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Potato Planting Question

L

LittleD

Member
We have been discussing the cutting up of the potato before planting. How long should they be cut up before planting? Is it actually necessary ? Any thoughts ? What is your experience ?
 
We plant culls ( egg sized ) potatoes that were saved from our
previous year's harvest. We never cut them.

It always amazes me how those scrawny, withered things grow....
but they do !
 
no its not necessary, just on the bigger potatoes you will have more "eyes" so they can be cut in half. make sure each half has at least four sprouting eyes. this is only for the larger potatoes so you have more seed. small seed is not cut.
 
I usually plant them right after cutting them. And I cut them so that there is only one or two eyes per piece (I make them stretch!). Around 95% will come up.
 
I usually cut and plant but this year I decided to try the cut, let them air dry for 24 hours and then plant. Mine has one eye per piece I plant. We'll see how it works out.
 
You want at least a couple of eyes per piece. A
big potato can easily have a dozen eyes and
smaller ones not so-many. I tend to do what Allen
mentioned with the big ones (quarter them).
Planting whole works fine also. Just means you'll
have an overabundance of plants in a smaller area.
We plant all our left-over potatoes in the spring
and some often have over dozen long shoots coming
out of them.
I've got a potato question. I've always been
told that good potatoes need acid soil. Not an
issue in my place in NY. But - right now I'm a few
miles away from the potato capital of Michigan -
Posen. The soil is all limeate. How the heck do
those Polish farmers grow so many potatoes there??
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I cut as I plant. At least two eyes on each piece. My dad would dip his in clean wood ashes first.
 
Dad use to plant a lot of potatoes and he liked them to be cut so they had a chance to partially dry before planting. He claimed that a fresh cut tended to rot in the ground quicker. I don't know, maybe it was just an old theory. He always planted cut side down with eyes up, and you would get a scolding if you goofed up. The only difference I could see is that they would come up evener if planted eyes up, hence easier to hoe and cultivate. Plus he like everything to look neat, and they did look better growing if evener. Just like plowing, whether along the road or in the back forty, the furrows had to be neat and straight.
 
the potato grows in alkaline soil, but so does potato scab. newer varieties tend to be scab resistant.
 
I had a aunt that was very tight with a dollar . She pealed the taters leaving some meat with the skin and let them dry up a day or 2 then planted them . She always had a good stand . We ate the taters she pealed . She said everyone that just cut them was throwing money out the window .
 

We grow spuds for years , My dad cut them and planted with eyes up. I did the same but always had a better yield with planting the whole spud .
 
I cut em up and make sure I have 2-3 eyes on each piece. Let
them sit for over night till they're dry.

I rolled freshly cut potatoes in wood ash, once, on the advice
of an old farmer. Couldn't tell any difference.
 
the reason that commercial farmers cut the seed potatoes is that seed is expensive, and size follows the law of diminishing returns. we would always try to get a 2 oz seed piece. smaller and there isn't enough stored energy for the young plant, bigger and you are wasting seed. commercially seed is cut with a machine and dusted with a fungicide, but if you're talking about a garden, just cut it and plant it. the most important thing is to start with disease-free tubers and plant into land that doesn't have a history of disease. rotation, rotation rotation!! it's also fine to let the cut surfaces heal ("suberize") for a few days before planting it, but be careful about piling freshly cut potatoes in a bucket or bag- they can heat up, so you may have to dump them out into another bag from time to time, or better yet, when you first cut them, lay them out in thin layers to stay cool until they heal.
 
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