Saving true potato seed

[Triple_sod]

Having finally discovered that them ‘weird tomato things’ that grow on the potatoes were actually where the seed was produced I decided to have a go at saving some.

Anyway i cut one of the ‘potato berries’ open today and saw that they’re a lot like a tomato inside as well.

So I makes me wonder how you get the seeds ready to store, ie do you need to put them in a jar with water like the tomatoes?

Anyone had any experience with them?

[preppingsu]

I may be wrong but.....

One word of caution, some potato flowers may well turn to berries which are definitely poisonous. Eaten in sufficient amounts the berries can be fatal. You may wish to remove them if children are likely to see them

I am of the understanding that you have seed potatoes. These are basically potatoes that have started to sprout (like the ones at the bottom of the bag that you forgot to use!!).

Potatoes are grown from 'seed' potatoes which grow better if they are allowed to 'sprout' before planting. First purchase the seed potatoes in late January. These are available from seed catalogues or your local garden centre. Look for seed potato which is certified as free from disease and select healthy looking examples about the size of an egg.

taken from http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg ... potato.asp

If anybody had any other thoughts on this please add them as I could be wrong ......

[silverrider]

Having finally discovered that them ‘weird tomato things’ that grow on the potatoes were actually where the seed was produced I decided to have a go at saving some.

Anyway i cut one of the ‘potato berries’ open today and saw that they’re a lot like a tomato inside as well.

So I makes me wonder how you get the seeds ready to store, ie do you need to put them in a jar with water like the tomatoes?

Anyone had any experience with them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxQGERMNgY
Fast forward to 3.40 if you're not into the metals. If you have what I have then you treat them like tomato seeds

[Triple_sod]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxQGERMNgY
Fast forward to 3.40 if you're not into the metals. If you have what I have then you treat them like tomato seeds

Thanks silverrider, I tried squeezing some out onto a piece of kitchen roll and drying them like that in the greenhouse but they’re a bugger to get off.

[preppingsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxQGERMNgY
Fast forward to 3.40 if you're not into the metals. If you have what I have then you treat them like tomato seeds

Thanks silverrider, I tried squeezing some out onto a piece of kitchen roll and drying them like that in the greenhouse but they’re a bugger to get off.

That video is for storing tomato seeds not the seeds out of the tomato like things that grow on potato plants that have flowered.

From my previous post

One word of caution, some potato flowers may well turn to berries which are definitely poisonous. Eaten in sufficient amounts the berries can be fatal. You may wish to remove them if children are likely to see them

[preppingsu]

And just to stress the point......

The "berries" you describe are the fruits of the potato plant, they are highly toxic if eaten, and they do no good at all, the forming of the fruits takes the plants energy away from the tuber formation. The flowers can be taken off the plant as soon as they are seen. They are a pointless part of the plant that does no good at all, what you can do is remove the fruits and any subsequent flowers before they form fruits and you should get better quality tubers because of it.

And again.....
http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewto ... pid=289407

And

Occasionally gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties.

The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed

[silverrider]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxQGERMNgY
Fast forward to 3.40 if you're not into the metals. If you have what I have then you treat them like tomato seeds

Thanks silverrider, I tried squeezing some out onto a piece of kitchen roll and drying them like that in the greenhouse but they’re a bugger to get off.

That video is for storing tomato seeds not the seeds out of the tomato like things that grow on potato plants that have flowered.

From my previous post

One word of caution, some potato flowers may well turn to berries which are definitely poisonous. Eaten in sufficient amounts the berries can be fatal. You may wish to remove them if children are likely to see them

Also from your previous post

I may be wrong but.....
and
If anybody had any other thoughts on this please add them as I could be wrong ......

And so could I.....
but try this great vid here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTxVM08Q0BM

I still think we have the same thing.

[silverrider]

And just to stress the point......

The "berries" you describe are the fruits of the potato plant, they are highly toxic if eaten, and they do no good at all, the forming of the fruits takes the plants energy away from the tuber formation. The flowers can be taken off the plant as soon as they are seen. They are a pointless part of the plant that does no good at all, what you can do is remove the fruits and any subsequent flowers before they form fruits and you should get better quality tubers because of it.

And again.....
http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewto ... pid=289407

And

Occasionally gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties.

The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed

Or perhaps i've wasted my time

[Triple_sod]

And just to stress the point......

The "berries" you describe are the fruits of the potato plant, they are highly toxic if eaten, and they do no good at all, the forming of the fruits takes the plants energy away from the tuber formation. The flowers can be taken off the plant as soon as they are seen. They are a pointless part of the plant that does no good at all, what you can do is remove the fruits and any subsequent flowers before they form fruits and you should get better quality tubers because of it.

And again.....
http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewto ... pid=289407

And

Occasionally gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties.

The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed

Who said anything about eating them...

Sure the easiest and most common way of growing spuds is from seed potatoes, but I wouldn’t say true potato seeds are of no value.

The main reason I started looking into it is that I read in John Seymour’s book;

For practical purposes, and unless we are trying to produce
a new variety of spud and therefore wish to propagate from
true seed, potatoes are always grown from potatoes. In
other words we simply plant the potatoes themselves.
This is known as vegetative reproduction, and all the
potatoes in the world from one variety are actually the
same plant. They aren't just related to each other: they are
each other.

We can keep our own "seed" therefore, from one year to
the next, but there is a catch here. The potato is a plant
from the High Andes, and grown at sea level in normal
climates it is heir to various insect-borne virus diseases.
After we have planted our potato "seed" (tubers) year after
year for several "generations" there will be a build-up of
virus infections and our potatoes will lose in vitality.

In any case, many
more of us ought to save the smallest of our tubers for "oncegrown
seed" or even "twice-grown seed". After we have
carried on our own stock for three years, however, it will
probably pay to import fresh seed from seed-growing areas
rather than risk the spread of disease.

Of course at the minute that’s not an issue, you can just go out and buy fresh seed potatoes, but thinking about it from a prepping point of view that might not always be so. At which point your buggered as what you have slowly becomes less and less viable....

I also wouldn’t mind having a go at cross breeding different verities’...seems like a fun little project.

Quite a bit of info online;

http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2 ... nated.html
http://www.growseed.org/potato-breeding.html
http://www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

[bulldogeagle]

we do not bother buying expensive seed potatoes, we use shop bought spuds that have started to sprout, we chit them and plant these in tyres, never had any problems with them, we have just unearthed our spuds and have enough to last us most if not all the winter.