In a dusty landscape with skies that change quickly as if dependent on the moods of gods and mountains that loom in the backdrop, a leafy plant grows quietly, unaware of its profound impact on humanity.

JEFFRY BOHLSHIED, FOOD SCIENTIST: If you really look at what the potato is, it's roughly the third, most important food crop in the world.

You can get more calories, more protein and more vitamins and minerals per acre with potatoes than you can most any other food.

REICHERT: And the Idaho spud is arguably the most famous spud of all.

CELIA GOULD, DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURE: Throughout the United States, nobody has done a better job of marketing a crop than the Idaho Potato, nobody.

We've got that one locked up.

JONATHAN HOGGE: You know, agriculture is the economic driver in Eastern Idaho, probably in Idaho period.

REICHERT: To live and work potatoes is to embrace the good, the bad, and everything in between.

[cheering] GOULD: I think farming's pretty much in people's blood.

It's part of our culture.

It's who we are, you know, you become part of the land probably more than it should.

It becomes part of your identity.

MELANIE SCHWENDIMAN, SCHWENDIMAN FARMS: I love everything.

I love the smell of the dirt.

I love driving the truck.

I love being with the people.

I just, I just love everything about it.

MICHAEL STEINMANN, POTATO SEED FARMER: You have to enjoy it or life would be terrible.

There's of course things that you don't enjoy doing all the time, but for the most part, I really enjoy raising them and watching them grow and out, digging during the growing season and seeing how they're progressing and that.

REICHERT: From tuber, to tater, the Idaho spud has filled the bellies and captured the imagination of the entire country.

FRANK MUIR, FMR.

PRES.

OF IDAHO POTATO COMMISSION: Research proves it out, you say Idaho, the number one word that comes out of consumers' minds is potatoes.

TISH DAHMEN, EXEC.

DIR.

OF IDAHO POTATO MUSEUM: It's great to be the potato state.

It's wonderful to have that reputation to be associated with that such a humble, versatile and important vegetable.

REICHERT: Sure, it's just a potato, but in spud country, it's so much more than that.

DAVID SCHWENDIMAN, SCHWENDIMAN FARMS: We live in America.

We live in a great country and the freedoms that we have, we're our own boss, we live close to the land.

We have great families, beautiful surroundings, clean water, great state.

Uh, it doesn't get any better than this.

ANNOUNCER: Funding for Outdoor Idaho is made possible by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis Family Legacy of building the great state of Idaho by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the Idaho Public Television Endowment.

REICHERT: Baked, mashed, fried, boiled skinned, hashed dhipped, crinkled scalloped.

The potato is truly a multi-purpose food.

And not only does it taste good, but there's just something about the Idaho potato that gets to people.

From songs: (MUZZY BRAUN "Well there never was a tater like the Idaho spud") to celebrations.

The Idaho spud is just about as iconic as a root vegetable can be.

But as you might expect, the tuber comes from a humble beginning HANNALORE HEIN, IDAHO STATE HISTORIAN: Most historians and most scholars would agree that the first potato came to Idaho with two missionaries in 1836, Henry Hammond Spalding, and his wife, Eliza Spalding.

They were Oregon Trail pioneers coming west.

So the decision to settle the mission at Lapwei, provided space for agricultural endeavors and one of the first crops that they cultivated were potatoes.

REICHERT: As for how potatoes ended up in eastern Idaho and became our state's most prominent crop, well, that had to do a bit more with government intervention.

HEIN: The Carey Act was one of the pieces of federal legislation that brought irrigated agriculture to the state.

That was a legislation that passed in 1894.

And it really was a way for the federal government to entice settlers, to settle in areas that did not have water.

REICHERT: Plus, there's all that nice soil.

HEIN: The way that the Snake River flowed through time creating rich agricultural soil and bringing silt along with it really allowed for agriculture to develop in Southern Idaho.

REICHERT: After that, World War Two, JR Simplot, French fries, the Idaho potato commission helped spur the Idaho spud success.

But before we get to that.

let's talk planting.

We've come a long way since those early pioneers planted fields by hand and horse.

But one thing sure hasn't changed, when the wind blows, the dirt blows too.

SCHWENDIMAN: We're planting potatoes right here in this field.

We've got about 500 acres left to plant on this farm.

And then over at Newdale, we've got several thousand to plant ahead of us.

So we've got our work cut out for us.

There's a lot of, lot of different things that go into planting.

You know, getting the soil ready for this crop.

And fertilizers got to be right, the chemicals the right amounts.

And we, we don't use any more than we have to, but we have to use a certain amount to make this food safe and healthy and as nutritious as possible for the American people.

REICHERT: 26 of Idaho's 44 counties farm potatoes, producing 13 billion pounds annually.

That's nearly 300,000 acres of potato fields in our state that are responsible for one third of all the potatoes in the U.S.

So why here?

BOHLSCHEID: In Idaho, we've got a great combination of the environment around to grow very good russet potatoes, and particularly the Russet Burbank.

What we have in Idaho is, is very what we call friable soil.

So it's sandy loam and it breaks up very easily.

