Harvesting with NDFB: Tater tales with the Kyllos

In today’s episode, host Emmery Mehlhoff visits with Justin and Jenna Kyllo of McCanna, North Dakota. Justin and Jenna operate a multigenerational farm where they grow potatoes and several other crops. Emmery and the Kyllos visit about the ins and outs of growing and harvesting potatoes.

Join us for the final episode of Harvesting with NDFB

Thanks for joining our harvesting with NDFB podcast series. Stay tuned for January as we follow the 2025 Legislative Assembly. 

For questions or comments, please contact Emmery at emmery@ndfb.org

Transcript

[Straight Talk theme]

[00:12] Emmery: Welcome to Straight Talk with NDFB. I am your host Emmery Mehlhoff. And I am Alisha Nord. We are your farm bureau duo bringing you your competitive edge. In today's episode, I visit with Justin and Jenna Kyllo of McCanna, N.D. In September, my cohost Alisha traveled to the Kyllo farm to visit with Jenna during potato harvest. Because of some tech issues we were not able to record at that time. So Justin and Jenna were kind enough to join me to reflect on this year's potato crop and discuss the ins and outs of growing potatoes. Join us for our final episode as we harvest across North Dakota. 

[Straight Talk stinger]

[00:52] Emmery: Well, welcome to Straight Talk with NDFB. Today I have Jenna Kyllo with us and Justin as well. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourselves and your operation.

[01:05] Justin: We farm just northwest of Larimore, my little town of McCanna. We grow potatoes, pinto beans, corn, wheat, soybeans. Yeah, we're fifth generation farm, I guess that's what we do.

[01:17] Jenna: Yep. Your dad farms with us and he's a big part of the farm, helps us do absolutely everything. And I work full time off the farm. I told Alisha earlier when she came out during potato harvest, we have a trucking company in our family too and I work full time at the trucking company and I get to help out on the farm when he needs a little extra help. And that was when Alisha came out. That was my very small part of the operation is loading trucks. So you got to see that. Yeah, so we keep pretty busy.

[01:52] Emmery: So Alisha traveled all the way up there to visit with you guys and got a taste of your potato harvest and we weren't able to record the podcast at that time because of some technical difficulty on on our end. It was our first on the road podcast but we will be showing sharing that footage of of her time up there. So you guys were right in the middle of potato harvest. Tell us a little bit about what it's like to grow potatoes a little bit. What goes into that as far as obtaining, I guess the spud that, you plant and different applications that you put on. Just tell us a little bit about the procedures and what's the ins and outs of the potato growing.

[02:34] Justin: Yeah, we'll start planting, I suppose, usually the third or fourth week in April. It's pretty labor intensive. Take some trucks, it takes some people. We plant about 2,000 lbs. to the acre of seed. A potato seed is nothing more than a potato piece sliced up, cut normally be 2 to 3 ounces. You want one or, you know, one or two eyes on the piece. The eye is what sprouts. We use a potato planter, a pick type potato planter. You set your population. You know, how many seeds, how far apart you want them. It just kind of meters them out, and then there's a healing disc that cover them up.

[03:12] Jenna: It's a lot like gardening is what I tell people that don't know because they buy your little pieces that are cut up and. It's like, just like that.

[03:19] Emmery: You said you're buying them. Are you buying them from somebody you're not keeping them from the year before?

[03:25] Justin: No, we. You don't, you don't keep your own seed back because in diseases, things like that. So you. You buy certified seed from a seed grower. I have them cut it for me, and then I pick it up.

[03:36] Emmery: Do you have to put a lot of inputs on them during the growing season to keep the bugs and diseases at bay, or are they pretty, pretty easy?

