In late April, I reported on a crop of early potatoes which was covered with plastic to help speed up crop growth and development. The objective was to help hit the higher priced end of the earlies market. The crop belonged to Paud Flynn & Sons and was grown in Rush, Co Dublin.

At the time, Gerry Flynn told me that they hoped the additional cost of plastic use would bring the harvest date forward by about a week to help catch the high end of the price curve.

Gerry said that this does not always work out as planned, but, when I met him last week, he was very happy this year.

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Last week, he lifted all of the crop that was planted under plastic and this is about seven to 10 days earlier than the uncovered portion of the crop that was sown at the same time.

So, thankfully, this year looks like providing a payback.