There's not a lot of organic material in the soil, but it's a very high mineral content and it's slightly alkaline, so it's not neutral.

They can grow much larger and you get more potato tubers per plant.

REICHERT: Aside from soil.

The other key ingredient to a successful yield is starting with a good seed and when you're growing potatoes that just means well, a good potato.

STEINMANN: The only difference really is that the seed potatoes have to go through a more rigorous certification process than commercial potatoes.

Commercial potatoes they don't have inspectors come and inspect them in the growing year and that but seed potatoes they'll actually come out twice during the growing year to inspect your fields.

But as far as the potato itself, there's really no difference.

You can eat seed potatoes, just like commercial potatoes.

REICHERT: Seed growers make their living growing potatoes that will be cut up into smaller pieces and planted at other farms.

Michael Steinman grows 14 varieties of seed potatoes.

STEINMANN: Bingy, Dark Red Norland, Red Pontiac Red Lasota, Russet Norkota, Russet Burbank, Purple majesty, Purple Viking, German Butterball and Yukon gold.

I don't know.

All I can remember at the moment.

The Yukon gold is probably my favorite.

I just like them there.

If you mash them, you know, they mash up yellow and, and you bake them and they're just a good, solid potato.

REICHERT: While some seed growers like Michael Steinmann plant straight into the fields, others, like Clen and Emma Atchley, start their potato seeds indoors.

EMMA ATCHLEY, SEED POTATO GROWER: I operate a greenhouse in which we raised the tissue cultured plantlets to produce what we call mini-tubers, which are completely disease-free potatoes.

And they become the basis for all of our field production.

REICHERT: The Atchley's will raise four seasons worth of mini-tubers before they'll sell them to commercial potato farms, and that ensures a higher yield and a disease-free product.

CLEN ATCHLEY, SEED POTATO GROWER: And most of the growers want certified seed.

And so you have to have low readings of virus and high readings of virus will also cut the yield.

You've got to get good yields to stay in business.

That's, that's all yield times dollars.

And that's what this whole industry is about.

If you can't get the yield or you can't get the dollars and that variety is going to go away, EMMA ATCHLEY: I call it the annual miracle, because in three weeks they're going to be up and they look like a small umbrella plant.

And then in a month they're going to be this high and they're going to look like a regular healthy potato plant then by the middle of June, they're going to be, they're going to look like field potatoes.

It's what I call a true creation of wealth.

So much of what we consider wealth now is immaterial.

And this is material wealth in the sense that you produce something that has a value.

And I find that gratifying.

It always amazes me that we can accomplish that with science and with just the practical use of the plant material.

REICHERT: Science.

That's one thing you don't think of when you pick up a sack of potatoes at the grocery store, but without it, our potatoes might not be as plentiful or appealing.

You can see that firsthand in one of the most unlikely of places.

In the small town of Aberdeen, at the Aberdeen Research and Extension Center.

CHAD JACKSON, OPERATIONS, R&E CENTER: We grow about 75 acres of research plots for potatoes, about 90 acres for grain.

We've done research on both of those crops since 1912, continuously here.

REICHERT: It's place where the University of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Agriculture collaborate with the goal of breeding the perfect potato.

Although, explaining how that works is no easy task.

JONATHAN WHITWORTH, RESEARCH PLANT PATHOLOGIST: If you're a potato breeder and you bring it up in casual conversation, it shuts down casual conversation because people go, you know, what, what is that all about?

REICHERT: And in laymen's terms.

WHITWORTH: It's just trying to take a lot of different traits that seemed very hard to get all in one potato and trying again and again, to incorporate more of those traits, because you want something that grows well, yields high and you want something that, that has reduced fertilizer needs, reduced water needs, reduced pesticide needs.

And those are all difficult to get in one package.

REICHERT: The process to get there can take 10-12 years, each year a hundred thousand plants are grown, from actual seed.

Once they've sprouted in the greenhouse, their seedlings are evaluated and only 1- 3 percent of them will be desirable enough to be selected for the upcoming year.

NOELLE ANGLIN, RESEARCH GENETICIST: Breeding is not only a science, but it's also an art and some of the best breeders I know, they can look and say, that is the one and it's almost instinctual.

But there is a lot of data that goes into this.

There is a lot of science, there is a lot of evaluation.

You get a feel for it like anything else and you get to where you just know, you know, it's just in your almost DNA.

WHITWORTH: Once we get a breeding line that we're going to make into a variety, we come up with a name that's kind of a fun process.

In Idaho, we typically tend to name them after rivers or mountains and put a russet at the end of it.

Like we've got Payette russet, we've got Clearwater russet.

We've got Teton Russet, those types of things REICHERT: Before hitting the market, the new potato variety is written up in a peer-reviewed journal and then it's tested by companies and farmers.

ANGLIN: It's difficult to get the growers to change their mind because, you know, if they know that they can make a lot of money with Russet Burbank or another potato, why do they want to change it?

They're putting their livelihoods at stake by changing the varieties they grow.

So they've got to be sure that it's worth it for them and their families that they're farming the right varieties year to year.