[03:44] Justin: No, it's, it gets pretty busy about, I don't know, a month to six weeks after planting. Start your fungicide program. Once the potatoes get up and get going, you'll start your fungicide program. And your insecticide program is just kind of as needed. A lot of times they'll spray three or four times for Colorado potato beetles, and then we'll spray every seven to 10 days with a fungicide. Different fungicides that we alternate to, you know, just to keep things smooth. And then we will spray up until about a week or 10 days before harvest. A lot of times we'll start end of June, and we'll probably continue our fungicide program until about 1st of September. That's the fungicide program. The weeds, you know, normally you'll spray for your weeds a couple of times within about the first 30 to 45 days. And then, you know, as the plants grow and canopy over, then the weeds are pretty much done.

[04:45] Emmery: I'm trying to remember. Alisha was out there. I believe in. Was it October? Is that September? That's right. So September is your usual harvest time then?

[04:54] Jenna: Yep.

[04:55] Justin: Yeah, we'll start mid-September. Takes us a couple of weeks to get our crop harvested. So we always want to be done by 1st October if we can. Kind of our goal.

[05:04] Emmery: Try to avoid that first frost, I suppose.

[05:06] Justin: We harvest our potatoes green so they... because, you know, we get paid by weight with, with a processed potato, so we don't kill them for size. We keep them green. So the longer we can wait, you know, the more weight we get. So that's why we, we just kind of wait it out and watch the weather and just decide.

[05:26] Jenna: That's just a small difference between, but like you said, table stock versus process that we're going for.

[05:33] Emmery: Process would be turned into french fries, things like that.

[05:37] Justin: French fries, tater tots, stuff like that. Yep.

[05:40] Emmery: Tell us, tell us what it looks like to harvest potatoes. What kind of equipment are you using? Tell us a little bit about everything that goes into that.

[05:48] Justin: Yep. So we use a potato harvester. it takes four rows at a time. So it's 12 ft wide. So you just got a blade that goes under under the potatoes. And then there's chains that separate the dirt out of the potatoes. It's got some other processing equipment on the machine. And then you load them into the truck on the move. You know, you don't stop. You're always moving. When you're filling your truck. It'll be about even an acre to a truckload, you know, so it's a lot of loads, It's a lot of trucks moving. It's a lot of equipment.

[06:17] Jenna: Well, in a field truck, you'll leave the digger, you'll come to the grading sight, we'll offload the truck into the... well,  now we have the air-sep machine and sorts out more dirt clumps, separates it more and anything else that shouldn't be there. Yeah. Then you load them into other trucks and then they go to storage from there.

[06:38] Justin: We have a yard where we sort, you know, to get the to get the dirt clods out or anything that the harvester didn't get out. And we have more machinery that we use to get that clean.

[06:47] Emmery: When we visited with you, Jenna, was that what we were in front of or.

[06:52] Jenna: Yeah.

[06:52] Emmery: Okay.

[06:53] Speaker Jenna: That long, big.. Air-sep it's called. And it helps just get everything that takes over. I mean, it used to be done a lot more by hand and now we have machines to help us do it.

[07:05] Justin: So you really don't need any hand labor with the machinery that we have now.

[07:09] Emmery: Okay. Probably have spent your days doing some hand labor with potatoes then, huh?

[07:14] Jenna: Oh yeah.

[07:15] Justin: Yep.

[07:16] Jenna: Good times. (laughs)

[07:16] Justin: Yep. It goes a lot faster now than it used to with larger machinery and better machinery. You know, used to take us close to a month to get to get the work done and now we do it in half that.

[07:28] Jenna: And we had ideal conditions this year too. It was really nice. Yeah, it was pretty perfect actually for digging potatoes.

[07:34] Justin: So. Yep.

[07:35] Jenna: A couple hot days there a little bit, so we'll get shut down for heat.

[07:38] Emmery: Shut down for heat. Just cause they're sensitive.

[07:41] Jenna: Yeah.

[07:41] Emmery: Okay.

[07:41] Jenna: You want to put them into storage. You don't want to put them in too warm.

