It was introduced in Africa at the end of the 19th century and is now grown widely in arid areas for the fresh food market or the processing industry. At these latitudes, potatoes are a high input crop, mainly water, and a perfect control of irrigation is essential to grow highly profitable potato crops. For 30 years, ICS has been selecting varieties adapted to these conditions, machines and developing best crop management practices to ensure that our clients obtain the high yields and return on investments they are aiming for.

For some crops, like potatoes, light tillage is not always the best suited. In fact, it is important to create relatively fine soil to a relatively large depth (about 20-25cm). In order to obtain this result, robust tine machines are able to prepare the soil in a minimum of passes.

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The potato is the largest vegetable which very quickly required mechanized planting, first of all using simple planters with cups on a belt. This was followed by belt planters with electronic control for high speed planting.

At these latitudes, potatoes are also a high input crop: irrigation is needed in most production areas, fertilization is essential as the plant has a shallow root system unable to respond to such quick growth and short development cycle and, of course, crop protection is also important to avoid yield decrease. If not properly managed, inputs become very costly and can ruin the crop's profitability.

There are two major factors that will help you determine the most appropriate solution:

• the level of investment you can afford,
• and the tolerance of the varieties composing your crops to mechanical harvesting.

In any case, it is essential to wait about 3 weeks after uprooting to harvest the crop. This will leave enough time for the tubers' skin to thicken. Some varieties are adapted to mechanical harvesting. Others, (such as Spunta variety for example) are not, and can suffer badly from such treatment.

Therefore, harvesting sometimes simply consists of lifting from the field, loading into trailers when necessary, and of course, cleaning the harvest either in the field or in the storage facility. The potatoes can then be graded (manually and mechanically) and stored. The storage period varies greatly, depending on variety, health and temperature conditions.

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