this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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Neighbor tried to plant potatoes. She got about six pounds worth of top and no tuber.
We spent weeks debugging and still don't know what went wrong.
Potatoes you have to keep mounding up with dirt to force the plant to grow more roots (tubers) instead of the leafy tops.
TIL. Thanks.
Potato tubers are not actually roots. They are modified stems. So the surest way to force more potatoes is to “hill” them. In the commercial fields this is done with a huge tractor raking soil from in between planting rows and piling it up on the plants. You essentially bury the plants stem as it grows taller. Then the buds on the stem will push out stolons (horizontal underground stems.) these will terminate in tubers, aka: potatoes!
Source: did potato disease research for my PhD.
Additional edit: loose/sandy soil is critical. Too dense of soil and your tubers can’t expand well.
Alert: agronomist infiltrated the chat
Hacker voice: “I’m in 😎”
Does this apply to any other root vegetables? Beets?
Warning: I am not a beet expert. But I believe beets are actual roots. Just like carrots. And I think you only get one beer per plant? Burying the stem would just make it harder for new leaves to come up.
Potatoes are pretty unique in this sense. Even sweet potatoes are not the same.
Don't plant them too close to each other. It doesn't work.