[07:44] Justin: You want that. You want the temp of the potato. You don't really want any more than about 65 degrees. If the nights cool off down into the 40s at night, it's okay. You can, you can dig in the heat a little bit during the day, because when you get them into the, into the warehouse, and then you can run cool air on them at night. But when the night stays so warm, then that's when you, you just have to... you dig a little bit in the morning, and then you.

[08:05] Jenna: This year, the nights stayed pretty warm.

[08:07] Justin: Yeah, yeah. When you get warm nights, it's tough to... because you can't get them cooled down. So, yeah, you do have to shut down for heat sometimes. That's just the way it is.

[08:15] Jenna: Well, I was going to mention our potatoes, too that they're all under irrigation.

[08:19] Justin: Yeah. You know, they'll take an inch into an inch and a half a week, you know, in their peak growing season. And once you get into July and August, that's when they take a lot of water. We have pretty sandy soil, so we have to, you know, we have to keep the water going...

[08:34] Jenna: Which potatoes like, I mean, it works pretty well. And there's a lot of potatoes growing around our area.

[08:40] Emmery: Are you guys storing them on your place then? Do you.

[08:43] Justin: Our potatoes go to a storage on 32nd Avenue on the south end of Grand Forks. So we'll haul them from our site at McCanna to Grand Forks and put them in storage there.

[08:52] Emmery: Well, that's kind of nice. You're not doing what we're doing right now, which is hauling from corn bags, although I suppose you're probably doing that with your other crops, but... (laughs)

[09:00] Justin: Yeah, no bags. We don't have any bags, but we've got some grain to move, too. So we gotta start working on that here after the new year.

[09:10] Emmery: Tell us a little bit about how you market your potatoes. I think Jenna had mentioned that you obviously with potatoes, you're working with a processor.

[09:19] Justin: Yes.

[09:20] Emmery: How does that whole process work?

[09:22] Justin: You have a contract with your premiums, discounts, and you have a base price, and then with premiums and discounts. So you have a pretty good idea what you're going to get paid for. That's all done, you know, like February, March timeframe, maybe in April sometimes to get a contract and get it signed and things. And then you... it's based on 100 weights per acre of what you plant. So, you know, you can contract up pretty close to what you normally raise so that you got a sale for most of your potatoes. If you have a big crop, sometimes you can't get rid of your extra. It just kind of depends on if they want to buy them or not. You know, if the processor has room for some more or if they don't. Sometimes if you have a nice crop, you might have to leave a few or, you know, you harvest them and take a chance, I guess, see if you can get rid of them somewhere else. But, yeah, we pretty much know where, we know where ours are going when we plant them, and we know pretty much know what we're going to get. Takes some risk off the table.

[10:14] Emmery: Have you always worked with the same processor, or.

[10:19] Justin: Yes, the same. Yeah, we have since 1988 is when we started working with the processor that we're still with today.

[10:25] Emmery: So is there a lot of competition in that market or is it all pretty streamlined?

[10:31] Justin: No, there's not. There's not. There's probably only about three different processors in the U.S. in our area. There's just one in Grand Forks, you know, so.

[10:39] Emmery: So what sets the potato price? Do they? Or do they follow some sort of market or.

[10:44] Justin: I guess the processing price, it just kind of follows, you know, it kind of follows what our inputs are, things like that, and what they're getting for their product, too, so....

[10:57] Emmery: Okay.

[10:58] Justin: Yeah, but no, that's how we do it, because potatoes are perishable. So by the following summer, you have to, I mean, if you can't find a sale for those, they start to spoil.

[11:08] Emmery: Right, right.

[11:09] Justin: It's not like wheat or corn that you can keep in a bin for, you know, however long you have to until you can find a sale for it, you know.

[11:18] Emmery: So you guys are a family operation. You said you worked with your dad some. And then Jenna comes when she's not managing the truckload. Do you have children who are involved, too?

[11:30] Justin: Yeah, we have one. We have one son that is 16. Looks like he's gonna stick around. He's. He's busy. He meets out and around when he can be, you know, it's. He's in some sports and he's in school and stuff, so it's. He's busy, but he. He's around whenever he can be and seems like he enjoys it, so.

