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Apr 25, 2011

Nipping smaller buds of my potatoes

 Today I nipped smaller buds of my potatoes, which is similar to thinning out smaller sprouts of brassicas. As you know a seed potato has 5 or more buds and they will grow soon with sucking up water and nutrition of the seed potato. The more buds on a seed potato means less nutrition to other potatoes to be harvested in the future. That's why we should nip younger and smaller buds.

You can see 5 or 6 buds on a seed potato before nipping.


 When we nip them out, we have to be careful for not pulling them out too strongly or a seed potato would be popped out of the soil.





A nipped bud

The appearance before nipping-out.

After nipping-out, 2 or 3 buds are left in a seed potato.

Bunch of nipped buds.

-- from iPad

9 comments:

Mark Willis said...

Takaeko, I have never heard of this technique before. I had always assumed that lots of foliage was good for potatoes, in that it acts as the "power-house" for what is below the ground level - more leaves = more tubers - but maybe I am wrong.

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

This is the first time I heard about nipping potatoes. Intersting.

Ali said...

I didn't know about this either! I am going to go take a look at my potatoes and see if they need a nipping. I might have to go do some reading :)

Hazel said...

I have never heard of this either, Takaeko. I will be interested to hear what people have to say...with Mark and Ali on the job, I don't have to do the research myself.

The Sage Butterfly said...

Interesting...we don't grow potatoes, but my mother does. I'll have to ask her if she nips the buds.

p3chandan said...

Great info on potatoes Takaeko..though cant say I have potatoes in my garden! The first potatoes I planted were not successful..only last a week, then they died off. Maybe our hot climate...

Bom said...

I never knew about the decreasing nutrition in subsequent potatoes or of nipping buds. This is good information although I have to confess that I have not attempted planting potatoes yet.

takaeko said...

>Everyone
It's very interesting to know the technique is not familiar among you. The technique is so popular in Japan that I assumed it would be also done by all gardeners in the world.
The technique can make potatoes bigger according many gardening experts in Japan. An expert in Japan shows how he nips buds in a footage in YouTube ( only in Japanese ).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTwTo8n7MLI

fer said...

Your vegetables look great! is nice seeing them all growing like that. I am a bit late to the season, just have some seedlings waiting to sprout