Roberto had the beds where we planted seed potatoes on Saturday in perfect condition. As we only plant a couple of acres we have no fancy equipment. Our old planting sled has some specially welded tubes and coulters into which we drop the seed.
The seed is organically grown in Colorado by Sheldon at Rocky Farms. He sends a truck full of seed to pretty much all the organic farms in our area. By consolidating it all on one truck the cost is much lower.
He grows the potatoes at high altitude, 7,000 feet, where no aphids dare to live. In this way he can take virus free potatoes and multiply them. Aphids do munch on the potatoes and they way they do it is a problem. They inject a digesting substance into the plant then suck out the digested juices. They spit before they suck in more technical words. If they have the virus in their saliva then the potato is infected. The virus may not affect the yield of the potato too much but if we save one of them and plant it again the problem can multiply and yields fall. This is the same reason we buy fresh strawberry plants every year. This year is the first we have been able to keep the strawberry plants for a third year. It appears that the plants are able to resist the virus load longer. Interesting change.