How many seed potatoes?

I've just received my seed potato order from T&M, I was reluctant to order from them as not impressed with the quality of the last lot I ordered a couple of years ago but they were on offer so I thought I'd chance it, how things change, the ones I received today are on a par with my usual supplier JBA, well impressed!

I digress, I've now got about 110 maincrop seed potatoes, I'll purchase any "earlies" from local garden centres. We get through roughly 5kg of spuds a week and would like to be self sufficient in potatoes given the astronomical rise in potato prices recently.

Something I should have done but haven't is weigh the average yield from an average year to calculate how much to sow, anybody done it?

I've got space to grow more and I will do, any surplus (I wish) will go to family and friends.

My Maincrop are Desiree, Maris Piper and Cara.

 

Thats a good idea Vince,

I bet Scrungee & Kristen have.

Do you remember that vid that was posted on here "how to grow a ton of potatoes from one plant"?

Might have a look for that again........

 

Yes I do remember Zigs, I think they used a "Arran"

I've got space BUT not that much space if things go wrong?

 

Found it, I was wrong, it was from 5 potatoes

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/1000kg-of-potatos-from-5-plants.31167/#post-412955

 

I looked at seed spuds in a GC yesterday, but wasn't tempted to buy any as I keep reading reports of so many blighted potatoes from last year sitting in the ground just waiting to infect our crops whatever the weather's like this year.

I'm still intending to grow just the new old potatoes - parsnips. There's a lot of things you can do with parsnips apparently.

 

Depending on where they came from, and how they travelled, I'd be a bit worried that T&M shipped them to travel on the coldest night of the year, and possibly to languish in vans / warehouses that were very cold, or on your doorstep in sub zero temperatures if you were out etc.

JBA specifically say that they don't ship when it is very cold (and most of the other household names don't seem to care either, or perhaps they are not able to restrain shipping of cold-sensitive items)

Hopefully no damage done though ...

I don't have any yield figures personally, but D.G. Hessayon "Vegetable and Herb Expert" has yield for an "average" row, which will hopefully give you a reasonable guestimate to start from

Amount of seed potatoes required for a 10 ft row: 1.5 lb

Yield from 10 ft row:

Early 12 lb
Maincrop 20 lb

I would have expected the "amount required" to be different for Early/Mains as spacing of Early's is 12" and Main's 15"

 

Kristen, a font of knowledge as to where to look as expected, thanks so much

That doesn't take account of how many spuds per 1.5 pounds but gives me a rough ratio of 10:1, therefore 5kg of seed potatoes could result in 50kg harvest time, I've got 7.5kg, 75kg harvest...... As I suspected, I need LOADS more.

All the T&M seed potatoes I received today ARE certified Scottish stock.....

Now off to check out JBA!

 

My pleasure

Recommend you have one eye on potential Summer blight. With the amount we had last year it is likely that there will be more lurking in tubers that have got left in the ground (allotments etc.) and thus, I think, as a consequence a higher risk of outbreaks this year, even if the season is dry / not ideal for Blight to flourish

You might consider making sure you have enough 1st and 2nd earlies to have 100% , or a bit more, of your needs in early-season taken care of, as they will usually harvest before Blight occurs (they don't store well though, of course, so a juggling-act)

Spuds need a lot of space ... but if the price is going to be ridiculous then its worth doing. My normal advice, that "Maincrop is so cheap its not worth growing-to-self-store", is out of the window this year, and for sure next year too ...

Might I suggest building a paddy field for rice instead?

 

Ha ha, I think I made a reference to doing just that during the wettest drought we had last year.

Try growing "pasta" trees?

Seriously, I'm aware of potential blight problems, hence my main reliance on "Cara", blight tolerant and in our opinion the best tasting maincrop by far, multi purpose too!

I'll probably order in some more Cara and possibly Sante, I'm planting in "virgin" soil up the allotment and in the garden, all spuds were harvested well before blight struck my tomatoes and I'll be growing "Cara" there too.

Not too bothered with earlies/2nd earlies, prices should be cheap enough in the shops at that time, I'm looking for good storage maincrop to see us over winter/spring and save us on the 25% price hike we've experienced over the last few months.
Vince

 

Funny how alcohol effects simple calculations? Think D.G.H may have got his sums wrong on reflection, I'm upping the prediction, 2kg per seed potato, sowing 115 of them, plus more to follow, Only need 240kg for the year, so another 2kg of seed spuds will give me a potential surplus?

 

Can't have too many spuds Vince

 

Last year I recorded a rough harvest. My rows are ten tubers long (main crop and second earlies) (13ft) and two rows gave a harvest of 50lb, so 2.5lb yield per seed tuber. This was with Charlotte (SE) and Maris Piper (MC).

I have seen yields quoted before quoted thus by farmers, that they expect a bucket full per plant which would be 10lb or more!

I'm trying an experiment this year with a couple of rows...giving them double space to see if this improves overall yield and harvested tuber size.

I sort of un scientifically did this, last year giving all of my tubers more space than I have previously, and it seemed to me that yield and tuber size improved but I cannot be certain as it was not recorded properly...could have just been better growing conditions or feeding.

So I will do a proper test this year.

Steve...

 

Steve, are you growing the potatoes in the ground or in large containers?

 

In the ground...hence the rows!

I tried the grow bags a few years ago...yield and tuber size was not great.

Steve...

 

Thanks, Steve. I'm trying to decide between big containers 1m3 or the ground for my potatoes.