Oregon Public Broadcasting

Researchers and farmers across the region begin judging Monday in an annual potato beauty contest. Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

The annual Pacific Northwest Tri-State Potato Tour determines what potatoes to plant in the future.

Over the next week, farmers and researchers will travel around the region to judge over 50,000 different varieties of spuds.

The top potatoes get replanted. And earn a chance to help produce the potatoes that will eventually be baked, mashed, and fried over the next two decades.

Steve James is a researcher at Oregon State University. He says at first, beauty is just skin deep – but eventually judges cast an eye to other qualities, such as whether they the spuds are resistant to disease.

Steve James: “It's pretty obvious when you see a good one. They are not going to have cracks in them. They are not going to have knobs on them. It’s pretty obvious when you see those that if they were displayed on a store shelf a person would pick them up and buy them.”

James says it’s a very subjective process. One reviewer will see a potato, where someone else sees a po-tah-to.

The whole thing gets called off after the final potato tour stop in Klamath Falls on October 7th.