When's the best time to cut back on water with the least harm to a potato's development? It's a question of topical relevance in all agricultural centers in the United States, perhaps nowhere more so than in western Nebraska.

Cyclical drought conditions in western Nebraska prompted Alex Pavlista, crop physiologist and potato specialist at the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center, to research when you can cut back irrigation without harming tuber development.

"Figuring that potatoes need about 24 to 25 inches of water," Pavlista said, "that means rain plus irrigation in a normal year. In western Nebraska we normally get, during the growing season, maybe four inches. This year we haven't even come close."

Pavlista just completed his four-year study with the 2012 fall harvest.

While he is currently compiling the results of the fourth year of research, he spoke of results gleaned from the first three years of the project.

Using the cultivar Atlantic, Pavlista developed four different irrigation regimes in his study.

"The potatoes will never be starved of water, but we will remove half the amount of water for different periods of time," Pavlista said, describing the four different irrigation regimes used in the project.

Pavlista has found that growers shouldn't hold back the water from tuber initiation to mid-bulking. He said that the best time to withhold water would be in the final three weeks of the season.

Paul Patterson, University of Idaho Extension agricultural economist, in affiliation with the University of Idaho Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, recently released the 2012 cost of Idaho potato production report.

The publication compares the 2012 cost of production with 2011 cost of production. The report is published annually.

Data for the report was collected between February and October. The report's cost of production estimates have been developed for four geographic regions of the state: southwestern, south-central, southeastern and northeastern.

Farm sizes varied from 1,200 acres with 300 acres in potatoes in southwestern Idaho, 1,800 acres with 450 acres in potatoes in south-central Idaho, and 1,800 acres with 600 acres in potatoes in eastern Idaho.

A comparison of 2011 ownership costs and return (CAR) estimates with 2012 for potato crop CAR estimates showed an increase ranging from $37 to $71 per acre in 2012. Total costs per acre for all the CAR estimates showed an increase ranging from $180 to $311 in 2012 compared to 2011.

Farm size and acreage planted in specific crops will influence CAR estimates. Taking these differences into account, the report has 10 potato CAR estimates. Nine CAR estimates are for commercial potato production and one is for seed production.

View the complete report here.