Mystery Potatoes

[Penellype]

In March I planted a packet of 10 Maris Bard seed potatoes in 30 litre buckets, 2 buckets at the allotment and 2 at my friend's. The label clearly shows a white potato.

I was somewhat confused to see the foliage looking rather reddish, particularly the stems. They are all the same and there is no possibility that I have confused them with anything else.

Today I harvested a bucket at the allotment, and this is what I got:





I don't know what these are, but they are definitely not what it shows on the packet.

Does anyone have any idea?

[Small pumpkin]

My first thought was this
Varieties
But I'm no spud expert

Looks like an excellent harvest, what ever it is.

[keat63]

Highland Burgundy by any chance ?

Highland Burgundy Red – Potato House UK

[Squingy]

This is kind of intriguing. So the seed potatoes you planted with your own hands were definitely like the ones on the pack, whitish brown, yet the offspring are like Highland Burgundy reds?

How exciting. Somewhere along, these potatoes ancestors must have came from an actual seed from a potato flower that had cross pollinated with a red potato. Did an errant seed fall, make a plant and escape detection all cuckoo like? You could report it to the manufacturer, I'd really love to hear what they have to say.

Or maybe on April Fools someone dug them up and replaced with red?

Sheesh I wish things like this happened to me. Either way, it's a fine crop Penellype, congrats.

[Penellype]

Thanks all, Highland Burgundy Red looks just right.

The seed potatoes were largish and covered in brown soil, as seed potatoes often are. I expected them to be Maris Bard so I didn't look closely but I'm surprised I didn't notice as they are the same colour as my Boltardy beetroot! The seed potatoes must have been red, because there is no breeding involved at this stage - the potatoes formed by the plant must be the same as the parent.

The fact that it is a maincrop explains why there were huge numbers of pea sized potatoes. The total weight of the harvest including the pea sized ones was about 1kg from probably 2 seed potatoes (one bucket at the allotment had 2 the other 3). I will leave the other buckets to grow bigger.

The potatoes don't behave like waxy first earlies when cooked. I tried to boil them and they disintegrated after just 10 minutes. I now have pink mashed potato. They are somewhat floury - one of the links above says they make good chips and I can imagine they will.