Saving true potato seed

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
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itsybitsy
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Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 5:51 pm
Location: East Yorkshire

Re: Saving true potato seed

Post by itsybitsy »

bulldogeagle wrote:we do not bother buying expensive seed potatoes, we use shop bought spuds that have started to sprout, we chit them and plant these in tyres, never had any problems with them, we have just unearthed our spuds and have enough to last us most if not all the winter.
I did that this year and got a good crop off a bag of Aldi's new potatoes. I have heard from friends, who have used seed potatoes, that they have had mixed results with them.
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Brambles
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Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:09 am
Location: West Midlands

Re: Saving true potato seed

Post by Brambles »

Perhaps this might help T_S I found this just now.
I have always used seed potatoes myself. Because of the complicated genetic blending of characteristics, I doubt you would get consistent results from seed. Might be worth a try if you can be certain your variety is true.

http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

Good luck!
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain~anon
Triple_sod

Re: Saving true potato seed

Post by Triple_sod »

Brambles wrote:Perhaps this might help T_S I found this just now.
I have always used seed potatoes myself. Because of the complicated genetic blending of characteristics, I doubt you would get consistent results from seed. Might be worth a try if you can be certain your variety is true.

http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

Good luck!
Yeah seen that, :)
Yeah you’re right though if you were to try and cross breed them you’d get quite a variety in terms of how the genes mixed but that’s true of anything really. Suppose the beauty of potatoes is once you have got the desired effect you then switch over to vegetative reproduction, so all the spuds from there are basically a clone of the original.