Potato Experiment 2008

This year I'm experimenting with getting more seed potatoes from a bag of tubers by cutting in half a couple of  tubers of each variety that I'm growing (Home Guard, Charlotte and Cara). I'm aiming to get decent sprouts on each half and will let the wound heal and then plant out as normal. I'll mark the row and see how they do compared to the tubers I'm planting whole.

I'm interested to see if any rot while healing and whether you get a larger or smaller yield or bigger tubers or just more but smaller ones. 

I'm also holding back a few Charlotte tubers to plant in August, hoping for a crop of new potatoes on December 25th. But I'll make sure I've buried some from the summer harvest in a sealed bag filled with sand just to make sure I have this Christmas treat whatever happens to the late sown crop.

Comments

[Patrick]

I also have more space than seed potatoes, and will probably end up cutting some into pieces. I'll be interested to know what you find out in your experiment.

[Cheryl]

Really interesting blog. I love the 'On the table' posts, really original and good photography.
I'll be back to visit again

[Dariel]

Shall be interested to know how you get on with Home Guard and Cara! I tried both for the first time last year (along with Desiree, K Ed, Maris Piper, Foremost, Arran Pilot & Epicure). Home Guard was peculiar in that it gave two or three v. large potatoes per plant, not what I was looking for in an early. Cara was a complete disaster, ravaged by slugs so I had to lift & throw away all of them! I wonder if the v. wet weather affected them, but all the rest were great & even the K Ed had a reasonably good yield - I'll be watering them in dry years from now on if I can.

[john curtin]

Cheryl, many thanks for your kind words.

Dariel,interesting what you say about Home Guard - I was hoping for lots of small new potatoes, not a few large ones! Let's see how they do for me!

[Patrick]

My seed potatoes went out today. I didn't chit any of them this year, but many were already sprouting in storage.

I cut a few of them in half, but didn't have time to let the wounds heal. I didn't cut any in half that I didn't also have several uncut tubers as well, so I'm not risking losing an entire crop of any varieties.

I planted about 30 linear meters, and since I've only planted potatoes in containers before, I don't really know what kind of harvest to expect. I suspect I'm going to end up with a lot of potatoes this year.

In total about 1/3 of my potatoes are blight resistant (Sarpo variants), so hopefully I won't have too many problems with that.

[Kim]

John, do you have to do anything special to those 'Charlottes' to get them to hold over for August planting? Five extra months seems like a long time for potato storage, so I'm curious...

Best of luck with the experiment! It will be interesting to see what you discover.

[John Curtin]

Patrick,
So if you planted say about 3 tubers for every metre or about 90 overall and say you get a modest yield of about 8 - 10 per seed tuber, that'll give you 700 - 900 potatoes. OK they'll vary in size but on average 6 or so of my Charlottes weigh in at half a kilo (what I allow two of us on a diet per meal)......so min 100 meals worth! Better invite some friends around.

Kim,

As I haven't held them back before it is all a bit of an experiment. But I did finish the last of my harvested Charlottes a week ago (that meant I had them stored since Aug/Sept - 8 months or so).

What I'll do is rub of the sprouts that appear now on the seed potatoes, keep them in a light but cool place (east facing unheated room)and hope for the best! They should keep until August though they may get wrinkly and soft. We'll see. I think commercial growers have cool stores for them.I'll post about my experience.