Super Long Sprouts on seed Potatoes ... Ok to plant?

[Peek-A-Boo]

Hiya,

I picked up some seed potatoes today from homebase (reduced!) and have opoened them to find sprouts around 8 inches long! Can I still plant them as they are or should I cut them down to say 2 inches or so? the sprouts themselves look fairly healthy, and they don't smell at all.

Any Thoughts?

Thanks,
Peek

[teakdesk]

Yuo've got two choices... and I've tried both and both worked just fine !!

1/ carefully plant as is - if a stalk gets knocked off don't worry

or

2/ rub the stalks off and plant


I wouldn't cut the stalks - disease !!

[tattieman]

Well don't tell anyone but I was at homebase today and I picked up a few unusual spuds for 74p a packet. They have big shoots but I will carefully put them into polypots and they will grow fine.

[Sheepish]

I got some Arran Pilots cheap a few weeks ago, with similar length chits on them. I rubbed them off, gave a little time to rechit (I wanted to wait before planting anyway so they were ready to harvest later than the earlies I had already planted) and planted them in sacks on 9th May. The first shoot appeared yesterday.