[bailey]

i,m not qualified ect but why if so many people are buying certified seed pots,, inclusive of farmers whom i understand have to obtain certified spuds are we over the last few years been blasted by blight and other diseases?

i live in a very small village with loads of pensioners ect once you get talking to them and asking their advise ect it seems to be that all the warnings cautions ect are just to encourage folk to either buy certified items from the garden centre seed merchants ect or just cut out the garden side and buy the finished product from the supermarket!!

i have in my own garden planted spuds that have gone to seed either originally bought from the supermarket or my own from previous harvests,, i have kept these away from where i grow my veg just in case but apart from times not having many spuds from the harvest of these spuds they have been disease free, and have been as tasty ect as those grown from seed spuds,,,,  most of the locals i now understand do this every year with majority of their veg and have never had any problems?

is it a scaremonger scam?

[maxie]

You could well be right and i bet we are paying a sight more than the farmers will be per 3 kg bag!
But i never grow maincrop taties as its not worth the hassle so my 4 x 3kg bags of seed taties does me and my family of five for taties to end of september or so.
Not a bad buy at £12 and no hassle of saving seed for next year.
But saying that a lot of the old timers who have gardened for donkeys years usually talk a lot of sense,i had an old fella next to me for a few years and he had the best allotment by far and his produce was second to none.

[Yorkie]

Blight is a fungal disease, carried on the wind and in the soil.

Seed potatoes are certified against viruses, which can decimate a crop and perhaps introduce new diseases into the country.  It is not just your own crop you risk by planting imported, supermarket, or re-used tubers.

Two different threats.

[DD.]

You may get away with for years - but it only takes the once.

I'll happily pay a quid for a kilo of seed spuds & know where they & the final product have come from.

[bailey]

ok blight is fungal but what about other desease?  at the end of the day the peelings and waste ect finds its way back into the soil wether we compost it, council composts it or it goes to landfill,, i feed me chickens on em,,   supermarket spuds should be bought from farmers that have used certified spuds so why not reuse the seed? same as ones you have bought from seed from a merchant that are certified.
after another conversation tonight it seems that farms are keeping there own seed just under certain conditions.

[DD.]

supermarket spuds should be bought from farmers that have used certified spuds so why not reuse the seed?

Because they could have picked up these diseases during growing.

Certified seed are grown under certain climatic conditions with inhibit the spread of disease.

You Google "Certified Potato Seed" and see how many hits you get saying to only use them. There's a good reason for that.

[nicchick]

Hi, my lotty mate has had to "borrow" a plot from a neighbour because he used his own seed potatoes and now can't grow them on his plot. I think this really is a false economy. Nic.

[DD.]

Thank you Nic. Case in point.

It seems from some of the cynical posts that people are under the impression that this is a modern marketing ploy. This is not the case.

We have a certified potato seed supplier who is a registered member of this site and I'm sure he could put the case far better than me, and not just from a commercial point of view.

The UK is not the only country to produce certified seed, this is the French way, (the first one I found, sorry).

http://www.plantdepommedeterre.org/eng/interet.htm

As you can see they are practically neurotic about it. They would not go to these lengths without good reason.

 

[Greengirl]

I think eelworms are the main problem that could be introduced. You could be lucky & get away with it, but on the other hand.......