WHITWORTH: From the production side of things, if you don't have the margin, you're not going to have a farm and you're not going to have the potatoes.

REICHERT: A world without potatoes, that's unimaginable.

Even more so when you think about the trickledown effect from Idaho's potato industry.

HOGGE: The amount time, amount of dollars that are being spent, you know, on this production.

And then the amount of those dollars coming back into the community, through the grocery stores, through clothing stores.

It is one of the most powerful, economic drivers that you can have in a system.

PHILIP WATSON, PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, U OF I: There's about between five and 6,000 people who work on the farm directly in potato production.

So that'd be farmers and farm workers.

And then another five to 6,000 who work in processing and the chipping and, and all the processing data.

So we're talking about 11,000 jobs give or take in the state, but that doesn't, isn't really where the impact of potatoes ends.

The waiter and the waitress who work at the diner they are getting their money because a farmer sold a potato, brought money into Idaho, goes to the restaurant, get some coffee employees, that person.

And when you, when you add up all those jobs, we're talking more like, you know, 24,000 jobs in the state of Idaho that can be directly tied to potato production.

GOULD: Well yeah, that's 4 billion dollars to this state, and there are so many jobs that circulate around it that I don't think we fully account for all of the trickle down that comes from the potato industry.

Folks that are selling new pickups or ATV'S or the mechanics that repair those pickups, It just goes on and on.

There's byproducts up potatoes, the waste that goes to cattle feed.

So you know it's endless when you stop and think about it.

REICHERT: One of those businesses that lives and breathes potatoes without actually growing them is Spudnik, one of the biggest names in the potato machinery industry.

GARY DEE VAN ORDEN, DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION, SPUDNIK: Everything that Spudnik builds is built right here in Blackfoot, Idaho.

This is the only manufacturing plant that we have.

So it's, it's better for us just to take ownership of it and build everything in house if we can REICHERT: the name Spudnik is a play off Russia's satellite Sputnik.

It was founded in 1958, by two brothers trying to figure out a better way to load potatoes from the cellar into a truck.

Since then, the company has grown significantly.

The headquarters are a 52,000 square foot facility that houses everything from start to finish.

VAN ORDEN: Fun facts Spudnik burns through about 15 million pounds of steel a year.

We burn about 115,000 pounds of weld wire a year.

If we were to stretch that out in feet, you can go to New York and back from Blackfoot, We paint about 30,000 gallons of paint a year.

REICHERT: Spudnik builds the planters, the harvesters, the pilers, the scoopers, the truck beds, the conveyers that are used by potato farms in Idaho and around the world.

VAN ORDEN: We're a company that thrives on innovation.

So we're always trying new things.

We're not afraid to fail.

REICHERT: While money and machinery might be two must haves in the potato industry, without a doubt family is what makes it all worthwhile.

SCHWENDIMAN: I think anything you do is fun, but if your family that you love is with you, there's just nothing like that.

And I've loved working with our girls.

We've got five girls, they all drive truck about two boys and they're on the equipment and now the grandkids, they're just, I just love them.

STEINMANN: It's not an easy thing.

I mean, it really is not an easy thing, but it is a rewarding thing and it's a good way to raise a family.

My youngest son, he runs the digger.

I've got nieces and nephews that come and help.

And so it's really kind of a family deal.

And you know, it's pretty good that way.

REICHERT: Raising spuds, it's generational.

SCHWENDIMAN: It's pretty exciting to be able to farm with dad this long.

So it doesn't happen very, very often.

He loves it.

He's running up to planter today and does well with the GPS and technology.

So we're having fun every day.

SCHWENDIMAN: But at the very end of the day, when we're all done driving, instead of just taking off, I just feel like we're still part of a crew, you know?

SCHWEDIMAN: You just have to do the best you can do every day.

And sometimes, you know, sometimes you win.

Sometimes you get kicked around a little bit, but we've got a good crew and everybody knows their job and I think we're going to win more than we're going to lose.

REICHERT: We've told you where potatoes come from and how they're grown but the real question is, what exactly is a spud?

BOHLSCHEID: A potato, very much like a human being is about 80% water, but unlike humans, it's a little bit more than 2% protein.

There's almost no lipids or fats in it.

It's about 1% ash, otherwise known as minerals, and those are good minerals for us.

And then obviously there's a lot of carbohydrates in potatoes.

REICHERT: But when you think, French fries, potato chips, tater tots, a healthy diet isn't exactly what comes to mind.

But, it's all about how you eat it.

BOHLSCHEID: It's also a vehicle for, for other things like gravy and either butter.

And, you know, they're wonderful to dress up and to add into a dish.

So it's, it's like any other food in the world, do you eat it in moderation?

If you have a potato that's part of a meal where you're having your vegetables and your protein and everything, you're not seeing these big high-glycemic spikes, which is one of the issues in, in type two diabetes and, and other cardiovascular problems out there.

I think in terms of what the potato brings to us is, is a good quality nutrition.

I think it's the lifestyle issues that we have in the United States are more of an issue than the potato itself REICHERT: Lifestyle.

It's a word that comes up again and again with potato farming.

