TractorsAppre­ci­a­tion for Every Potato

When the first rays of sunshine fall through the leaves of the large trees in the morning, it is still quiet on the Ritzleben organic farm. Laura Kulow sits on the terrace behind the brick house and drinks her first coffee of the day.” At 6am, every­thing is still quiet and I enjoy the peace,” she says. She knows that’s about to change, as it’s the begin­ning of September. It’s supposed to stay dry and the potato harvest is really picking up speed.

Laura has been running the 450ha farm for almost three years. She grows 10 different types of potato on 70ha, and wheat, rye, spelt, oats, field beans, lupins, and barley on the remaining 380ha. The family busi­ness has been prac­ticing organic farming since 1991. Between 2013 and 2023, Laura and her parents organ­ised the transfer of the farm between the gener­a­tions by estab­lishing a simple part­ner­ship (GbR). The 35-year-old has been managing the arable farm alone since 2023.

The Perfect Potato

Every April, Laura and her team of three staff plant the pota­toes, which grow until September. Each set, with around 15 tubers, remains buried beneath the soil, while a wide variety of weeds take over the field – including white goose­foot, corn­flowers, and gallant soldier. Diver­sity keeps the soil healthy and climate-resilient.

“Because we don’t spray, what­ever wants to grow, grows. We allow this in the late stages because it is good for the insects and the soil,” says Laura. “However, couch grass is no fun. It’s a really trou­ble­some plant!” This is because the couch grass root simply drills a hole into the potato in search of water. As a result, the quality of the harvest suffers.

“The perfect potato is slightly oval, medium-sized, and has a thin, flaw­less skin – as if peeled out of an egg,” explains Laura. “But not all pota­toes look like this. I can get all of the agro­nomic manage­ment right, but pota­toes are prod­ucts of nature. This is often not a problem, for example, in the case of slight scabs or defor­mi­ties, which do not harm pota­toes or people.”

The harvest is very good this year

Today, Laura and her team are harvesting the Otolia variety on a 15ha field section. Otolia is a predom­i­nantly waxy, yellowish, and aromatic table potato. Laura expects a yield of 30-50t/ha today, which is partic­u­larly good harvest.

The family purchased the JD 6140M in 2022 to strengthen the harvesting fleet. Laura is glad that she chose this tractor: “This is my first tractor with GPS capa­bility. When harvesting, the tractor now stays on its preset track, and we no longer have to steer manu­ally so can concen­trate on the speed and commu­ni­ca­tion with the helpers on the harvester.” After all, they have their hands full there, sorting out every­thing that isn’t a potato at break­neck speed.

Most of the time, Johannes Oster­länger drives the tractor during harvesting. He had never driven a John Deere before and even had a few precon­cep­tions. But he now has grown fond of the 6M. “The JD has some great features: The travel speed can be flex­ibly adjusted thanks to the contin­u­ously vari­able trans­mis­sion, which is prac­tical,” he says. “Oper­a­tion is simple and intu­itive. I didn’t need anybody to explain to me how to use it. In the simple menu on the screen in the cab and with the three buttons and the rotary knob, I was able to set every­thing myself.”  

In addi­tion to the 6M, which is used for weed control, harrowing, and ridging, there is also a powerful 8R and an old 4955 re-imported from Ukraine on the farm. The 8R is strong at ploughing and culti­vating the 450ha, while Laura uses the 4955, her favourite tractor, for tillage and trans­port.

After harvest, the pota­toes end up in a 1.5t lattice box to ‘air out’ for two nights. They can then be stored at 4.5⁰C for up to 10 months. Pota­toes like it dark, cool, and dry. The elec­tricity for cooling comes from the farm’s own photo­voltaic system.

If the organic farm receives an enquiry from a retailer, it is always linked to a specific cooking char­ac­ter­istic and size: Medium-sized tubers of the Bernina variety, for example. Then the old sorting machine, built in 1999, is put to use. It sorts by size and can meet every request, from small triplets to over­sized items. At the same time, produce that is not of perfect quality is manu­ally sorted out. The pota­toes that couch grass has bored into now find their way into a sepa­rate box labelled ‘feed’.  

Appre­ci­a­tion for the Sorted-Out Potato

Just a few years ago, discarded pota­toes were used as animal feed. Nowa­days, Laura makes more out of B-grade produce. It’s worth it, because the prices differ signif­i­cantly:

Together with her father Carsten Niemann and four other part­ners, Laura runs the Biokartoffel Nord growers’ asso­ci­a­tion and converts some of the crop into organic potato flakes, for mashed pota­toes or organic potato starch. “Our Biokartoffel Nord asso­ci­a­tion is impor­tant because it allows us to utilise the discarded pota­toes and thus appre­ciate them all,” explains Laura. Another 40 regional busi­nesses also provide their discarded B-grade produce to the growers’ asso­ci­a­tion for further processing and thus benefit from this concept.

Some­thing is always up

Numerous star­lings gather in a tall oak tree on the farm, chat­tering excit­edly about their upcoming journey south. “Unfor­tu­nately, holi­days and week­ends are diffi­cult to plan in the farming profes­sion,” says Laura some­what wist­fully. Never­the­less, she managed to spend a week in Sweden with her chil­dren this year. “However, I don’t just have to consider the costs of the holiday, but also what it can cost if things don’t go as planned on the farm in the mean­time.”

It’s a good thing that 18-year-old Laura was able to spend a year in Australia after finishing school: “I trav­elled, let time pass and occa­sion­ally thought about what I would do with my life after­wards.” She came to the conclu­sion that she needed enough space to start a family and keep animals. There­fore, it made sense to live in the coun­try­side. So after Australia, she pursued agri­cul­tural studies, first in Berlin and then with a focus on ecology in Witzen­hausen. It was there that her passion for organic farming was sparked. She became a mother for the first time during her studies: “I took my son with me a lot. It worked out well; he was a very easy child.”

Today, Laura is a mother of four, managing family life and respon­si­bility for the farm. “You’re on call 24/7, 365 days a year. There’s no time for mater­nity leave.” She believes that the expres­sion “some­thing is always up” best describes her everyday life. And that’s also what she likes: The chal­lenges – and when things start moving, the work is rewarding and successful.