-Submitted photo
Adam Koch and Steve Rachut are business partners, along with Steve's wife Beth, at Kittleson Brothers. In addition to onions, they grow russet, red, gold and white potatoes. Here, they display a few of their potato products.

FERTILE — During the winter holidays, many family gatherings center around the dinner table. From a big Thanksgiving meal to a Christmas Eve dinner, one of the staples happens to be mashed potatoes.

Not far from Fertile, Iowa, lies Kittleson Brothers, a farm dedicated to growing potatoes and onions for more than a century. The operation sits around 30 minutes from the operation’s warehouse and currently is run by Steve and Beth Rachut, and Adam Koch.

It all began with John F. Kittleson, a predecessor who established the farm in 1862. Sometime in the early 1900s, his son, Charles Edward Kittleson, started growing tobacco on the farm. The family switched to taters and onions on the main farm in the 1920s, raised by Carl and Julius Kittleson.

In the 1930s, the Kittlesons purchased peat land north of Fertile where they planted even more potatoes and onions. In 1942, the family built an onion warehouse, which was replaced by a larger one in 1961. A bulk potato warehouse was built in 1963.

A tornado hit the farm on July 12, 1971, destroying the onion grading warehouse and the new potato warehouse, while also ripping the roof off the new onion bins.

-Submitted photo
Adam Koch, who operates Kittleson Brothers farm along with Steve and Beth Rachut, displays a few of the onions grown in one of their onion fields. The three are several generations down the Kittleson line and now grow red and yellow onions, as well as russet, red, gold and white potatoes.

Everyone quickly got to work fixing up the farm and added new grading and packing rooms. Each of the two onion bins can hold 15,000 bushels, which is the equivalent of a one-hour supply of onions for the entire United States, the family said.

Now, Kittleson Brothers sits in the hands of the Rachuts and Koch, who are several generations down the Kittleson line. The family grows red and yellow onions, as well as russet, red, gold and white potatoes.

Iowa’s weather doesn’t allow the farm to raise potatoes and onions year-round outdoors, so after harvest, onions are typically sold until the last week of September. Potatoes are harvested in early October and are for sale until their supply runs out for the year, which typically happens in May or June.

“We plant onions by seed as soon as we can get in the field, typically in mid-April. Potatoes are planted in mid to late May. From planting to harvest, each crop typically requires attention at least once a week. This may be anything from cultivating, hilling potatoes, foliar fertilizer, hand weeding, or a pesticide application when required,” Koch said.

“We use dry fertilizer and in-furrow, as well as make many foliar passes. Once the potato plants are of size, we hill them twice. This helps eliminate any weeds and buries the base of the potato plant deeper as the rows grow shut. This keeps the light off of the potatoes as sunlight causes them to turn green.”

After Labor Day, the onions are lifted and laid into a windrow to dry, which takes approximately two weeks. Once the onions are dry, onion harvest begins.

“We also harvest a few early loads of potatoes and begin grading, bagging and selling at our warehouse store when onion harvest is complete. The rest of the potatoes are harvested when the weather is favorable and temps have dropped some, which is typically mid-October,” Beth Rachut said.

The corn and soybean harvest works around the vegetable harvest and grading/bagging for orders and the warehouse store.

“After harvest is complete, we begin weekly deliveries to about 30 local grocery stores, as well as bulk onion sales,” Steve Rachut said. “We often run out of onions in the beginning of April, and potatoes sometime in May.”

Kittleson Brothers plants between 30 and 40 acres of each crop in a rotation with corn and beans. Potatoes typically average 500 to 600 50-pound bags per acre, and onions typically average 900 to 1,100 50-pound bags per acre.

“Vegetable crops are much more labor intensive. Aside from the vegetable business, Steve and Adam both have cattle and row crops, and Steve and I also own and operate Steve’s Sweet Corn. However, most time is dedicated towards the onion and potato crops. All vegetables are walked for weeds. They also require consistent pest monitoring and care,” said Beth Rachut.

“In the winter, monitoring of the storage bins for temperature and humidity is crucial for storage quality. As soon as harvest starts, grading and bagging also begin. We are grateful to have several seasonal employees to help us through our harvest and grading seasons. As harvest wraps up, we transition to grading and bagging five days a week until spring.”

Each planter and seed equipment is different for the produce, as well as the in-season equipment like cultivators and hillers.

“We have a different harvester for each crop and a dedicated truck fleet and equipment to carefully haul and unload into the warehouse,” Koch said. “Once in the warehouse, each crop has a dedicated grading line to sort, size and bag the produce. Potatoes are run through a washer, while onions are kept dry. All produce is checked for quality by hand before being bagged for sale.”

The farm operation sells directly to consumers, retailers and restaurants. Their brand of produce can be found in more than 30 grocery stores, including Fareway, Hy-Vee and other local grocers.

“We sell directly to consumers in our warehouse store from October through May. Many consumers and restaurant owners alike stop to purchase our products,” Koch said. “Starting in November, we run a weekly delivery route to over 30 local grocery stores through the winter months. We also sell our onions in bulk to distributors in Minnesota and Wisconsin. These onions will end up in grocery stores and restaurants across the Midwest.”

The delivery week before Thanksgiving is typically the farm’s busiest week of grading as stores stock up for the holiday.

“This year, we broke our record for most pounds bagged in one week. Harvest is also super busy as we open our warehouse store, have many large orders to fill and work to get all four crops harvested in a timely manner,” Steve Rachut said. “The vegetables are very sensitive to heat, cold, and bruise easily. Timing is very critical.”

An agrepreneur since he was 12, Steve Rachut grew up on a farm in the Osage area and started his sweet corn business as a young teen. In high school, he also started raising a few acres of onions as part of his FFA SAE project. He graduated from Iowa State University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in ag business and a minor in agronomy. He has his own farm and helps his parents with theirs. His family has been raising onions since his grandfather, Wilmer, started in the 1930s.

Beth Rachut grew up on a livestock and crop farm near Guthrie Center and is a 2004 graduate of Iowa State University with a degree in ag communications. She became an active part of Kittleson Brothers in 2019, helping with marketing, customer service and billing.

Adam Koch grew up on a livestock and row crop farm near Osage. In high school, he showed livestock and worked for Steve’s Sweet Corn. He graduated from Iowa State in 2021 with a degree in ag education. He worked at Kittleson Brothers during harvest and winter breaks from college. After graduation, he began full-time at Kittleson Brothers and also started farming on his own.