It's a life style, a way of life, a culture, an atmosphere, a sense of community.

It's what Ladd and Zoey Whalen are building through their farming practices and farm-to-bag potato chip company.

LADD WHALEN, FARMER, CO-OWNER OF ROOTS POTATO CHIPS: We are the farmers, we're the growers.

So what we do is we grow the potatoes.

We store the potatoes, we processed the potatoes, we make the potato chips.

So from end to end, farm to bag, we make the potato chips.

Nobody else in Idaho can say that.

REICHERT: Roots Potato Chips is based in Aberdeen, Idaho at the small potato chip factory, Zoey, Ladd and a few employees work together to wash the potatoes, hand inspect them, cut out defects, slice the potatoes, kettle cook 50 pounds of potatoes at a time, inspect them again, season the potato chips, bag, box and distribute them.

ZOEY WHALEN, CO-OWNER OF ROOTS POTATO CHIPS: My favorite part is that we are a family business.

I get to work side by side with my husband Ladd.

I get to drag my children along for lots of things.

We get to be involved in every aspect from start to finish.

It is rewarding to see this finished product and see our business and our farm grow together as a family.

LADD WHALEN: We started our own small family farm.

And then we were just pondering thinking of ways that we could vertically integrate, just add a little bit of a value to our farm.

And the potato chip idea kind of came to fruition.

ZOEY WHALEN: It's really fun to go to our local grocery store and be getting groceries and see our chips on the shelves or in people's carts.

It's exciting because I know the work that we've put into it from start to finish and then seeing people happy and enjoying a simple, yummy snack, REICHERT: Roots Potato Chips prides itself on simple, ingredients.

Potatoes, salt from Utah, avocado oil, natural seasonings.

But also on the way these potatoes are farmed.

LADD WHALEN: And one thing that we implement across all our acres are regenerative practices.

Cover crops is a big thing.

Always have a living root system in the soil, always have cover over the soil, so you don't have erosion from wind.

So any practice that we can do to benefit the soil health in the end will benefit our crops and our bottom line.

It's good for the environment.

It can pull carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil, which is super important and a very hot topic right now.

Farmers are great overall.

It's a very noble profession.

Everybody wants to be good steward of land.

Nobody's going to degrade their soil on purpose, but I think just being exposed to different ideas, reading lots of books, um, networking with other people, it's just, it's helped me just kind of to broaden my horizon and maybe focus on those things that might be a little more important to me and to the consumer as well.

REICHERT: Now, you don't have to be a farmer to be passionate about potatoes.

You can be a potato soap creator, baked potato maker, or a vodka innovator.

LIYAH BABAYAN, OWNER OF MAKEPEACE SOAPS: I thought about my life.

And I'm like, well, life's never handed me lemons, but life has brought my family to Idaho and has handed me potatoes.

CLARK GILLESPIE, OWNER OF POTATO BOI: I own Potato Boi food truck.

Our tagline is Idaho's premier baked potato food truck.

We can't quite say we're the first, but we're the only currently.

CHRIS PACKER, OWNER OF TWIN FALLS DISTILLERY: We definitely need to have a potato vodka because it's a superior product and because we're in Idaho, obviously.

So I'm super proud to be able to say that we're able to, you know, make a really good product from ingredients that are within 75 miles of where we're standing.

I mean, that's, that's awesome.

REICHERT: Liyah Babayan came to Idaho in 1992 as an Armenian refugee.

She's the owner of a Twin Falls boutique and a bath line called "MakePeace" that turns organic Idaho potatoes into soap.

BABAYAN: Tapping into memories of growing up with my grandmother, using potatoes when we had fevers or tummy aches, potato water for skincare, for cuts burns, or any kind of rash.

It really inspired me.

I thought, you know, I want to just kind of synergize and bring my past with my present and create something, you know, in the future, that has to do with potatoes.

REICHERT: For every bar of soap sold, "Make Peace" donates one bar of soap to a person living in a refugee camp.

BABAYAN: My childhood was growing up in a war and then growing up through a genocide.

It was very, I would say dehumanizing.

And I remember that, I remember growing up, not having access to just water, clean water and soap.

There is a list of necessities that they need, including a roof over their head, shelter, safety, food, um, medical care.

But something that's so small and overseen and so simple is a bar of soap.

It just for me, felt like connected to human dignity.

And so I feel hygiene is a universal human right.

REICHERT: Liyah's potato soap is made by boiling organic potatoes until there's starchy water in the pot, then mixing that potato water with fats and oils, like coconut oil and shea butter.

Natural fragrances like sage and lavender might be added.

Then the potato soap mixture is poured into a caste where it sits until it's ready to be cut into bars.

Entrepreneurs, potato-preneurers.

It seems their appreciation for the tuber only deepens as their business grows - like Clark Gillespie and his food truck, Potato Boi.

GILLESPIE: I was really looking for ways to utilize every part of the potato and not have it go to waste.

So each potato that's not prepared as a, as a baker with toppings, gets scooped out and the insides are used for that side.

The croquette tots.

We also use the skins on our salty skins.

