Topic: Potato survival rates

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've lost a lot of the TPS tubers I was overwintering. It seems to be down to the very wet winter; it was very wet even under black plastic. What surprised me was the extreme variation in the survival rate. Diverse and Amarilla sailed though, while other varieties had very poor survival rates. I haven't tipped everything out yet so there may be more good ones to come. So far nothing's been lost altogether, and I've got more seed in the freezer, so it may be a good bit of selection!

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've just finished planting out the spuds. Russian Banana is another one with a very good survival rate. Some of the coloured ones were interesting. At first glance, Blue Belle had good survival, but all the tubers were deep purple, while they'd originally had a range of colours. Obviously, they're all from one or two plants which inherited the right gene. There's a lot of slug damage, so they're not so good in that respect. Shoots very tremendously as well, even within a single line. Some tubers have shoots 8-9 inches long, while others show no sign of growth at all. I'll probably do something similar next winter, but try to keep the pots drier.

[Jayb]

(Duplicate topic moved)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Thanks.