[11:47] Emmery: Well, do you guys have any advice for any of the... a lot of our listeners are multigenerational farmers as well. Do you have any advice out there for the listener out there who's either working with family or interested in farming. Obviously location is a little dependent on whether you can actually grow potatoes or not.

[12:05] Jenna: They probably should give us advice.

[12:07] Justin: Yeah.

[12:10] Jenna: I think we're just really lucky. We have, we have really good help that comes and helps us. I mean, that's a big part of it is you need his help. And especially during harvest and planting, you need more help, way more help. And we just have a really good crew. We're really lucky.

[12:25] Justin: We've got some family, family friends and retired guys that come and help us and everybody does a really good job and it works really, really well. So we're lucky that way. Yeah, definitely.

[12:38] Jenna: And I think a lot of multi generational farmers know that. Just do it.

[12:42] Justin: Yeah, you gotta bite your tongue once in a while when you're working with family, you know. And I guess maybe that's kind of a secret, you know, you just gotta kind of go with the flow. Everybody's got to get along.

[12:55] Emmery: Yeah. What I'm hearing from you is that if you are generally amiable to other people, then they'll come and help you out when you need it.

[13:03] Justin: Yeah.

[13:03] Jenna: Yeah.

[13:03] Justin: Oh yeah.

[13:05] Emmery: Oh, good. Is there any other advice or things that you would like to share?

[13:11] Jenna: Eat more potatoes. Eating potoatoes is fine. They're good. They add to...

[13:19] Emmery: That's a good question. If I'm buying tater tots or french fries from the store, am I eating your guys's potatoes?

[13:25] Jenna: Probably.

[13:26] Justin: Probably.

[13:26] Emmery: Okay.

[13:27] Jenna: They're all different brands too, so you don't need...

[13:29] Justin: Some of them are. Do go to grocery stores and that. A lot of the stuff that we raise goes to quick serve restaurants: Wendy's, Burger King's, McDonald's. There's a few chains in the south in the southern states. That's where a lot of more of our stuff goes like to the quick service, then to the actual grocery store for whatever reason. And it seems like that's where most of ours in.

[13:55] Emmery: The side story here, my grandpa, we had pigs and he would get the big truckloads of the potato scraps. And I just remember them sitting in a big pile, you know, molding all summer. And the pigs ate them though. They loved that stuff. So.

[14:09] Justin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they like that. Yeah.

[14:13] Emmery: Good pig food. Well, we've been ending our interviews asking this question. Was the 2024 potato crop a boom or a bust?

[14:21] Justin: We didn't have a very good crop in 2024. We had some seed rot and we had acold, wet spring. And yeah, it was one of the poor crops we've had. I guess that's farming so we just had poor stands and that with. It was, it was mainly just a planting conditions and that, you know, poor stands. It's, you know, it's tough to replant, you know, pretty... you're kind of stuck with what you got, so. But we had good harvest conditions and we got it done. So we just keep going, I guess.

[14:53] Emmery: Well, and hopefully some of your other crops help make up for makeup. Yeah, that's one of the benefits of farming multiple crops is they kind of seem to balance each other out. At least that's what my husband tells me with cows some. So I grew up on a crop farm and he says that the cows will help when the crop prices are down, but I'm not sure about that.

[15:14] Jenna: (Laughs) Yeah.

[15:15] Emmery: Well, thank you guys so much for joining us on Straight Talk with NDFB and telling us a little bit about potatoes and how that whole world works. And I hope that you have a very merry Christmas.

[15:28] Justin: You too. Yeah. Thank you.

[15:30] Jenna: Thank you.

[Straight Talk stinger]

[15:33] Emmery: Thanks for joining our Harvesting with NDFB podcast series. We are off for Christmas, but tune in, in January as we will be diving into the 2025 legislative session. We will be focusing on legislation and issues that affect agriculture in North Dakota.

[Straight Talk theme]