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Can anyone tell me anything about this variety? I got some potatos from someone and they're lovely, really nutty and tasty. Apparently they're an ancient variety but I dont know.

here is your answer
variety origin 1876
http://www.europotato.org/display_description.php?variety_name=Champion

They sound lovely Sawfish, do you have any idea were to source them from?

Fothergills do (used to do?) slips, ie to grow on. I got some a few years back & have grown them on. They are lovely, but very late, so - in my soil at least - they seem to be "got at" by pests, or don't bulk up very well. I'm in two minds about them.

Slips? For our spuds? Wow!

I will check their website later,

If you saved the first year's spuds to use as seed, you'd probably have a good crop the second year.

Im not being funny R_B, I always thought that seed potatoes were bred in scotland to minimise disease. If we save seed potatoes ourselves from year to year, will we not breed in disease unwittingly?

Please correct me if Im wrong, I can only go on what I know. As I am a 'student of nature' Im quite happy to learn new ways and methods.

If I dont ask I wont know ;)

From T&M
These unique conservation varieties have previously only been available as microplants, now, as tubers, you can easily grow a taste of the past.

Collection comprises (clockwise from top left):
Highland Burgundy Red (Early maincrop)
Purple Eyed Seedling (Second early)
Salad Blue (Early maincrop)
Shetland Black (Second early)
Skerry Blue (Early maincrop)
Witchhill (Second early)

Now if you can only get these types as microplants you would save the potato's grown as seed therefore increasing the available stock or the plants would become extinct.

I got mine from the farmers market in Glasgow at a stall run by

http://www.heritage-potatoes.co.uk

Thanks Sawfish, I like the sound of these people. They have some lovely varieties

Quote from: star on February 23, 2008, 20:29:27
Im not being funny R_B, I always thought that seed potatoes were bred in scotland to minimise disease. If we save seed potatoes ourselves from year to year, will we not breed in disease unwittingly?

You're dead right; the aphids that spread viruses only arrive in Scotland in high summer, so the spuds escape infection. In the past, strains deteriorated as they became infected. But there was a simple solution; raise seed, and produce a new, virus-free variety. I'm more worried about blight overwintering in self-produced seed. But people manage with heritage varieties. I don't know what precautions they take.

Paul, I missed your post somehow. I will look into T&M for these as well as Heritage potatoes.

Shame I already got mine this year  :(