Wysocki Produce Farm grows spuds like Iowa farmers grow corn. werhouse Sommers, who paid for his ag business college degree with his potato-growing enterprise. “I was taking student loan money and planting potatoes. By the time I graduated, I had 60 acres. And by my first year out of college, I was up to 125 acres. From there, I just kept expanding.” Sommers lives smack in the middle of Wisconsin, where potato production is concentrated in the fertile central sands region. Known for near-perfect potato-growing conditions, the sandy soils allow earlier planting and, ultimately, higher yields. Wisconsin is the third-largest potato-growing state behind Idaho and Washington. In 2014, Wisconsin growers harvested 2.75 billion pounds of potatoes. That’s the same year his friends and neighbors, the Wysocki family, contacted him about joining their operation of 4,500 acres. In 1997, Sommers and his wife Kathy became official partners in Wysocki Family of Companies, with Sommers at the helm of the cropping side of the family’s businesses. “My goal was to be a player in the vegetable and potato industry. My limitations were land, labor and capital. That was solved by the Wysocki offer,” he says. Last year, Wysocki Produce Farm grew 4,000 acres of potatoes, plus green beans, peas, alfalfa, corn and other crops, for a total of 13,000 acres in production. This year, after acquiring adjacent Paramount Farms, 15,000 acres were added to the operation. And 8,700 of those acres are dedicated to potatoes. Wysocki Family of Companies, with six partners, is vertically integrated and includes the production division; RPE (Russet Potato Exchange), which handles sales and marketing; Paragon, which operates the packaging facility; and 3,500-cow Central Sands Dairy. “When Jeff became a partner of our operation in 1997, he brought the same drive and integrity our company was founded on,” says Russell Wysocki, CEO of the Wysocki network of companies. “Our shared family tradition of farming has allowed our company and its partners to expand operations to By Greg Lamp include growing regions across the country.” Thoughtful Planning Before any equipment pulls into a Wysocki company field, plenty of planning has taken place. Along with in-house agronomists, Sommers meets with Allied Cooperative, based in Adams, Wis., to get inputs in place for the start of planting, usually the first of April. “We sit down with them and > Partnering Up By 1996, Sommers was up to 2,500 acres, 900 of them producing potatoes. Peas, beans, corn and other crops covered the remaining 1,600 acres. Last year, Wysocki Produce Farm produced 2 million 100-pound sacks of potatoes. Your CHS Connection 21