Great Spuds of Fire

Using a flamethrower to harvest potatoes in Aroostook

A few weeks prior to the September-October potato harvest season in Aroostook County, farmers kill all potato vines growing above ground. Doing so controls the size of the tuber, leaves time for a potato’s skin to set, and makes it easier for the farmer to dig out the spuds come fall. It may transform their fields from lush green into a large patch of brown dirt, but it helps ensure a better harvest. In 1948, when Howell Walker took the above photo in Aroostook County, a few experimental farmers turned up the heat on their vines by attaching a flamethrower to their tractor, although it proved to be too expensive compared with using rotobeaters or a (now illegal) sodium arsenic spray. Recently, however, the practice of flamethrowers has resurfaced among organic potato farmers looking to avoid chemical herbicides. —Will Bleakley

Photograph ©Howell Walker/National Geographic Society/Corbis

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