I had a rare day yesterday that did not rain on me....in fact I had more sun than I should have had for my first full day in the sun...almost tanned from one day. Of course, it rained today.
I looked at the weather reports...diligently because we had late frosts just recently....and planted 120 varieties of potatoes. This included my sprout pulls of Azul Toro which were potted up about 10 days ago. I also put out about 24 sets of Azul Toro that were greenhouse starts from tubers in pots that were about 4-5 inches tall. The latter ones could have been part of my continuing sprout pulls but I wanted to test a dense clump effect where the cluster of stems is 15 to 20 stems. With the temps getting warmer, these established plants should commence tuberization in a week or two. I will lift these clusters as early as possible in order to replant in July for a late fall harvest. I expect to get 50 tubers or more per hill with these multi-stem cluster hills. Let's see...
50 x 24 = 1200
The reason I will get such high number is that the tuber aged at high temps since harvest and was sprouted out with many leaders...each of which is on its own root system. Each stem has emerged and will easily produce those 3 or more tiny tubers per stem,,,,maybe more. I only need the tubers to reach an average of 1/3 oz. for replanting.
I expect the day and night temps to be around 59/45 for the next few weeks....all of which will not cause rapid top growth but the benign stress will force tuber bulking at the expense of slow top growth. The plants may attempt to bloom, but the cold temps will abort the berry set. The crowding of the stems will trigger a defensive tuberize or die syndrome. The fertilizer was placed at or below the root level and with the rain today...it won't be long before the roots take note of the organic feed and minerals. The well fed leaves will have ample energy to transfer the nutrients to the small tubers very quickly. Since the tubers were put into the greenhouse over a month ago...the physiological age of the plants are already 30 to 40 days old and will need only the month of May to reach maturity. The 15 or more stems/plants in the cluster will quickly use up most of the abundance of fertilizer in three to four weeks causing the vines to reach senescence than if it was only one or three stems.
The single stem sprout pulls of the same variety will grow longer and taller and will bloom more abundantly. The tubers will reach the largest potential for the variety.
I will be starting my TPS transplants to the field in another week. I will have thousands and thousands of those to do. But in order to facilitate high blooming and berry set on those.....I will have to have irrigation available to get those to set during the dry months of July and August. I get better berry set if I don't put the seedlings out too early. Way too often even here in June the highs for the day maybe will only be 59 F. Berry set is best during day temps of upper 60's but not much over 80. Temps of over 88 are hazardous for berry set. Lows at nights are crucial for berry set.....too many nights in the upper 40's hurt berry set.
What are the ideal temps? If I had my druthers...... 75 days and 55/60 nights. Since I don't get those options, I must have extremely good berry setters in spite of the more extremes that we all get.
Tom Wagner
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