SLC
Senior Member
Posts: 232
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 9:18 pm
Location: Central Connecticut

Do you get MORE potatoes from a seed potato with more eyes?

Does it matter how many eyes a seed potato has? I know you can cut one seed potato into several pieces so each piece has at least one eye. But my question is:

Does the more eyes one seed potato (cut or uncut) have produce more potatoes?

For instance, would a potato plant that started with the seed potato having several eyes produce more actual potatoes in the end than a plant started with just one eye?

Does that make sense? I hope I am explaining myself correctly.

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jal_ut
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7447
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

Each eye may develop into one plant. If you want very nice large potatoes, yes it is best to only have one eye per piece. More than one plant in one hole will net you more potatoes, but not necessarily more weight as they are not as likely to be as large.

I like to cut them with two eyes per piece. However, that is pretty tough to do as they are not spread evenly over the whole potato and usually there is a group of 5 or so at the one end that are very close together. What happens is I have from one to five with two being the more common number.

Sometimes If I have a walnut sized tater, I will just toss the whole thing in the hole.

Don't worry about it.

Image

Please note two vines and four nice potatoes.

Image

Please note many vines/many small taters.



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