Potato cuttings 'may' be possible...?

[quark1]

Whilst having an 'impatient' furtle in my spud tubs I came across a piece of plant which had sheared right off and fallen to the surface of the compost - despite staking early on.

I went to pull it out to find that this small 6-8" piece of greenery had attempted to root itself and indeed had produce 2 weeny, pea-sized tubers.

It occurs to me that when we lose top growth due to high winds etc it may be worth plunging a few bits back into the earth and you may get a few bonus spuds - provided its not too late in the season.

Anyone else had experience of this and/or care to share results if any?

[terrier]

As potatoes and tomatoes are from the same family and you can propagate tomato plants from cuttings, then surely you can do the same from potato plants?

[chriscross1966]

They have different growing strategies in their native environment, potatos form tubers so as to survive the winter dormant, toms are an evergreen perennial that doesn't really ever see a winter.....That said I'm not surprised you can get cuttings to root, but it would be a couple of years to get much out of them if you grow a potato from seed then it takes three years to get a proper crop normally.... and the problem is that by then theymight well have got viruses, blighted etc etc....