some of my Nicola seed potatoes seem quite large, I don't know if this has been asked before but can you cut potatoes in half after they have chitted and plant them as normal?
thanks in advance / shades x
You can as long as there are eyes/chits on both halves. Can introduce disease though so not generally encouraged. (Or is thta just so we buy more?) :-\
We used to do it regularly when times were harder. Looks like they may return.
We dipped the cut ends in flowers of sulphur, some rubbed the cut ends in well weathered soot. We never bothered chittng them as long as they had eyes they were planted. They always grew ok too.. It does make me wonder at times that because we have more time on our hands, do we mess about too much with stuff?...
As Saddad says; You can as long as there are eyes/chits on both halves.
When you consider........ I have often had a good few boilings out of the compost heap that resulted from 'peeling' only.
The important part is the 'eye' (chits)
In the following picture I would make a diagonal cut from top right to bottom left then I have at least two chits on each half.
(http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Potato%20chitting/06-chits.JPG)
QuoteWe never bothered chittng them as long as they had eyes they were planted.
On the subject of chitting it is not necessary for the growing of the plant but it is my belief that the practice originated more as a means of preserving the quality of the tuber rather than trying to get them to grow. No matter how careful you all are, within a few weeks many if not all stored spuds will begin to sprout. This will be exacerbated if the stock is kept in bags or piles. The result of leaving them is long gangly pale soft shoots that are a liability to the plant.
Chitting the spuds in the traditional manner I.E. lining them in rows in seed trays or egg boxes and storing them frost free in good light, enables tubers to produce small stubby shoots and roots and remain in this condition until planting time arrives.
when I was a lad, I worked for W.B.Chambers of swaffham prior, nr newmarket/cambridge, we used to plant about 1,ooo acres of spuds per year, all of them chitted in insulated barns. It's to start off the growing process before the soil is warm enough to do it for you!! this means that they get away to a flying start, and if you are selling earlies..... it must have been worth it, the traying up of seed spuds, stacking up the trays, taking them out of the barns after stacking the boxes on pallets, all by hand (3 of us employed for just that!) on a commercial scale, we did cut large seed in half at planting.
:)thanks so much for your replies, I will give it a go this year/ shades x
I wonder about pink fur apples as my seed spuds are so long! They don't tend to get noticeable chits.
Pink Fir are a "late Main" and have a naturally strong dormancy... "Home Guard" was also a notably slow chitter, ;D