Topic: potatoes forming above ground

[thifasmom]

Well i went out today and noticed that my Christmas potatoes where quite wind beaten after last night weather (note to self keep them in the greenhouse next autumn ::) :-\).

well on inspection i found baby potato tubers growing on the stems way above the soil level, now i knew about the fruit that forms after the flowers, but didn't think that the tubers will form so far above the ground. showed it to my neighbour who said he has seen this before and rightly reminded me not to eat them because as they are growing in the sunlight they would be quite poisonous :-X.

i removed the stem (only one stem had them the stem was damaged though so may be it was just trying to propagate itself).  any way i removed the stem to encourage the plant to form tubers under the soil ::) as i want fresh home grown tubers for Christmas  :).

here are a few piccies for you all to see. has anyone else ever experienced this?

[tim]

Fascinating - never seen the like of it!!

[star]

Me neither, and I have grown under plastic too :o

[thifasmom]

i suppose this is whats happening under the soil especially in containers, but like i said i found the stem was damaged (it was almost severed) when i went to remove it, so it might have been a propagation response.

i just hope it means there are lots of tubers forming under the soil :-\.

[star]

Yes lets hope so, it would be very interesting if you would let us know how your crop turns out by xmas :D.

Your diagnosis was pretty good there......maybe we should call you Dr. Thifasmom...... ;)

[thifasmom]

Yes lets hope so, it would be very interesting if you would let us know how your crop turns out by xmas :D.

Your diagnosis was pretty good there......maybe we should call you Dr. Thifasmom...... ;)

I will let you all know how these unsheltered potatoes crop. we have already had one hard frost (which didn't really affect them, but the battering winds last night did more damage) everything i read prior to trying a Christmas crop never said to grow them under cover, and the container is to heavy to move now ::). so hopefully no more frosts before January and maybe i'll get a decent crop :-\.

Dr thifasmom may have a nice ring to it, but I'm just guessing as i go along ;) ;D.

[star]

 ;D ;)

Good luck with the rest of the spuds :D

[manicscousers]

have you any fleece, you could cover them  :)

[cornykev]

Great piccies Thifasmom, strange to see them like that when there usually underground.  ;D ;D ;D

[shirlton]

who knows where this could lead??????????????

[thifasmom]

just dawned on me that if i had let them form i would have gotten a few potatoes to use as seed potatoes next Feb in my containers.

[Kea]

The plant is probably confused because of the day length it possibly mistook 'the darkness' for being underground. Stolons produce either tubers (underground) or leaves (above ground) it would be easy for the signals (plant hormones) to get a bit muddled at this time of year.

[thifasmom]

The plant is probably confused because of the day length it possibly mistook 'the darkness' for being underground. Stolons produce either tubers (underground) or leaves (above ground) it would be easy for the signals (plant hormones) to get a bit muddled at this time of year.

hmmm! i was thinking it might have something to do with the stem being damaged and the cold snap back in october ???

i kinda thought since my neighbour have observed this before, i figured someone on A4A might have also observed this, but no one else has said so :-\. i was trying to find out how common it was.

[star]

I would say Kea's explanation is the most logical to be honest. Day length can upset a lot of plants forced in the wrong season

[Kea]

When I was growing them in pots overwinter (in a glasshouse) for experiments i got quite a few of these. It's only fairly recently that lots of people have started growing new potatoes for christmas so it wouldn't really have been noticed much before.

I also grew microplants and these often grew tiny tubers again they would have been in low light conditions compared to those growing outside in summer.