And then, um, we have, sliders, mini hamburgers that we use the insides to make the buns and they're deep fried as well.

So it's a pretty unique take on a slider, I think.

The fries, we have a bit of a special, like nobody makes fries like we do I don't think.

It's your standard baked potato with sour cream, bacon, chives, uh, cheese.

REICHERT: Potato Boi is registered with the Idaho Potato Commission, sourcing all its potatoes from Idaho, it's able to use the commission's logo.

GILLESPIE: Wanting to identify our business with the potato commission and make sure one of the core tenants of our business is local.

There really wasn't an option for us in, in my mind to do anything, but Idaho potatoes.

REICHERT: Potato Boi serves it's potatoes at breweries, wineries and food truck lots near Boise.

GILLESPIE: Can't tell you how many times I've heard like, oh, I'm a potato girl.

Like, I was, I was so excited to see that this business was in, was open and there's always the debate with whether it's fries or the baked potato, sometimes internal family debates, but, you know, there's something for everyone, REICHERT: But why just eat your potatoes when you can drink them too?

PACKER: Potato vodka is known for having typically a smoother finish and also kind of a, they say like a creamy mouthfeel if that makes sense.

That's a lot of the reason why people choose to make a potato vodka.

REICHERT: Chris Packer is the owner of Twin Falls Distillery, a business that prides itself on making potato vodka from whole Idaho potatoes.

PACKER: The reason that we decided to use a whole potatoes instead of flakes is ultimately for total quality control of our finished product.

We take raw locally sourced potatoes, and we, we grind them up in a grinding machine to almost, almost like a slurry.

And then we, we cook the potatoes in a water solution.

And then we add an enzyme and that's what makes it so that the yeast can use that sugar to start the fermentation process, or it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.

REICHERT: And if you don't work in potatoes at all, there's still a way to get up close and personal with spuds.

[Singing: They're red, they're white, they're brown, they're typically underground] The Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot.

It's is all things potatoes, all the time.

TISH DAHMEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE IDAHO POTATO MUSEUM: Since people associate Idaho first with potatoes before anything else, before it's mountains before it's incredible scenery before livestock, ranches when they come to Idaho, they say, oh yeah, I've got to go that a potato museum.

So we see people from all over the world.

A lot of people from Australia, England, we've had people from Africa, a lot of people from Asia.

So it's a really international type of museum.

I think that's a lot to be proud of.

REICHERT: From potato peelers, to potato mashers to potato tractors, the museum digs deep to the root of Idaho's potato industry.

DAHMEN: It's fun, it's quirky, they're learning something.

Also historic, they're reconnecting to their food source, but I think number one, they just really have a good time.

By the time you see all that and you've gone through it, what you really want is just to eat a potato.

So at the end, there's a little cafe where you can have your own baked potato or set up homemade French fries.

And I think that just makes the perfect end to your tour.

REICHERT: Just up the road from the Idaho potato museum is the town of Shelley, where one day a year on Shelley Spud Day, the town comes alive in celebration of the spud.

CHEER: "Let's go big red"!

JEFF KELLEY, SHELLEY KIWANIS CLUB: It's a huge opportunity to pay tribute to our ancestors and to the culture of the town and to our mascot and the school so it's just kind of an area pride thing.

It's not just Shelley.

Nowadays from American Falls all the way to Ashton.

REICHERT: From a parade and the crowning of "Miss Russet."

To a mashed potato tug of war.

It's easy to see, potatoes truly are quintessentially Idaho.

REICHERT: By now, you've probably realized, the Idaho spud is not just a regular ol' potato.

It's special.

Our ancestors would've been hard pressed to believe something like a potato could be, dare we say it, fun?

CONCERT GOERS: Hi, You Go Girl!

FRANK MUIR, FRM.

PRES.

OF IDAHO POTATO COMMISSION: For the last 10 years, people have embraced the Idaho potato.

They're seeing the fun we're having with it.

MELISSA BRADFORD,BIG POTATO TRUCK DRIVER: Sometimes we'll be at an event and someone will say, "you have made by day."

I mean, what greater feeling is that?

REICHERT: The spectacle that is the Big Idaho Potato has been turning heads since 2012, visiting fairs, parades and festivals in 48 states.

Fans can even follow it from afar, at potatotracker.com.

KAYLEE WELLS, BRAND AMBASSADOR: The potato is 8,000 pounds.

It's made out of fiberglass.

It has a steel frame.

It's 28-foot long, 10-foot-wide, which actually makes us an oversized load.

But if the potato was real, it would make a million French fries and over 20,000 servings of mashed potatoes.

REICHERT: Kaylee Wells is a brand ambassador, traveling with the Big Idaho Potato truck.

WELLS: Here ya go, got you a little souvenir now that you saw the Potato Truck.

We bring joy everywhere we go.

We bring excitement.

We bring wonder.

It's just such a unique job.

Like, I'm never going to have a job like this ever again in my life.

REICHERT: The Idaho Potato Commission hasn't always   been the cool kid.

