Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: LittleRedHen on March 22, 2014, 15:55
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Hi Everyone! I just took my boxes of chitted potatoes out - ready for planting - and to my shock they have chitted to foot long shoots! What would you advise me to do with them? They are going into the plot tomorrow.
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just rub them off they will be fine
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I agree with Mick.
Out of interest, where were you storing them?
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Are the shoots white?
If so, sounds like they've been chitted in the dark, or at least with insufficient light to keep them short and purple/green.
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Jay, yes, the shoots are white.
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Best to err on the side of too much rather than too little light, although as the others have said they'll still grow, they just won't have the head start they would have had if planted with healthy chits.
Given that it's very cold at the moment you may be better off delaying planting for a week or so, although your spuds won't produce much in the way of chits in that time even in good light.
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Some people take the chits off and plant those instead of the potato.
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Some people take the chits off and plant those instead of the potato.
Could you expand on that one please? Can't imagine it applies to long white chits snapped off at the base.
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Hi Yorkie! I have them in an unheated cupboard. I was just so surprised to see them grow like that!
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I don't know if it changes as they get longer, but if you look carefully at a chit you can see embryonic roots growing out sideways at the base. The potato doesn't grow roots out the bottom and leaves out the top, each chit is like a little mini-plant ready to go, if you snap them off really carefully. My American friend was just describing how he grows his and said "... then I throw the eyes in the hole..."
Now if you snap the chits off and throw them away, the potato has to start all over again activating some new growing points, and it's not got much food left in store because it's all gone into the very long ones. You'd have to be very careful planting the long chits as they will need to go into a narrow deep hole and the top of the shoot not be too far from the surface. Might be worth a try though.
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Hi Yorkie! I have them in an unheated cupboard. I was just so surprised to see them grow like that!
The long white shoots are because it was dark in there; the potato has broken its dormancy and therefore the shoots are seeking the light.
It's always advised to chit spuds in cool light conditions - but I'm sure no lasting harm has been done.
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http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=180
This person describes planting sprouts, if you ignore the fact that they are doing it from shop bought potatoes, very bad, etc... sounds more like placing cuttings and having the tips actually above soil so that's tricky in the open ground right now.
I've only done it indoors.
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I've had such mishaps a couple of years, left them too long in the garage. :D
I just planted them, as was, trying to cover 'the shoots'. Not necessarily, that I managed with all. A very good crop, no notable difference. ;)
Anyhow, pots work like that: the part in light starts to photosynthetise and somewhat the other way around, so once buried, they shall lose colour anyway, I gather.