applestar wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 6:39 pm
Gary350 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:10 pm
...a potato cutting and it still might land upside down.
Hi @Gary350 — I don’t know if you ever reached a conclusion about this thought, but I’ve been coming across mentions that cut seed potatoes that are planted upside down tend to spread out more as the new shoots grow, and also tend to end up growing MORE but smaller size tubers when compared to seed potatoes that are planted right-side up. So as you harvest, you will see larger sized tubers but less of them vs. more numerous smaller sized tubers from each clump that grew from the seed potato.
Some people INTENTIONALLY plant them upside down, preferring to harvest more, smaller sized ones.
I have watched 100s of videos and read a lot of information about potatoes, lots of people claim lots of things but I have learned each variety of potato grows different and each will grow better or worse according to soil & geographical location & weather. I have seen many YouTube videos where most people claim potatoes must be planted with the sprout eye up but there are also several videos that claim it makes no difference it the eye is on the bottom or on the side. I have planted potato cutting all 3 ways, eye up, eye down, eye to the side, when I dug up new potatoes there was no noticeable difference. Some people claim cuttings grow better than a whole potatoes. Some people claim cutting must be a certain size no larger than 1" square. I have thrown grocery store potatoes peelings in the garden like trash and have them grow better than seed potato cuttings & whole potatoes. Plant 10 identical potato cutting 9 will grow new potatoes & 1 grows nothing but a plant with no new potatoes. I have compared seed potatoes to grocery store organic potatoes and have organic potatoes do best. Grocery store potatoes that are treated with chemical will grow but they are slow starters often a month slower than seed potatoes but they produce a crop no different than seed potatoes. There are some interesting tricks for growing potatoes if you over crowd 15 potatoes eyes in a very small spot they compete for moisture & fertilizer then you harvest a whole basket of marble size potatoes. All seed potatoes are not the same and among each group there are differences in seed potatoes. Some seed potatoes have a cluster of eyes on 1 end of the potatoes with no eyes anywhere else. Some seed potatoes have several eyes on 1/3 of the potato. Some seed potatoes have eyes on 3/4 of the potato but only a few eyes near 1 end actually will grow. Some seed potatoes have eyes on the whole potato where eyes on the top 1/2 are the only eyes that grow. It is very hard to find a seed potato with more 5 to 7 eyes most potatoes only have 2 to 4 eyes. I think commercial growers keep the best potatoes. Commercial growers plant 20 acres of potatoes every day for 4 months they don't have time to make cuttings they throw 1000s of whole potatoes all over the field then a machine covers them up. Home gardeners have time to carefully make cuttings & plant each 1 the way they want. Another interesting thing about potatoes, a cutting with 1 eye will grow 1 lb of new potatoes. A cutting with 2 eyes will grow 1 lb crop of potatoes too that are smaller size potatoes. A cutting with 3 eyes will grow 1 lb of much smaller potatoes. If you want large baking potatoes make cuttings with 1 eye. If you want smaller potatoes plant cuttings with 2 eyes. If you want smaller potatoes plant 3 eyes. Commercial growers say the trick to a large crop of large potatoes is ,irrigation, lots of fertilizer & cool weather. I planted some potatoes under a shade tree this year so they get cool morning sun then shade 12 noon to dark hottest part of the day. Potatoes don't like hot weather, TN is to hot. Maybe people that plant cutting with the eyes down are planting them too close together & getting lots of small potatoes, then they think upside down is making small potatoes but over crowding is probably the real reason for small potatoes.
Picture shows what is typical for TN each cutting makes 1 lb of potatoes. It make no difference if each cutting has, 1 eye, 2 eyes, 3 eyes, 4 eyes, total crop from each cutting is 1 lb of potatoes. 1 eye cutting will make 1 big potato. 2 eye cutting make 2 smaller potatoes.