Growing potatoes from cuttings

[David Marek]

Second batch of skagit valley gold direct stick cuttings in Fafard B3 mix soilless media. They were taken about two weeks ago. Stock tray is on the right. They are under a regular T12 two bulb shop light on the shelf down near the floor. Thirty one out of 32 cuttings have taken. I put a piece of paper over the ones toward the middle and gave them occasional misting early on to minimize wilting. Soil temp ranges between 63-66F, a bit cold, but the air is dry, so that is probably best for my situation. Some of the cuttings were a bit long so I removed a set or two of leaves. Half were dipped in Rootone (0.2% napthalenacetamide + Thiram) powder, the other half in Schutlz Takeroot (0.1% indole-3-butyric acid) For potatoes the below instructions said take as much stem as possible below the node for the cutting, last time I only took ~1/4".These were great links from Emanuele and I owe my success to following instuctions this time.

Originally Posted by cortona

http://books.google.it/books?id=0sx0...series&f=false

http://books.google.it/books?id=Oc_-...series&f=false

I think it was time for a new thread.
More is mentioned in previous postings regarding growing from cuttings here:
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...t=14199&page=5

[tam91]

Very cool info - thank you for that.

[wmontanez]

David,
That looks amazing! I am not even close . I have 2-3 surviving cuttings in a pot.

On other hand... Started to try to pull sprouts per Tom's post. I placed a shriveled SVG tuber in moist soiless media. After 1 day got 6 little sprouts with roots. I pulled them by separating the eye/ little plant at its base and placed the tiny plant in soiless media. The plants are growing under lights now. The tuber started again to push a second wave of sprouts after 2 days of recovery (this time will take pics when they root and show the "pulling". Also the tuber rehydrated itself and looks healthier than when I started

[happydog]

This is really intriguing. Where can I find out more info about this or can you elaborate on how you do it? I've got 4 little tubers that I'd really like to maximize. Thanks.

[wmontanez]

Is your question regarding pulling sprouts or cuttings?

[happydog]

To tell you the truth - I'm ignorant about both! I didn't know you could take cuttings from potato plants. Or pull sprouts off.

[wmontanez]

David Marek posted a link for a online books that goes into more details about rapid multiplication (originally posted by Cortona). Basically you let the tuber to form sprouts/shallow planting and then use the emerging plants as cuttings by rooting them. See some of that info here: http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=14199&page=5

Without rooting hormone I had 50% sucess on plants surviving forming roots and all.

The pulling is completely new to me as well so I go by experimenting...

[David Marek]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

Potato eyes are complicated things....even if you de-sprout them....there are secondary side buds...and more that will shoot sprouts if the existing sprout is pulled off. Therefor if sprouted potato tubers are planted in a pot...you can pull emerging shoots of for at least two or more times...by that time the mother tuber is just about spent.

You can get more 'pulls' if you don't tear the eye apart away from the flesh when the sprout is pulled...sometimes carefully cutting or breaking the sprouted plant above the eye will allow the tuber to keep shooting out more sprouts.

The physiological age of the tuber is a factor...a fresh tuber will sprout from the apical eye first and the more dormant eyes will 'wake' up thereafter. I have done about five times 'pulls' that way..several days or a week or so apart.

Tom

My emphasis. I am simply using a method I am familiar with. I just didn't want to mess them up. Many, many plants that produce soft growth can be cloned easily. My cuttings pretty much look like Wendy's tomato cuttings, except now I am sticking them in a moist peat/bark based mix instead of water.

Below is my pictoral of a potato stock plant (stems only). I leave at least one or two nodes on the mother plant so they can branch and make more. These cuttings will probably act more like a plant grown from true seed (TPS) in their yield, rather than a tuber, as they will have been removed from their stored energy source. Once well rooted, I will plant them in the ground. I have made 70 plants from 8 tubers so far, so this year's potatoes might be small but there will be a lot of them. The stock plants are putting out stolons, I suppose I can still plant them, too. They seem happy.

The horizontal line is where the cut was made. Most of the cuttings had about 2-2.5" of actual stem.
First cutting, assuming two eyes have put out shoots.
, ,
l l
| |
- -
\ /
o
Second cutting
, , . , ,
l l . l l
| | . | |
- -. - -
\/ .. \/
...\ /
...o
Third cutting. Note some stems only put out one shoot.
, ,. , , ., ,
l l. l l. l l
| |. | |. | |
- - - -. - -
.\/. | | .\/
...\/ . \/
.....\ /
.....o

Originally Posted by wmontanez

Also the tuber rehydrated itself and looks healthier than when I started

As did mine, but I almost cooked them The mother tubers are still plump and healthy. If I did not mention yet, they are growing in a 2" deep tray. I water them with 1/2 tsp per gallon liquid plant food. The tubers that were dead got moldy right away so I scooped them out before they could cause any trouble.