Two respected industry professionals share advice on storing healthy potatoes
By Joe Kertzman, managing editor, Badger Common’Tater
For more than 40 years each, Eugene Mancl of Ron’s Refrigeration and Dale Nelson of Nelson’s Vegetable Storage Systems have been working with potato and vegetable growers, helping them store disease- and bruise-free potatoes.
“I guess it’s no secret that I’ve been doing this a long time,” Nelson says. “I was fortunate to get into this business early in my career and it just felt right.”
“I worked in Idaho for two different companies,” he adds, “and in Minnesota and North Dakota for another, and finally made it back to Wisconsin, totaling 42 years.”
Mancl says, “Ron’s Refrigeration was started in 1973, and we’ve been working with potato and vegetable growers for about 45 years.”
With no shortage of experience, the Badger Common’Tater editor sat down with Mancl and Nelson to get some tips and advice on storing potatoes.
Mancl’s number one piece of advice to growers and/or brokerages/shippers who might store potatoes and other vegetables: “Take the time to have your equipment checked and calibrated before the storage season.”
“Storage-related issues are avoidable if you or a technician takes the time to get your systems running and serviced before you plan to store,” he adds.
Nelson says, “The storage is not a hospital! At best, it can maintain the quality of the crop being put into it. Although it is very possible to take a good product and make it marginal in storage.”
