What is the difference between seed potatoes

While some humidity is essential for your seed potatoes, you should not expose them to too much moisture, or they may begin to rot. Can you plant potatoes without eyes? Plant only potato pieces with eyes. If you plant them without eyes, they will just rot.

You can force more eyes by leaving the potatos in indirect sun and a warm, moist humid area. How do you prepare seed potatoes? A few days before planting, cut large seed potatoes into chunks about 2" wide.

Each piece should have at least two buds. After cutting the seed potatoes, let them sit at room temperature for two or three days. How do you propagate potatoes? Place the potato cuttings in the soil spaced 10 to 12 inches apart. Cover the seeds with 2 inches of soil until foliage sprouts above ground.

Adding too much soil at planting makes it difficult for the stem to reach the soil surface. Can I just put a potato in the ground? Growing Potatoes From Potatoes However, if you have some potatoes that are beginning to sprout the "eyes" have swollen, whitish shoots beginning to develop , simply plant a piece of the sprouting potato in the ground or in a roomy pot covered with 3 inches of soil.

Within 2 weeks, green shoots should emerge. How long does it take to grow a potato? It is tempting to harvest potatoes as soon as possible to enjoy them in meals but different varieties can take anything from 70 to days to grow.

So, while the early-season potatoes will be ready to consume by the end of May or early June, others will need a bit more patience. Can you eat sprouted potatoes? The inhibitor works to prevent the potatoes from developing eyes. It is a way of preserving their storage and shelf-life for sale. By preventing growth, the grocery potatoes remain fresh for a long while.

On the other hand, seed potatoes are in no way treated with these growth inhibitors. The best seed potato is organically grown free of any inhibitors. It makes them more susceptible to diseases they may have carried over from their growth period. You need to make sure the seed potatoes you get are disease-free.

You must also get rid of any potatoes that have cracks, bruises, soft spots and show signs of rotting. Your seed potatoes must be certified free of any diseases.

Since they are organic, you need to be sure they will not be going bad before you are even able to put them under the soil. Potatoes intended to be put out for sale as seed have to undergo testing. Seed potatoes are tested for a number of diseases before they are issued with a disease-free certificate by the government. Any of the seed potatoes that test positive for any of the panel diseases are not certified. Without certification, they cannot be sold. You must have the assurance that the seed potatoes you purchase are safe from diseases.

Otherwise, you risk introducing diseases into your crops and soil without knowing it. Such diseases could persist for many years and prove difficult to keep up with high-quality produce. The general potatoes you outsource from the store would be too big a risk to plant.

You need to be sure of the sources of your seed potatoes. It is the only way to know for sure that you are planting seed potatoes that are free from diseases. Seed potatoes are grown with the sole intention of guaranteed produce.

Whereas the regular potatoes need to stay fresh to increase their long life, seed potatoes are cultivated in garden centers to ensure high yields. Seed potatoes are grown in the best conditions and safeguarded from any vulnerability. The quality of seed potatoes is maintained by planting them in light, loose, and well-drained soil. The pH level of the soil is maintained at slightly acidic levels for optimum results. I only grow Red Pontiac potatoes. I buy 3 lbs of them from the produce dept at the grocers.

We usually eat one meal from that bag. The rest I plant. I simply cut them into chunks so that each piece has one or more eyes. Then, drop in the spuds, cover with more hay and then mound soil up over that. I plant some kind of fast growing, shallow rooted flowers in between the two rows. This acts to camouflage the potatoes plants from potato bugs. Cosmos or marigolds work great, or I plant a row of beets or bush beans in between.

In about two months I can begin to dig for "new potatoes" by gently pulling back the soil and hay. They are about the size of ping-pong balls. These potatoes have a much better flavor and texture than their potato parents did, buttery and creamy textured, and no chemicals or pesticides.

I usually get pounds of potatoes out of about 2 pounds of 'seed' potatoes. Well worth the investment in money and time. Scab is almost completely correlated with soil ph. As the garden soil gets richer, the ph typically rises also, and scab starts appearing.

Of all garden produce, potatoes like the lowest pH, about 4. They like loose, sandy loam best. Where weeds grow, potatoes will love it. But where Lamb's Quarter grows, they do not do well. They are great companioned with Horseradish.

Both benefit form one another. I've never tried Chamomile with potatoes, but have planted it in with Asparagus to keep beetles away, so I can see how that would work just great! Thanks for the tip! I do not water my potato patch once the plants emerge unless we are in drought. I lost last year's crop due to too much rainfall. The plants came up and looked great but the rain continued non-stop for three weeks. They all drowned and rotted. Bummer : I didn't replant. Too wet. I clean their living quarters out four times a year and pile it in the corn patch and where I will plant my potatoes in spring, usually around St.

