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Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Digeroo on October 25, 2012, 12:53:47

Title: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: Digeroo on October 25, 2012, 12:53:47
I bought several varieties at the Swindon Allotment Society Potato day.  I have been digging over the patch and only found three out of five types of potato, two have totally vanished without trace. 

But one is a puzzle.  The tubers are large and plentiful and particularly bright red.  No sign of blight or slug damage or any other problem at all.  Even though the plants got blight the potatoes are surprisingly big each one being about four inches in diameter and more or less spherical.  The flesh inside is completely white and actually rather tasteless but baked in microwave and filled with something tasty they are not bad.   Floury texture.

I thought they were Red Duke of York but in the past I have found them to be particularly sensitive to slug damage, so had not even bothered to dig them up.   They have been sitting in the soil for four months.

Any suggestions as to the variety.
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: goodlife on October 25, 2012, 13:34:30
Other than Red York..what else did you grow?
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: antipodes on October 25, 2012, 16:18:34
Tempted to say Desiree but a picture would help.
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: gavinjconway on October 25, 2012, 16:22:32
Hey Dig - lets start of  by asking did you write down what you bought??
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: Squashman on October 25, 2012, 17:10:13
Could they be either Romano or Sarpo Mira, both are red skinned and slug resistant
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: Lottiman on October 25, 2012, 17:54:36
I would also go for Sarpo Mira as suggested by squashman or Robinta or Lord Rosbury
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: chriscross1966 on October 25, 2012, 18:01:05
Sarpo Mira are quite distinctly elongate... very nice baked in the oven with a distinctive popcorn smell when you do them that way... RDOY would ahve sprouted if left in this long surely....
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: Digeroo on October 25, 2012, 22:22:00
They are much redder than Desiree and taste and colour of flesh all wrong.  I am fairly sure that they were bought as Red Duke of York, they are just not like any Red Duke of York I have grown before when they were dug up.  I do not like the taste of Romano so certainly not that. 

Many thanks for the suggestions I googled them and it brought up the Potato database.

http://varieties.potato.org.uk/search.php

When you put in red skin and white flesh there is not much choice.

The nearest is Shannon matches the colour well.  Certainly cannot remember buying that or writing it on the label.  It says it has quite a high resistance to scab and that is certainly the case.

http://varieties.potato.org.uk/search.php

The labels were all washed out in the rain.

Might try it again seems to be amazingly resilient to everything.  Perhaps the answer is to try a number of varieties and some will hopefully survive.
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: Unwashed on October 25, 2012, 22:50:35
I don't know about red duke of york, but I find white duke of york to get common scab quite badly, so if your reds aren't affected I'd say that eliminates red duke of york as a candidate.
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: Digeroo on October 25, 2012, 23:28:01
According to the database Red Duke of York has yellow flesh, and has low resistance to late blight on the tubers and scab.  So this rules it out on all three. 
Title: Re: Need help identifying potatoes
Post by: chriscross1966 on October 26, 2012, 08:16:05
Setanta?.. basically a Rooster that swaps some of the epic productiveity in a good year for a ton of disease resistance, including blight... adn not that popular with slugs either in my experience. A gorgeous chip, pretty good baked adn very nice roasted... Skins can be reticulated, even russeted sometimes..