Pulling potato plants from sprouts - Page 8

NathanP · January 31, 2015

The data from my growing pull sprouts vs tubers last year. This worked well for long season potatoes. Short season potatoes seem to go into early senescence doing this and had low yield. Not worth bothering doing this for short season potatoes.

I tracked this with 3 potato varieties last year.
Average Yield From Tubers From Pull Sprouts
Purple Peruvian 17.2 oz 11.1 oz
CIP396286-7 15.1 oz 15.35 oz
Satina (early-mid variety) 9.2oz 9.0 oz

Even if yields end up being slightly lower, this is an easy way to multiply tubers into far more plants.

I also did this with Finn Bad, an early potato, and it produced very little from pull sprouts (3.1 oz)

wmontanez · February 4, 2015

As you mention Nathan this is an easy way to multiply tubers into far more plants.

One planted potato tuber may yield 2 pounds with multiple "eyes" emerging as one cluster but you can get 4-6 "pulls plants" from a single tuber and each yields 1 pound is about 6 pounds from just one tuber as seed. A great way to multiply plants and not have to save so many potatoes as seeds.

Another thing I noticed is that varieties that were grown from pull plants tend to be bigger in size but when I plant tubers it tend to send out 2-3 shoots I get smaller potatoes but more numerous.

oynamak · May 9, 2015

My potatos are doing great. All TPS Pull starts and tubers. Some pull starts stayed micro did not grow others did great. Some TPS also remained tiny. But mostly ding great.

oynamak · November 29, 2015

Is there a thing where you can only should do pull starts with late season Potatoes but not with early's?

Thanks for any answer.

NathanP · November 29, 2015

Yes, it is best done with long season potatoes. The process seems to trigger senescence and tuberization earlier than if left connected to the mother tuber. For a short season potato, that often leads to the plant dying back after a short amount of time, with only small tubers. They stop growing too early.

I have tried it with several 70-80 day potatoes and found they die back after 30-40 days.

oynamak · November 29, 2015

Nathan

I have one other question.

What is you choice for your growing medium for pull starts.

I mean where we put the tubers for sprouts.

Is dampened Peat ok? Temperature?

Thank You

Jeanus · May 7, 2017

I have been reading this thread and have been pulling potatoes and have some nice little plants. I do not know if they are long or short season potatoes and the company never answered my questions. If they are short season were the small potatoes at least pingpong ball sized or am I just getting seed potatoes and practice for next year? I am also trying (tip Jacking)? so far no roots. Fascinating thread.

NathanP · May 11, 2017

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeanus

I have been reading this thread and have been pulling potatoes and have some nice little plants. I do not know if they are long or short season potatoes and the company never answered my questions. If they are short season were the small potatoes at least pingpong ball sized or am I just getting seed potatoes and practice for next year? I am also trying (tip Jacking)? so far no roots. Fascinating thread.

Glad to hear you are trying this. What type(s) of potatoes are you doing this with? We might be able to answer some of your questions.

Jeanus · June 19, 2017

White red and purple bought a multipack of seed potatoes and there were no names in side only only generic planting instructions and that the potatoes were mid season. Emailed the company and sent the UPC and no answer. Oh well. I guess they send the same instructions with all the potatoes they send out.

svalli · April 30, 2018

I wonder if I did the right thing, by planting sprouts which came off from seed potatoes, which I removed from the packaging. I had bough two small bags of Red Duke of York seed potatoes in February and kept those in cool garage. Today I remembered the bags and went to get them to put them in the greenhouse to sprout. The potatoes had grown quite thick sprouts in the dark, which seemed to have tiny roots and leaves starting to grow.
Since I did not want to waste the sprouts, I planted those to empty milk cartons, so that the tops are just above the soil. If these will take root, I can add more soil to the cartons, when the plants grow.

After that I came here to search and found out that the spouts should had have bigger roots and leaves for planting. There is not much lost, if these will not grow, since I was going to toss away the loose sprouts. But now I found information about how to get more plants from the small seed potato bags, which have the more expensive kinds, which are not usually grown by the farmers in Finland.

Sari

sdzejachok · April 30, 2018

From my experimentation roots and leaves are nice but not necessary. Cut the sprout to include 2-3 nodes. Insert it vertically into soil with the top 1-2 nodes in the light. One node is in the soil. This seems to work best under lights in the house.

GoDawgs · May 4, 2018

This whole thread has been a fascinating read! I might have to experiment a bit with this next spring. There's a new Sprouts Farmer's Market that just opened this week about 25 miles away. Maybe this coming fall/winter they'll have some late season named varieties so I can buy one of this and that to play with.

svalli · May 7, 2018

All the sprouts I planted have started to grow. I'm glad I did this since the seed potatoes were already quite shriveled, and are now slowly growing new sprouts after I put them in moist peat.

Sari

bboomer · May 29, 2020

I had a different though related experience this year. Given the lock down I was not going to walk into a store just to buy a bag of seed potatoes and the prices demanded for them on the web were outrageous. I thought I would go without potatoes this year until I saw some volunteer sprouts coming up from the area in my garden where they grew last year. I carefully dug them up--there lots of them--and planted them in the area I prepared for this season's potatoes. When I could I kept them attached to a piece of tuber. I did not know they were independent plants as described in this thread. Others were just sprouts long detached from the potato. So far they are all going great guns. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

NathanP · June 1, 2020

Keeping stems attached to pieces of the seed tuber itself does provide a head start vs removing them. One aspect of this has not been studied enough, but there does seem to be something different about how stems respond to this process differently when removed from tubers, especially with short season varieties.

