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Old December 18, 2013   #27
wmontanez
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: MA
Posts: 776
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Aletheia, same here, those long stolons plants love my wide wood boxes.

The height of my wood boxes are only 25cm (12in) but long so each plant has the chance to sprawl. I added 5-10cm (2-4in) of wood chip mulch (fall leaves also work but decay fast, pine needles was great for preventing weeds!). I did get ~0.5lb (227g.) increase per plant than the control (w/o mulch). Your pictures of the soil seem not dry so you might not need this but I will for sure continue to do mulching after the second hilling since I "dry farm" only using rain as irrigation (not supplemental, whatever rains...I collect just 55gal (about 200L) of rain water for extreme cases) it did prevent moisture evaporation and prevent those green tubers on the surface....plus overall pretty effect on my potato patch that looked like a flower garden all manicured.

The yields you report are impressive for "Blaue Elise", if you do the potato tower would be great information. Some people like Curzio might like to get that variety for his Potato Project. http://www.curzio.com/N/PotatoProject.htm

I hope to learn from you and hopefully there is something you could learn from me as well. I evaluated 70 potatoes the year before and last year reduced it 35 varieties and only 1% of them has this trait of sending long stolons and/or potential vertical tuber set.

This is a sample of my evaluation of 2012 (attached) this year results I am still compiling....

Most of my 2014 efforts will be dedicated to TPS growing again, I did a big growout in 2011 with 100's of plants and even thou only created 6 good keepers it was so much fun!
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