A Reason For Hilling

Durgan · June 28, 2015

This is new pictures to make viewing easier.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ZFZLX
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QHBIN 21 August 2009 How a Potato Plant Grows
There is a great deal of information on the Internet about growing potatoes in tires, boxes and indicating that large quantities of new tubers can be produced with high vertical hilling. The Seattle Times consistently propagates this view and never produces meaningful pictures indicating such.The view propagated is that potatoes grow from branches all along the main stalk. This is utter nonsense, as my pictures indicate. New tubers are formed around the seed potato and always slightly above it. Another point to take into consideration is the vegetation serves the purpose of supplying food to produce the desired tubers. Reducing this surface area by too high hilling must detract from the food producing process. The quantity and quality of potatoes per plant is or prime interest to a home grower. Experience indicates that from any one plant from four to eight pounds of various sized tubers should be produced. I consider anything under four pounds per plant to be an inferior crop.

My potato growing test box was opened today. The pictures speak for themselves. Clearly there is no advantage in carrying out excessive hilling when growing potatoes. The purpose of hilling is to insure the tubers are covered, since light affects potatoes producing a green appearance, which is an indication of solanine, which is harmful if ingested in large quantities. For comparison one Pontiac Red was dug in the same row, which was almost identical to the test box potato in appearance.

June 28, 2015	#11
Durgan Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Brantford, ON, Canada Posts: 1,341	This is new pictures to make viewing easier. http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ZFZLX http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QHBIN 21 August 2009 How a Potato Plant Grows There is a great deal of information on the Internet about growing potatoes in tires, boxes and indicating that large quantities of new tubers can be produced with high vertical hilling. The Seattle Times consistently propagates this view and never produces meaningful pictures indicating such.The view propagated is that potatoes grow from branches all along the main stalk. This is utter nonsense, as my pictures indicate. New tubers are formed around the seed potato and always slightly above it. Another point to take into consideration is the vegetation serves the purpose of supplying food to produce the desired tubers. Reducing this surface area by too high hilling must detract from the food producing process. The quantity and quality of potatoes per plant is or prime interest to a home grower. Experience indicates that from any one plant from four to eight pounds of various sized tubers should be produced. I consider anything under four pounds per plant to be an inferior crop. My potato growing test box was opened today. The pictures speak for themselves. Clearly there is no advantage in carrying out excessive hilling when growing potatoes. The purpose of hilling is to insure the tubers are covered, since light affects potatoes producing a green appearance, which is an indication of solanine, which is harmful if ingested in large quantities. For comparison one Pontiac Red was dug in the same row, which was almost identical to the test box potato in appearance. Last edited by Durgan; June 28, 2015 at 09:08 AM.