If i want to keep a few small tubers over the winter, what is the best way. my first thought was in in a fridge (salad drawer in airtight box)?
Somewhere cool, frost-free, dry, and light would do. But I don't think it's worth the risk, tubers accumulate virus and saving your own also increases the risk of carrying over other troublesome pests and diseases. They're such an important crop I think it's good to buy certified seed from a good source each year.
Seconded except when you've got something rare and heritage that you can't get.... but keep a close eye on them in storage, dispose at the first sign of blight....
Hmm....I do save my own seed potatoes regurlarly..but not keeping same 'stock' year after year. And as I'm almost absessive with how perfect the seed potatoes have to be for the storage, I find that I haven't had virus or desease problems with them.
Some years ago I read show growers (Medwyn I think) article about how show growgrowers store their seed potatoes...and I have practice the advise with good success.
The advice was: allow the skin of the potatoes to dry out/harden off and then carefully wash all soil off in washing up liquid and allow the potatoes dry out (with the soapy water on) and once dried store in frost free place....but the skins have to be blemish free!
Easy advise to follow and it has worked well.
For a while we were unable to get one of the very popular seed potatoes and for a number of years I did save my own seed but I had very strict rules that I followed. Any plants that showed any for of problem during the year were marked, than when it came to lifting, as I lifted if a plant had a good crop of large and small potatoes I would select a few smaller ones from that plant and keep those in a good light but frost free place through the winter. What I think you should not do is to liftthe crop and then select smaller potatoes for seed as some plants have just smaller ones and if you save from those you can end up with a whole crop of smaller potatoes.In general times I think it is saver and better to buy new certified seed each year.
Keeping your own seed potatoes should not be a problem as the standard of seed available nowadays is very good ,esp with regard to virus content.
The main benefit from useing once grown seed, is the "aclimatisation" factor. Once grown seed is noticable earlier to crop than bought in new seed. This is important for early varieties.
Virus need not be a problem if new seed is used every other year as the effect of the virus takes time to build up. Varieties which were 100% affected with mild viruses ie King Edward and Golden Wonder, never tasted the same since the virus free stocks were widely available.
I'd argue again that there is a risk in saving your own in that viruses are accumulated by the potato through the year as aphids and other insect vectors feed on the plants, and if there is a reservoir of virus in the area - such as self-saved potatoes growing on allotments - then that contamination and accumulation of virus will be all the worse.
I was thoroughly unimpressed with the recent missive from the Potato Council about banning allotmenteers from growing potatoes because we don't control blight, but we nonetheless have a responsibility to our fellow allotmenteers, the allotment movement , and the community at large, to be responsible, and to be known to be responsible, and apart from the exceptional situations described by laurieuk and the cautious and knowlegable way he would have gone about it, I don't think allotmenteers should in general save their own, but that we should buy certified seed responsibly.
Thanks for your advice guys, I was only thinking of 5 or so to grow in poly pots for showing. The potato council should lool at the amount of self sets in fields used for spuds then as set-aside or on the edges of the next crop.
I think they went well over the top accusing allotment holders since another main source of blight is farmers' outgrade piles, but it's true that people don't control it. It overwinters on volunteer tubers, and however hysterical people sometimes get about the disease in autumn, they don't make the connection and remove the survivors in spring. Then infected plants aren't always cut back promptly. I suspect, though, that allotments are probably a more inportant source in towns that the countryside. It became endemic on my site during those two very wet summers we had a while back, and it was spreading the moment we had a Smith period. I'm convinced that was due to infected volunteers on the site. Then of course we had the drought last year, and it never got established. I doubt whether many infected plants would last two years, and it was slow to appear this year.
Thanks for that Robert.
For me the Potato Council's comments raised many important issues for the allotment community.
If I understood it right, part of their rant was encouraging the allotmenteer to use chemical control, but a.. there isn't any chemical control available to the allotmenteer is there? And b., chemical control is just so seventies. For my money the best advice to allotmenteers troubled with late blight is to grow only earlies and second earlies.
But I also think there needs to be an honest discussion about the pros and cons of genetically-modified blight resistance. There's too much heat in that whole discussion still and not all of the reasons against GM are rational.
I think they would have more problems if they banned allotment holders and gardeners of growing potatoes, I suppose this would entail the lack of seed potatoes so what about people growing ex supermarket potatoes.
Four years ago our site had had no potatoes grown on it ever but we were struck with blight very quickly, it must have come in on seed potatoes. There were no volunteers on site. It started in the middle of the site and quickly worked its way round.
The spores for late blight are airborne aren't they? Doesn't it blow in from the continent each year?
The spores are indeed airborne but i believe that the distance they are carried on the wind is limited to about a mile
I know blight in seed potatoes is a problem in the States, but I've no idea how thorough they are about testing here.
On Gardeners Question Time on Sunday, Bob Flowerdew suggested keeping a few spuds from your crop to use as seed potatoes. He said seed potatoes may be in short supply next year.
There was also a question about why so many worms came out of a dialek. There is a picture on the GQT web site. Most peculiar. Has anyone else seen it?