When Frank Muir interviewed for the job in 2003, the Legislature was considering taking the potato off the Idaho license plate and low-carb diets were pushing potatoes off American dinner plates.

The Idaho potato was in a slump.

MUIR: I felt the brand had become stagnant, stale.

We're going to change things.

We're going to make the potato relevant and cool in today's popular culture.

DYLAN CLINE, IDAHO POTATO DROP: No other state can say that they are a brand.

But Frank Muir made that happen for Idaho.

REICHERT: The agency known today as the Potato Commission was born in 1937, financed by a fee on every spud grown or sold in the state.

Today it gets $14 million a year for promotion and research, and for work with retailers and food service companies.

In the early days, Joe Marshal traveled the country studying and promoting potatoes and became known as the Idaho Potato King.

But the Idaho potato always had a deceptive charm.

By 1928, it was on the Idaho license plate and quote "world famous" in the 1940s and 50s.

In 1951, Marilyn Monroe gave Idaho potatoes some love when she posed in a burlap potato sack.

And vintage postcards testify to the legendary appeal of the state's giant potatoes.

And yet, when the ad agency first proposed a giant potato for the commission's 75 anniversary, the genius wasn't obvious.

MUIR: When I first presented the idea to the commission, all nine voted against it.

Now, I have said many times in my career, every new idea is crazy until it works.

COOMBS: Ready to go to work.

REICHERT: One of the votes against that crazy idea was Mark Coombs, a farmer on the Potato Commission.

After the commission did decide to take a chance on the Big Idaho Potato, COOMBS: Action, And now that I've got a four ton tater.

the agency came up with the idea of commercials featuring a farmer chasing that truck around the country.

COOMBS: I finally caught it!

REICHERT: and Mark Coombs got a phone call.

Coombs, POTATO FARMER, ACTOR: I says what?

You want me to be the talent for your commercial?

COOMBS: Hello, I'm an Idaho Potato Farmer.

So, here I am.

REICHERT: But for that first commercial, a professional actor was on set, just in case Coombs turned out to be too much of a farmer to be a pitchman.

But Coombs learned his lines and hit his marks, and he and the Spud Hound have now starred in 10 ads.

In the latest, he sculpts with mashed potatoes and dreams about waffle fries raining down.

Today Coombs is recognized in stores and airports, and fans everywhere ask if the farmer is ever going to get that potato.

Coombs: I don't know the future secrets.

I'm just the talent guy.

[laughs] REICHERT: Still, the spud farmer and the Spud Hound may be outshined by a dancing spud.

WELLS: People love taking photos with him.

And Spuddy Buddy actually got on stage at the Braun Brothers Reunion.

People love dancing with him.

They love getting selfies with him.

They love hugging him, giving him high fives.

Kids love him.

He's honestly the star of the show.

REICHERT: Cody Braun, one of two brothers who founded the country band Reckless Kelly, had always wanted the truck at the family's music festival in Challis.

CODY BRAUN, MUSCIAN: I was rolling through Austin and the potato truck was parked and I was like, 'Why in the world didn't we have these guys at the festival?'

It was a perfect match.

We were here when they rolled into town.

We got to meet everybody and got pictures on top of the potato and to see inside the potato and, yeah, they were great.

WILLY BRAUN, MUSCIAN: We were pretty excited about it.

Brothers and I are big fans of the potato, you know, in general, being from Idaho.

REICHERT: Dancing potatoes, traveling potatoes, raining potatoes.

These are all part of Frank Muir's legacy.

He retired in fall 2021 after 18 years as Idaho's premier potato promoter.

CLINE: Whether it's a big giant Idaho potato on a truck or it's a life-size potato Spuddy Buddy COMMERCIAL: Wild Ride known as Known as the famous Idaho Potato Bowl!

Or it's naming a bowl game after the Idaho potato, Frank makes those crazy ideas come to life.

REICHERT: One of the crazy ideas, was about New Year's Eve.

CLINE: I had a thought that maybe we could drop an Idaho potato instead of a ball like New York drops.

We built our first big, huge potato for New Year's Eve, and we dropped it in 2013.

And the rest is history.

MUIR: When you see 30,000 people coming out to celebrate your brand in that kind of weather, it tells you something.

It tells us something you're doing something right.

A destination, New Year's Eve, Boise, Idaho.

It's crazy.

All because of the potato.

REICHERT: In Fairfield, at Galena Summit, along the Salmon River, smiling fans greet the traveling potato at every stop.

Even an unplanned stop on Highway 20.

Not the first time the truck has been pulled over for police selfies.

BRADFORD: What other job can you have where you pull up and people give you an all-five finger wave and a big smile?

That's their first reaction every time.

I was born to do this job.

REICHERT: Now, being the potato state, it only makes sense that some of the largest potato processing companies in the world are located right here in spud country.

And to see it is to be struck dumb with the realization that your French fries, tots and hash browns likely came out of a place like this.

The Simplot foods processing plant in Caldwell.

A whirlwind of high tech machinery that transforms dirty, raw potatoes into easily recognizable and delightfully delicious appetizers.

The Caldwell plant goes through 6 million pounds of raw potatoes a day - producing about a third of McDonald's French Fries.

