Really? Potatoes can be determinate and indeterminate?

[zeroma]

I just read something recently that stated potato plants have growth habits of either determinate or indeterminate.

Can someone talk about this. Is there a reason why you would grow on growth habit over the other?

Is it just a matter of the type of tuber you get, the taste of it. Or is there a reason to find one due to space limitations or short or long season availability?

I never knew there were both.

zeroma

[Cole_Robbie]

From what I read, season-length is the more important designation. Det/Indet would only be important for someone who was container growing, burying the bottom of the vine as it grew upwards.

[zeroma]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

From what I read, season-length is the more important designation. Det/Indet would only be important for someone who was container growing, burying the bottom of the vine as it grew upwards.

So if one is growing in the filed, not containers you don't cover the foliage as it comes out of the ground? I guess in farming it would be called disking?

For your garden variety potato, say red Pontiac do you just drop the seed potato into the ground and let it grow? Do you cover the leaves for the first half of its life? Or better question maybe is how long do you continue to cover the foliage before you harvest?

zeroma

[Cole_Robbie]

My grandparents would plant potatoes in a ridge of dirt. They have a little 1930's Farmall tractor that can throw up ridges. Grandpa would go back again after a couple of weeks to re-hill them, but that is mostly to make sure all the potatoes themselves stay covered in dirt. The sun turns them green if they stick out of the ground.

[NathanP]

It also comes into play for a few other reasons. Commercial potatoes in Europe and North America have all been bred and selected for determinism. Even long season commercial potatoes are determinate.

Many South American potatoes are indeterminate. There are a few potential benefits to this, containers aside. A longer growing season can result in higher yields, assuming the plant is daylength sensitivel. Daylength sensitive potates are adapted for short daylengths of under 13 hours, so in temperate climates, they do not start tuberizing until September in the northern hemisphere. An indeterminate trait combined with daylength sensitivity means a potential harvest, whereas if the daylength sensitive plant is determinate, it may senesce well before September, resulting in very low yields.

Many diploids or high flavor potato lines can be daylength sensitive, making them difficult to grow in the northern hemisphere without a long growing season.

[zeroma]

Thank you both. So NathanP, would it be safe to say most of the seed potatoes that are offered in the USA would be the determinate type?

I didn't think about the daylength sensitive issue or growing in a container...but that's why I asked the questions.

So if I went out into someones garden (not so much commercial farming) would I be able to 'see' the differences or is it all in the genetics?

When I was a kid the potatoes grown in North Dakota seemed to me to be huge plants with all kinds of upper growth. But I was a kid so it might have just seemed that way cuz I was small. The potatoes growing in our Ohio garden don't seem to have that same size. Don't know the variety of them = community garden and some of the gardeners just brought in some potatoes from their store bought kitchen supplies.

zeroma

[NarnianGarden]

Never knew this until now - indet and det potato varieties

Here in our short season potatoes grow only to a certain height and then die off, as a sign that the tubers are ready for harvest.. Some older types may have had higher stalks, and grown full mature fruits ... Not so much any more with moderm garden varieties, but it happened in the old days.

I've grown potatoes a few times, a few times in ground, a few times in a container. Both times, we got adequate amounts, but nothing like my grandparents, who grew their potatoes for winter storage.
But then, I am nothing like my resilient, and gutsy forefathers, who were hunters - gatherers - growers. I'm just an amateur gardener, and I love it

[NathanP]

So NathanP, would it be safe to say most of the seed potatoes that are offered in the USA would be the determinate type?

Zeroma, I meant to answer this the other day. Yes, nearly all (maybe all) commercial potatoes sold in the US, and probably Europe too, are determinate. They have been bred to senesce at a particular time, so they can harvest an entire field at the same time. They also were bred to produce one hill, at a designated height, to make machine harvesting easier. Traits such as indeterminism, long stolons, and erratic growth habits are not traits that the potato industry typically wants in their genepool. Some of those traits may correspond to the same genetics.

Regarding the question about hilling potatoes, it should be done at least once, and typically twice, with commercial potatoes being buried no more than 12-16". I usually hill once about 5-6 weeks after planting, then again a month later. And sometimes hilling later as needed if I see tubers poking through.

If you are growing TPS plants, it is sometimes recommended to keep hilling the entire growing season.