These growers haven't just fallen off the potato truck

EAST GRAND FORKS, MINN. -- It is hard to imagine how many potatoes the Folson family has put on American dinner tables over the years, but that number would be hard to beat. After all, Nels Folson was the first commercial potato producer in North Dakota, way back in 1906, and four generations of the family have been pulling potatoes out of Red River Valley soils ever since.

"My great-grandpa started growing potatoes in 1906," said Bryan, great-grandson of Nels. He and his brother, Barry, now run the business in East Grand Forks.

"I guess I'm more on the sales side of it, and Barry's more on the production side of it," he says.

Nels Folson started out about 65 miles northwest of East Grand Forks.

"That was up in Hoople, N.D. My grandpa was born on a dirt floor in 1884, 5 miles south of Hoople," Bryan says. "That's where that all started."

Today, Folson Farms sell Red River reds, as the Folsons call them, to nearly all of the Lower 48. The Folsons plant 1,400 to 1,600 acres each year, the majority of which will be sold as table stock.

"We ship straight south; we ship some to Idaho -- that's the farthest west we go," Bryan says. "We ship all down the East Coast and Southeast. Really, the only places we don't ship to are Oregon, Washington, California and Arizona."

It was Bryan's father, Robert (Bud) Folson, who began farming operations in the East Grand Forks area around 1950. It was well established by the time 12-year-old Bryan began helping in the mid-1970s. By then, Folson Farms was growing the tastier, more attractive reds, but it hadn't always been so.

"Back when my grandpa and dad were farming, growing big potatoes was the thing to do," Bryan says. "If they were big, it didn't matter if they had a lot of eyes in them. The marketing was a lot bigger. There used to be Pontiac varieties that had a lot of eyes, but what they're looking for now is something that looks real pretty, and it's smooth-skinned and has a nice dark red color."

There's still a place for big potatoes, Bryan says, though there are fewer people who eat the big ones, like the Russet Burbanks.

"It's more the small-sized ones and the regular size," Bryan says. "But it used to be ... the bigger the better."

People today are much more particular about potato quality than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

There are enough areas in the country now that grow the quality potatoes, raising the bar for anyone wanting to get into the market.

"If you don't get in that game and meet that, you won't be growing potatoes too long," he says. "Quality is really the thing. It's just like bruises and all those things, and people aren't going to buy that."

With potato production as part of the family heritage, it comes as no surprise that the Folsons are involved in several industry associations. Bryan is a member of the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association and the U.S. Potato Board, which meets in Denver once a year to work at promoting the potato's benefits as a food source.

"It's a good food," he says. "It's high in vitamin C and vitamin A. It's a very reasonable price for your dollar, for food value.

He also has gotten involved with the National Potato Council, which advises members on planting acreage based on market demand. The theory is that meeting demand at just the right level will keep supplies tight and market values up. The Folsons planted according to their own sense of the markets this year.

Out in the fields, the jury still is out on what kind of harvest Folson Farms will have. The 2008 growing season -- which has, in general, seen a lot of the cooler evenings that potatoes like -- has been good, but not great for Folson Farms.

"We're a little more on the dry side in the Grand Forks area," he says. "We had a longer dry spell. But up by the Grafton, Hoople and Crystal area (of North Dakota), they had more moisture up there. Their yields were better up there."

It's hard to say for certain what kind of yields they will get because they had just begun their harvest.

"They're off a little bit from last year, right now," Folson says. "But the quality is nice. It looks very good."

His concern at the moment is getting his crop off the field. As of the second week of September, he had got only 2 percent in, and things weren't moving as quickly as he'd like, thanks to some late heavy rains.

With a century of potato-growing knowledge to draw on, the Folson brothers no doubt will be fine and their potatoes again will be shipped all over the country as a staple of the American diet.