The Simplot story and the Idaho spud's rise to fame are undeniably entwined.

Largely thanks to this man.

J.R. SIMPLOT, SIMPLOT FOODS: Who'd ever thought I'd get to where I am today, it's a rather miracle.

I don't think there's a better place to live in the world, than right here in Idaho.

I think this is the Garden of Eden REICHERT: J.R. Simplot or Jack, a man known for his entrepreneurial spirt - and his colorful personality.

SIMPLOT: I hired them for brawn and stamina and not to many brains, because nobody had them.

BRUCE NEWCOMB, FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: My dad and Jack were good friends and he always said, Jack would hire people, he never cared whether people stole from him as long as they made him more money than they stole.

He was a unique individual.

Here's a kid with an eighth grade education and look what he accomplished.

And yeah, he had a mistress, it was the Simplot Company, you know.

HEIN: Where he recognizes the risk involved, but the mindset is so strong and so great that he knows that through perseverance and determination and his own hard work, he will be able to overcome those challenges.

NEWCOMB: Here's this kid, from Malta, who is 10 times smarter than me and my dad, was a Stanford grad.

But he said he was one of the most innately intelligent people.

But he was kind of the man that got potatoes going in the sense that as soon as the Second World War started, he was able to come up with the dehydrated potatoes for the armed services, he just grew from there.

HEIN: By 1946, you know, we're out of World War II, but he had produced over 40 million pounds of potatoes annually for the U.S. government through World War II.That's a lot of potatoes.

REICHERT: This truly puts Idaho on the map for potato production.

And from there, potato contracts became the name of the game.

BRITT RAYBOULD, RAYBOULD BROTHER'S FARMS: We understand that there are tradeoffs and that there are risks associated with this particular way of life.

I don't think that, most people go into it thinking everyday about the risks that come with it.

REICHERT: Brit Raybould is president of the National Potato Council and the CFO of Raybould Brother's Farms.

For her, raising spuds is not simply a nostalgic pastime, but a business with real risks, and real rewards.

RAYBOULD: At the same time, you do your best to essentially control the things you can control and hope that the rest of it falls into place and works as well as it can.

It doesn't matter how well prepared you were in terms of, you know, the fields you picked for your particular crop or the particular variety that you planted.

The weather in and of itself can undermine all of that planning.

REICHERT: Raybould Farms has a potato contract with Five Guys Restaurants.

RAYBOULD: It's one of the ways that over the years, growers have found to help them balance their risk between potentially what they could get selling on the open market.

If the demand is high and the supplies aren't quite there, your open price is going to be more.

So ultimately at the end of the day, a contract is about helping reduce some of the uncertainty that comes with growing potatoes.

REICHERT: With big potato contracts, come big names like Pringles, McDonalds French fries, Lay's potato chips.

But says Raybould, that doesn't mean potato farming should be taken for granted.

At its core, it's about food and culture.

RAYBOULD: Don't ever assume that just because it's always been here, that it will automatically always be here going forward.

And to understand that, that this is something that's worth, not only protecting, but making sure that there's an appreciation for it and an understanding about what goes into it.

This isn't something that, that can just work by itself without the support of the community and the support from the state, long-term this is going to require sort of that continued understanding and, and support of what it takes to do this job and if it gets taken for granted, uh, it may not always be here.

REICHERT: But for now, potato farming is here to stay and in the weeks leading up to harvest, the plants are at their prettiest.

Flower blossoms, green vines.

And views from above as nutrients are applied via airplane.

BRANDON VISSER, AERIEL APPLICATOR: We're able to do a lot of acres quickly.

They don't have to dry up the field to drive through it and the speediness of the applications is a big part.

REICHERT: Fertilizer, fungicide, products that hopefully ensure the farm has a strong yield of potatoes.

VISSER: We're regulated pretty heavily on what we can do, what we can't do.

Our job is to put products safely into the areas we're supposed to.

That's our goal.

REICHERT: Potato plants are not the easiest crop to raise, they require lots of water and lots of attention, and even then, a successful yield isn't guaranteed.

GOULD: Potato industry, I always give them a bad time.

I tell them they are definitely job security for me, because there's always a new issue.

I'm not saying the others don't have issues as well, but in the potato world, there's always a new, new challenge that makes life interesting for them, and for me and our agency.

EMMA ATCHLEY: Oh, we always worry about weather.

And the farmers never happy with the weather.

It's either, you know, either needs rain or it's rained too much, or it's too warm or too cold, you know.

I think one of the reasons that we're so obsessed with it is that it is one of the things that we can't control.

RICARDO CHALES RAMIRES, SOUTHWIND FARMS MANAGER: It's always nervous.

Yeah.

It's nothing, you know, it's a lot of money and everything, so yeah.

Every day it's when we start from planting everything, it's always nervous.

Yeah.

Till we get every one of them out and we okay after that.

REICHERT: A few weeks before that, farmers do something called, defoliation or in farmer's terms, "killin' spuds."

Different farmers have different methods.

At South Wind fingerling potato farm, a shredder moves through the rows, chopping off the tops of the plants.