The limit with yield is more related to foliage cover, not to seed tuber size or the seed tuber itself. The ideal is achieving complete foliage cover of the soil without planting too close together, so if you can spread out stems from pull starts across a larger area that a single seed tuber offers, you have a chance to have higher yields by multiplying your stem quantity across a larger surface area.

The main issue with using store bought tubers from grocery stores is not that they won't grow, it is disease load. They have higher threshholds for allowing diseases to pass through the system than tubers sold as seed tubers. They are at least one clonal generation older, but sometimes several.

February 4, 2015	#107
wmontanez Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: MA Posts: 776	As you mention Nathan this is an easy way to multiply tubers into far more plants. One planted potato tuber may yield 2 pounds with multiple "eyes" emerging as one cluster but you can get 4-6 "pulls plants" from a single tuber and each yields 1 pound is about 6 pounds from just one tuber as seed. A great way to multiply plants and not have to save so many potatoes as seeds. Another thing I noticed is that varieties that were grown from pull plants tend to be bigger in size but when I plant tubers it tend to send out 2-3 shoots I get smaller potatoes but more numerous. __________________ Wendy

April 30, 2018	#116
sdzejachok Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Ohio Posts: 98	pull sprouts From my experimentation roots and leaves are nice but not necessary. Cut the sprout to include 2-3 nodes. Insert it vertically into soil with the top 1-2 nodes in the light. One node is in the soil. This seems to work best under lights in the house.

January 31, 2015	#106
NathanP Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: RI Posts: 183	The data from my growing pull sprouts vs tubers last year. This worked well for long season potatoes. Short season potatoes seem to go into early senescence doing this and had low yield. Not worth bothering doing this for short season potatoes. I tracked this with 3 potato varieties last year. Average Yield From Tubers From Pull Sprouts Purple Peruvian 17.2 oz 11.1 oz CIP396286-7 15.1 oz 15.35 oz Satina (early-mid variety) 9.2oz 9.0 oz Even if yields end up being slightly lower, this is an easy way to multiply tubers into far more plants. I also did this with Finn Bad, an early potato, and it produced very little from pull sprouts (3.1 oz)

May 9, 2015	#108
oynamak Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: California Posts: 14	My potatos are doing great. All TPS Pull starts and tubers. Some pull starts stayed micro did not grow others did great. Some TPS also remained tiny. But mostly ding great.

November 29, 2015	#109
oynamak Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: California Posts: 14	Is there a thing where you can only should do pull starts with late season Potatoes but not with early's? Thanks for any answer.

November 29, 2015	#110
NathanP Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: RI Posts: 183	Yes, it is best done with long season potatoes. The process seems to trigger senescence and tuberization earlier than if left connected to the mother tuber. For a short season potato, that often leads to the plant dying back after a short amount of time, with only small tubers. They stop growing too early. I have tried it with several 70-80 day potatoes and found they die back after 30-40 days.

November 29, 2015	#111
oynamak Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: California Posts: 14	Nathan I have one other question. What is you choice for your growing medium for pull starts. I mean where we put the tubers for sprouts. Is dampened Peat ok? Temperature? Thank You

May 7, 2017	#112
Jeanus Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Tennessee Posts: 80	I have been reading this thread and have been pulling potatoes and have some nice little plants. I do not know if they are long or short season potatoes and the company never answered my questions. If they are short season were the small potatoes at least pingpong ball sized or am I just getting seed potatoes and practice for next year? I am also trying (tip Jacking)? so far no roots. Fascinating thread.

June 19, 2017	#114
Jeanus Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: Tennessee Posts: 80	White red and purple bought a multipack of seed potatoes and there were no names in side only only generic planting instructions and that the potatoes were mid season. Emailed the company and sent the UPC and no answer. Oh well. I guess they send the same instructions with all the potatoes they send out.

May 4, 2018	#117
GoDawgs Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Augusta area, Georgia, 8a/7b Posts: 1,685	This whole thread has been a fascinating read! I might have to experiment a bit with this next spring. There's a new Sprouts Farmer's Market that just opened this week about 25 miles away. Maybe this coming fall/winter they'll have some late season named varieties so I can buy one of this and that to play with.

May 29, 2020	#119
bboomer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 67	I had a different though related experience this year. Given the lock down I was not going to walk into a store just to buy a bag of seed potatoes and the prices demanded for them on the web were outrageous. I thought I would go without potatoes this year until I saw some volunteer sprouts coming up from the area in my garden where they grew last year. I carefully dug them up--there lots of them--and planted them in the area I prepared for this season's potatoes. When I could I kept them attached to a piece of tuber. I did not know they were independent plants as described in this thread. Others were just sprouts long detached from the potato. So far they are all going great guns. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

June 1, 2020	#120
NathanP Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: RI Posts: 183	Keeping stems attached to pieces of the seed tuber itself does provide a head start vs removing them. One aspect of this has not been studied enough, but there does seem to be something different about how stems respond to this process differently when removed from tubers, especially with short season varieties. The limit with yield is more related to foliage cover, not to seed tuber size or the seed tuber itself. The ideal is achieving complete foliage cover of the soil without planting too close together, so if you can spread out stems from pull starts across a larger area that a single seed tuber offers, you have a chance to have higher yields by multiplying your stem quantity across a larger surface area. The main issue with using store bought tubers from grocery stores is not that they won't grow, it is disease load. They have higher threshholds for allowing diseases to pass through the system than tubers sold as seed tubers. They are at least one clonal generation older, but sometimes several.