Top End's first potato crop in decades almost ready for harvest

Major potato company Zerella ready for NT harvest at Katherine seed farm Tue 4 Aug 2026 at 8:27am In short: A South Australian potato company is preparing to harvest the Northern Territory's first crop of commercially grown potatoes in decades. Feral pigs have challenged the company, which is new to operating in the Top End. What's next? Seed potatoes will be freighted by rail to South Australia from next week. One of Australia's biggest potato suppliers is just days away from harvesting its first crop in the Northern Territory, which has not been grown in the region for decades. Zerella Holdings has grown about 70 hectares of seed potatoes at its farm just north of Katherine. From next week, the Territory-grown tubers will be freighted by rail to the company's farms in the Northern Adelaide plains, where they will sprout into food-grade potatoes early next year. In May, the company planted its first pivot-irrigated crop of low-carbohydrate Maranca variety at its newly established farm. The eight-week harvest will employ a mixture of backpackers and local workers. Once complete, it would mark the first successful commercial potato production in the Top End for about 20 years. Farm manager Jacob Pye said the conditions had been excellent for Zerella's operation. "It's a nice, fast, growing season with a good mix of soils for growing potatoes," Mr Pye said. Mr Pye said the Top End's warm weather conditions allowed for a much shorter growing season than at Zerella's other sites. "It's not causing too much stress on the potatoes at all, and the water up here has been magnificent," Mr Pye said. He said a shorter production window meant the work could be completed before the wet season. A processing plant and cool room facility is also being built on the site. Previous potato growers in the Top End had successfully grown a crop, but high input costs and competition from established operations interstate had prevented commercial viability in the Northern Territory. Pigs pose challenge Mr Pye said feral pigs had damaged a portion of the crop but the company was confident it could manage the impact of the pests, and they would not be a threat to production. "Being from New Zealand, I've never really heard of pigs getting into your potatoes, so that was a bit of a bit of an eye-opener for me, personally," he said. "They sort of just root up the ground a bit, looking for that moisture, that's all they sort of want. "It's not like they're wiping out a whole pivot or anything — they have a little bit of a nibble on the end, maybe, but that would be about it." Mr Pye said a significant wet season, which saw the town of Katherine inundated by floodwaters, had also been successfully navigated.