Tatties 2017

Hey Zigs you've nicked @Sheal 's avatar

 

I'm growing Kondor again this year. I've got them chitting at the moment and any day now will be removing all the shoots except one per tuber as I I'm growing them for giant spuds. They were way ahead of the other entries in our village show, despite getting a very bad attack of scab that got the biggest ones.

 

I bought mine from here Seed Potatoes, visiting in person. They sell an amazing selection of seed spuds.

They're £4.80 for 2.5 Kg + shipping (£4 price on website is incorrect). They can ship a single bag by Royal Mail, but more than 1 bag attracts courier charges.

By this time last year they were sold out, but if they are, or if 10 or so tubers would be enough, I have some spares I could send you, PM if you'd like them @Webmaster

Yes, they rooted OK, but then grew so slowly that I chucked them out.

 

no thats a score in golf , it's a type of bird though ,it's the bigest Vulture in the world !
atb Dal

 

Thanks for letting me know @JWK . Can't trust that young @Zigs !

Oi Mr S! Give me back my Oystercatcher please!

 

Best method is to slice the seed potato in two or more so you get at least two eyes per slice. You can do this before they start chitting, the cut edges soon heal up. Then the mother tuber is still supplying the chits with energy so they grow away just as quick as untouched tubers. You may lose one or two but you can easily double or treble the number of plants.

 

But if growing spuds for a heaviest potato, there's a school of thought that only a single shoot should be allowed to develop from the tuber, and that larger tubers produce larger spuds, so cutting in half would be counter-productive.

 

So along with maris peer and rocket, I'm going for cara, kestrel and valor on the plot. Have been told we get major eelworm problems. Been told and read they're quite resistant to it..

No show spuds here

 

Just found the Duke of York first earlies I bought the other week ( ); now on a windowsill, in an eggbox and hopefully Chitting

 

I grew Sarpo Mira for the first time last year Webmaster, they outperformed all my other varieties. I'm still digging them up straight out of the ground, getting two or three really big bakers plus a few smaller ones on each root. They taste good and are the best for mash I've ever grown. They are supposed to be Blight resistant too, although I didn't get any blight on any of my potatoes last year.

 

Reducing number of shoots on seed potatoes

There was previously some discussion on GC regarding the optimum number of shoots per seed potato, New (to me) chitting advice and some more here Tatties covering reducing to 3 shoots for an improved yield an only one to grow a single giant potato.

I can remember being told another reason to remove shoots, apparently some varieties have a tendency to only produce a single shoot from a single eye, but rubbing it off will cause a bunch of shoots to sprout from it and increase the yield. N.B. only rubbing off, not cutting out the eye, as mentioned on first (?) link, rubbed shoots will re-sprout.

I've just gouged out all the eyes bar one in my Kondor and Picasso seed spuds that I'm using for 'heaviest potato' class. Although they wont re-grow from those locations, it forces dormant eyes to start sprouting. When their wounds have healed they're planted in trays of MPC so I can see additional shoots requiring removal.

 

I missed a bit Chitting Potatoes | Sprouting Potatoes

"Using a potato peeler remove all the eyes in the rose end cluster by scooping approximately one eighth of an inch (3mm) deep, which should eliminate any regrowth. You must make sure that you remove the whole eye to stop any regrowth. Without the rose eyes the tuber's food reserves will be directed to shoulder and side eyes"

That fits in with what I've been told about how to grow giant spuds, restricting to a single shoot from a (flat) side (rather than rose end) will produce bigger potatoes.