Cultivation of potatoes

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33934, 29 August 1975, Page 4

Cultivation of potatoes

The wisdom of growing potatoes in the home garden is perhaps arguable, and certainly one should think quite

|hard about it where there is I only limited ground. They (take up a considerable amount of room for very much longer than almost all other groups and usually the average returns are not good. However, where there is room and especially where there is a determination to grow them well, potatoes are a worth-while inclusion in the vegetable garden. It has already been mentioned that the average yields from home grown potatoes are not high. There are a number of reasons for this but probably it can all be traced back to one overriding influence — the almost traditional feeling that anything does and anything goes for “seed.” The downward path to lower yields is probably commenced by the selection of inferior seed for admittedly any tuber or piece of one will produce a plant providing that it has an eye. It is the likely step to starting with disease for the simple reason that potatoes are very susceptible to a variety of diseases, many of which being tuber borne viruses are not discernable in some cases even to the trained eye. To make a good start therefore it pays to purchase government certified seed. Potatoes. which are sold under this label are guaranteed not only free from disease but also true to type. Crops entered for certification are not only carefully inspected in the field but may be double-checked by growing a representative sample elsewhere in a central trial. As a result, of these inspections crops may be given a rating from that of the highest rating — group 1,2 and 3 — mother seed, and on to groups 4, 5 and 6 which are designated commercial certified seed. 'Such seed has also to conform to standards of size so that in any one hundred tubers taken at random there must not be more than a certain permitted difference in! weight between the weight; of the 16 largest and the 16 ! smallest.

The rigid growing conditions imposed for potato seed certification purposes naturally increases the comparative cost of such potatoes but it is well worthwhile if the initial rigorous cultural attention given to them is well maintained.