Pinch off flowers for larger potatoes?

OmahaJB · July 4, 2008

Yesterday afternoon I was actually searching on google for info on potato berries/seeds, and came across a site that mentioned removing flowers to get larger potatoes. After reading through some of the threads on here it seems berries aren't exactly plentiful for the average backyard gardener to get on their plants, so are the flowers and occassional berry really using that much energy resulting in smaller potatoes? And if so, how much smaller? 10% or more smaller?

The reason I ask is some of the flowers on my potato plants were blooming last weekend, and I'm sure there are alot more open now - will see for myself Saturday. Trying to decide if I want to pinch those flowers off, although I'd like to try to get a few berries for seed if it's not going to hurt potato size by much.

Thanks, Jeff

July 4, 2008	#1
OmahaJB Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Toledo, OH Posts: 1,821	Pinch off flowers for larger potatoes? Yesterday afternoon I was actually searching on google for info on potato berries/seeds, and came across a site that mentioned removing flowers to get larger potatoes. After reading through some of the threads on here it seems berries aren't exactly plentiful for the average backyard gardener to get on their plants, so are the flowers and occassional berry really using that much energy resulting in smaller potatoes? And if so, how much smaller? 10% or more smaller? The reason I ask is some of the flowers on my potato plants were blooming last weekend, and I'm sure there are alot more open now - will see for myself Saturday. Trying to decide if I want to pinch those flowers off, although I'd like to try to get a few berries for seed if it's not going to hurt potato size by much. Thanks, Jeff