Patty's Day. Don't have potato bugs and never have had diseases or fungus problems. The good Lord sends pestilence where there is disease and weak plants. Being a good steward to the land and employing good gardening practices is imperative to having good balance in all things. We are all the beneficiaries when we do. What's Lamb's Quarter have to do with it? I was planning on planting a whack of potatoes at my community garden this spring warm, sandy loam soil but it is just rife with Lamb's Quarter and Purslane.

Any adjustments I can make? I'm looking at a serious change in plans here as I gaze at lbs of seed potatoes I bought yesterday! The thinking that USED to be taught back in the day when I was an intern gardener working on a commune farm was that Lamb's Quarters enjoys a higher soil pH than do potatoes. Also that Lamb's Quarters attracts beetles that attack your potato plants. These beetles also were said to transmit the Mosaic leaf disease to potatoes.

To change the soil, we would pile on compost, old hay, leaf mold or fall leaves and grass clippings, and manure in the fall where we were going to plant potatoes the following spring.

That fixed the problem. My experience has been that as you add all kinds of organic matter over the years, no matter what kind, ph rises. IF the soil is acidic to start with - which in the eastern half or two thirds of the continent is a near certainty. Oklohoma though I believe has a native soil that is alkaline, so adding those amendments has the opposite effect - ph drops.

The real effect of of raising the organic content of the soil is to balance the ph, whether the native condition is above or below 6. So long-cultivated gardens anywhere tend to get in the 6. Tim, I'd go ahead and plant that stock, no need to waste it. Those weeds indicate that the soil is fertile so you'll get great yields. Taters are fine to eat with scab, they just don't look so good and don't store as well. Thanks for the info, Annie - it makes sense.

I gardened at this community garden for half a year last year, and the people there I talked to told me that they either didn't use any fertilizer at all the soil is very fertile or else they just added lime which goes a long way in explaining all the lamb's quarter, and how well it seems to do! As it turns out, I dumped a bunch of leaves on my plot last fall which will be plowed in in the next few weeks, so that will help some.

And I've got a 4x4x4 composter full of shredded leaves from last fall, so I guess I know where some of that is going :o. Should be a challenging year. Not only do I have the lime to contend with, but deer and ground hogs are also a problem. And for good measure, there's 8 black walnut trees on the far side I have also read that potato beetles prefer eggplant to potato plants.

So if you are willing to sacrifice an eggplant or two, put some near your potatoes and if there are cpbs in the area, they will go for the eggplant and leave your potatoes alone. I personally don't care for eggplant anyway, so I'm going to put a few of them by my potatoes this year and see if it helps Most soil in Oklahoma is old red clay.

In fact, part of my land is clay up on the ridge. But the soil around my house is native red sandstone sand - very course, very porous and very alkaline tracks and blows into the house - ugh!

Potato Scab is more likely to develop if the pH is raised by applying wood ashes or lime. It is more prevalent in limey, sandy soils, like mine and where ample amounts of organic matter is sadly lacking. Organic matter is not fertilizer - it is a soil conditioner.

Adding organic matter does not raise the pH of your soil, merely its tilth and health. Some of my veggies enjoy an application of wood ashes in spring, except potatoes. Beets and carrots enjoy a light application of lime or wood ash. It also helps blooming plants produce more blooms, so is great applied to the bean patch when plants begin to bloom.

Of course as with most things we must use prudence - there is wisdom in not applying more than is needed. Too much of a good thing is too much, be it manure, wood ashes, water, or whatever. BTW - If you are planting eggplant to draw beetles away from your potatoes, I wouldn't plant them near your potatoes. Otherwise you might just lure the little buggers to your potato plants. Tomorrow I will plant a row of seed potatoes, but today I planted the platter of potatoes that's been sprouting in the pantry.

These included:. They're early and they love me. Great for roasting. So, yeah, plant seed potatoes, but also get to know a few varieties, and save them and replant them for a few years. In your climate and mine, we can save 'em for replanting by burying them a foot deep in the fall, then lifting the planting them in spring. It's that easy. I haven't seen a beetle in 5 years, and it used to be a major nuisance.

We raised potatoes for years. Here is a little I know about seed potatoes. Potatoes tubors are "clones" unless you use TPS true potato seed. There are a couple of ways of propagating new seed potatoes. Tissue culture is one, and there is a newer one that uses hydroponics. There is pre nuclear, nuclear, G1-G6 generation As each year goes by for producing seed stock the offspring have a higher probability for getting disease.

Also the yield can start to taper off for each successive generation. After G6 we say the seed is "run out" They use stringent testing to check for disease.