CHALES RAMIRES: We pretty much kill them when they four and a half inches to five inches, it's our maximum.

We check them every day, as soon as we hit that size we want that's when we need to, you know, chop the top, ya know, kill em.

REICHERT: Without green foliage, the potato's growth is halted and the potato skin can thicken, reducing the chance for disease and bruising and without green vines, the harvester can more easily pick up potatoes in a few weeks' time.

But like everything in the potato world, timing is everything.

And that is especially true when it comes to harvest.

MELANIE SCHWENDIMAN: We're right in the middle of potato harvest.

It's about a three week potato harvest here in Newdale, Idaho.

HOGGE: This is our time to get these potatoes out of the ground and to get them stored in our sheds.

And it takes a lot of people.

It takes a lot of equipment and lots of effort, lots of long hours and takes really good weather.

MELANIE SCHWENDIMAN: I think it's kind of fun to see how long you can work like a 16 hour day.

That's kind of fun to say that you've worked out.

I think that's really a fun thing.

So night after night, you know, by Sunday when you finally get to rest, that is a nice day.

But yeah, I don't mind that.

REICHERT: For about three weeks, farmers, their families and their hired help spend from sun-up to way past sun-down trying to get potatoes out of the ground as quickly as possible.

HOGGE: There could be a freeze event and, you know, it's very hard to get the potatoes out of the ground when it's super wet, because of course the soil clods up and it creates all kinds of havoc for these guys.

And so, uh, cold temperatures are not our friend.

REICHERT: A harvester runs down the rows, picking up potatoes, while a truck follows alongside, catching them.

MELANIE SCHWENDIMAN: I just want to be the very best truck driver there is.

Not that I want to be better than anybody else.

I just want to be just the very best.

I do it so particular.

I put the side of my mirror on like a letter on his tractor and I try to keep it there exactly.

I just want to do it really good so he doesn't have to worry about me.

REICHERT: Then, that truck runs those potatoes back to the cellar for them to be unloaded.

Meanwhile, the truck driver jumps into another empty truck and does it all over again.

MCKENZIE RUSSELL, TRUCK DRIVER: It's got so many amazing parts and so many really hard parts.

It's so fun because all the family comes into town and so we just get to work and play together the whole time.

BAILEY SCHWENDIMAN, TRUCK DRIVER: But it's important for people to, you know, understand how much time and effort goes into farming and getting their potatoes to their plate.

And so I think everybody should experience it at least once in their life to see, you know, the long hours that go into this and how much love is also put into it.

REICHERT: It takes many hands to complete harvest on time and that, well that's where the high schoolers come in handy.

It's been a long tradition for schools in eastern Idaho to let students out on a 2-3 week "harvest break."

During that time, schools close and students have an opportunity to go work on potato farms.

BYRON STUTZMAN, SUPERINTENDENT, FREMONT COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT: That is so That is so that, the Spud farmers can utilize the students and staff to help them get spuds out of field and they do.

It's valuable both for them and for the students, because they can make a good chunk of money.

RHETT LOWDER, STUDENT WORKER: My first couple of years I was just picking dirt clods and weeds out of the belts.

But now I'm running the yard instead of just sitting there all day.

REICHERT: Even just a few hours away, 'harvest break' is unheard of.

STUTZMAN: I was a farmer in Buhl for 20 years and got a job here as superintendent.

And when I came, I was talking about, you know, what is spud harvest because we didn't have one in Buhl.

And the ladies in the office said, don't mess with Spud harvest or your house will burn down.

And that got my attention.

And so it, it, it's one of those things that we work with the farmers, because we want to make sure that it's a good working relationship with them, and we're able to help the needs of them in labor.

And then also you know they scratch our back and we scratch theirs.

LOWDER: Yeah it's just something I've been doing through all of high school.

I just take around two weeks off and come up and help him with harvest and, uh, forget about school and just do potatoes.

It's pretty fun.

Its long hours, but it's pretty fun.

They wouldn't be able to do it without us.

There's not enough full grown adults that can go take two weeks off of their job to come up and work on potatoes.

REICHERT: Along with making money, the high schoolers learn something else too.

KIM LEON, STUDENT WORKER: Just appreciate your potatoes, it's hard, it's pretty fun, I recommend doing it.

I'm going to appreciate mine from now on.

REICHERT: And when it's all said and done, the potatoes are harvested and in the cellars, and the kids are back in school, the sun is setting earlier and the mornings are getting colder, there's time to remember back on that potato field, what it's like to be totally present.

MELANIE SCHWENDIMAN: I think sometimes you have to experience it.

You have to be out here and smell this dirt and see people that are giving their very best effort.

There's just something so fulfilling about providing food and an experience a work experience for people, for yourself.

It, it just grounds you.

This is where it's at.

This, this is where good people are, this is where, you know, this is where life is right here.

So I just love potato harvest.

I love, I just love this part of Idaho.

ANNOUNCER: Funding for Outdoor Idaho is made possible by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis Family Legacy of building the great state of Idaho by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by the Idaho Public Television Endowment.

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