SELECTING SEED POTATOES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 23 October 1912, Page 2

SELECTING SEED POTATOES.

Mr J. Drysdale, of Weraroa State Farm, considers that is most extraordinary tnat in these days, when so much importance is being attached to tho peuigree of 6eeds and animals for breeding purposes, so little attention should be paid to the selection of seed for such, an important crop as the potato —in fact that the accepted principles of breeding should, in the case of potatoes, be, absolutely reversed. Instead of the seed being selected according to type and vigor, and only from the best plants in the crop, it is a common practice to take the seed in an indiscriminate manner from the harvested tubers, and then use only the omaller specimens for the important worK of continuing the species. £n other words, in place of the most typical and most vigorous tubers being chosen for seed purposes, it is actually the worst that are taken. This is no wild assertion; so general, indeed, is the practice that merhants in supply- j ing seed, send out potatoes which have been quite discarded for ordinary market purposes—more of a type generally regarded as "pig potatoes" than as I being suitable for seed. In selecting I potatoes for seed purposes it is not to be supposed that size is everything. The large gross specimen is just as un- ! desirable as a small weedy tuber. The, plants in the field should be studied,! and roots of the most thriving and j vigorous ones examined for the desired seed. In choosing the seed potato, the first thing to see to is that the tuber is of the correct type of the particular variety. Having this, the medium size should ba preferred, providing— and this is a most important point— the eyes are well denned, and suggestive of strong development. A large number of eyes is not always desirable, just as merely one or two eyes are a weakness. A tuber with a medium mimber of eyes is the best type to choose. The selected potatoes should be carefully stored in a cool place, and preferably greened off before planting. "I am convinced," continues Mr Drysdale, "that if the sound rule were consistently observed—to select only the strongest and best types of potatoes as sets for the subsequent crop, less would be heard of blight and failure. Constitution in potatoes, as in everything else the f •mer produces, is of paramount in...;or ; ice. No farmer who expects to mn;.o a success of gram-growing wo..v: think for a moment of selecting \;[.< "seconds" for peed purposes, ci:;;;<•:• in wheat, oats, or barley; and, just rs the culls of a Hock or herd aro i\:e last chosen for perpetuating the spec;-s, so the undersized tuber, selected at random, and with no indicalion ( f constitutional vigor, should never ! 3 planted if a profitable and healthy crop is to be expected. At Weran'-, where the selection of seed potatoes has been carefully observed on t'\o rules laid down above, the resultant crops have been singularly free froiu blight. Experiments are now in progress to determine whether, after using from season to season generations of the one type of selected seed, it is not possible* to be quite independent of sprayina for fright. During the past season the Wereroa selected seed has proved immune; but before making a definite pronouncement on the subject it must be further investigated "