Origins and the calendar
Storage potatoes: why prices move in spring
Potato prices often firm from winter into spring because the storage crop is harvested once in the fall and only drawn down, so the old crop tightens as the season ages. Shrink and quality loss in the cellar, a rising grade-out that pulls sound US No. 1 stock out of the pile and the timing of new-crop relief are the mechanics behind the seasonal move.
Updated Jul 10, 2026
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Potato prices often firm as winter turns to spring because the storage crop is harvested once, in the fall, and then only drawn down. No new russets are coming from the northern cellars until the next harvest, so every month of the storage year takes supply off a pile that cannot be refilled. That is the mechanics behind the seasonal move, and it is a supply story, not a demand one.
A pile that only shrinks
After harvest, potatoes are cured for two to three weeks so the skins set and wounds heal, then held cold, near 40 degrees for table stock, often with a sprout inhibitor. Well-managed russets store seven to nine months. But storage is not free. Potatoes lose weight to respiration and to any sprouting, the shrink that eats into a stored lot, and the longer the crop sits the more the quality risk climbs. As the best potatoes ship out and defects show up in what remains, the grade-out rises, pulling US No. 1 stock out of the pile faster than the raw tonnage suggests. Tight, sound No. 1 supply late in the season is what firms a price.
The stocks-on-hand backdrop
- Upper Valley / Twin Falls-Burley (ID) (norkotah)
- Upper Valley / Twin Falls-Burley (ID) (burbank)
- USDA mostly / low-high range
How much crop is left is a number the trade watches. USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service surveys growers and storage operators through the storage season and publishes Potato Stocks, the quantity still in storage as of the first of the month along with shrink and loss, with reports spaced through the winter and spring. Against that backdrop, the price history tells the story. The Idaho chart above runs across the storage season: an opening level as new-crop potatoes come into the cellars, a winter draw, and a spring stretch as the remaining supply thins.
New-crop relief
- 40-count
- 60-count
- 80-count
- 100-count
The seasonal pressure breaks when the new crop arrives. The southern and western fresh regions dig their spring potatoes, and as that supply builds it takes the top off the old-crop market. The timing shifts year to year with the weather, so the handoff is not a date on a calendar. Within the storage crop, the count spread above can widen as the season ages, because size and quality get scarcer at the same time. Reading the spread across a winter-into-spring stretch shows the mechanics at work, not a signal about what any price will do next.
The Russet Report explains how the storage market works and reports what USDA published. It does not forecast prices and it is not advice on when to buy, sell or contract. A seasonal move helps one side of the trade and costs the other, and we report its size and direction plainly.
Now look at the live data
The Russet Report reports public USDA data and explains how this market works. It does not forecast prices and it is not trading or contracting advice: it never tells a reader what to buy, sell, or contract for. Figures are attributed to USDA as published.