seed potatoes vs shop bought ones sprouting in the cupboard

[MJ]

crossing varieties and selective growing/breeding is slightly different to GM. They've been doing it for as long as they've been harvesting crops, and best of all it counts as totally organic!

[as]

Shetlandpeat, if you were refering to simple selection rather than the lab stuff, then I owe you an apology and have obviously misunderstood what you meant by g.m.

 

With regards to the old practice of halving tatties prior to planting: The 'mother' potatoe provides inital food for the new plant, when you lift the crop you might find just the skin left of the original potatoe planted. Mutilating the seed (or grocery store) potatoe by cutting it or removing some of the chitts it produces naturally deprives the growing crop of vital sustenance. Admittedly, you gain an extra tattie to plant to make up the numbers, but on the downside you end up with 2 weaker plants rather than 1 strong and healthy one. There's little to be gained, as the weaker plants are unlikely to produce as heavy a crop weightwise as the intact tattie would have done. You also invite the possibility of fungal infection through the cut, so you might not get a harvest at all from that particular tattie. Just to illustrate: now and again I find tatties growing in the compost heap from peelings. The resulting potatoe is never bigger than a marble, because that's all the sliver of peeling with its eye was able to grow before it run out of steam. If I could grow a wintersupply of tatties just from peel I certainly would save a fortune in seed tatties, but unfortunately it just does not work that way and is as easy as that.

 

I have systematically weight all the tatties from the last 3 years crops to determine an average yield for different varieties using different fertilisers. Keeping 'book' like that really helps to see what works best for your own particular location.

 

Seed potatoes are very expensive to produce, but still worth the money I believe. Especially when you can select varieties which have a high blight tolerance, resistance to eelworm or mosaic virus etc. I grew Cara last year and had no blight problems (stored brilliantly, too) but spoke to growers in Northmavine who had to spray their crop (Kerr's Pink and Maris Piper).

 

Taking that aside, I think the secret of growing a good crop of tatties is a good soil structure, plenty of potash and don't spare the water. (Applies to most crops, really.) All your hard work is rewarded come autumn and to me it almost feels like Christmas, because you just never know how many and what size tubers you unearth with each next planting station.

 

Enjoy your tatties, folks!

[Coo Wife]

Dis time last year wir tatties were in da ground. Dis year, not a chance! Da seaweed and muck hae been put oan an' da plooin done but dats it sae far. But last year wis exceptional.

 

We buy seed tatties every sae often. Selecting seed oot of the previous years crop can help tae save money. Varieties like Shetland Blacks and Champions we hae tae use wir aine seed. Cara tatties seem tae lik wir ground. Tried Forty Fould but they were a waste o' time fur wis as is Edzell Blues. We did hae some Foula Reds but I think we hae lost them. Dunna like Rooster. Da auld folk always grew Kerrs Pinks and Records wi twa or tree Champions.