Do you have to grow potatoes from seed potates?

[GenevieveHawkings]

...or can you just plant potatoes from a bag you've bought in the supermarket that have started sprouting?

If not, why not? Are there hard and fast rules about this?

My husband reckons that it's perfectly OK to plant ones that have started sprouting, and has done so, but I'm not so sure. The potatoes that have grown as a result look fine but will they be OK to eat?

People could be laughing at such a stupid question but it makes me wonder. If it's OK to plant sprouted potatoes then what's the point of seed potatoes in the first place?

Sorry in advance if this is a really dense question!

watching this thread as dd1 is asking how to do it. . .

We've done it before and from just potato peelings.
I don't know if it's that you get a better yeild from the seed potatoes you buy. But supermarket ones are fine - so long as they've chitted.

Yes. I am growing some Maris Piper from the supermarket.

I put the small ones out of the bag on a sunny window ledge in an egg box in early May with their eyes pointing upwards. After they were well sprutted (about 3 - 4 weeks) I carefully planted them and have been rowing them up. They have flowers on now and quite tall. Planning to harvest late September onwards.

bookmarking.

The reason you're supposed to use seed potatoes is that they're certified free from disease.

So by growing supermarket ones you will probably be successful and get a fine crop - but you may lose the crop to disease or even be contributing to the spread of disease to other people's crops.

For example potato blight has become rife in this country again.

fp I never knew that. Mine all seem to be healthy so far, but next time I will get seed potatoes.

See my profile pics for my potatoes (so far). They were some left over supermarket ones I chucked in the ground. I'm going to leave them until the Autumn and hope I get a decent crop.

fortyplus - the spread of blight might also be to do with people growing potatoes in the same ground several years in a row or even just chucking tomato compost on their veg patch at the end of the season as home grown veg has become a lot more popular in recent years.

Yes that's true too. Tomatoes and potatoes are distant cousins so suffer from some of the same diseases.

Blight is a funtgal disease so the spores can carry on the wind apparently.

oops - fungal

Hmm - we planted chitted Vivaldi pots from sainsburys and they're not allowed to be grown on really. Think the disease thing is the real reason.

Although we planted ours in tubs, they are beautiful - obviously not as high a yield but still beautiful buttery pots. I'm very proud of myself - even though at one point the other week, I thought they had blight!

Update....

We had some mashed for tea tonight and they were fine - not a mark on them anywhere. We grew ours (Maris Piper) in fertilizer bags filled with compost.

I've since read on the itnernet that seed potates are gown especially to grow potatoes from and can't be eaten themselves. They give a greater yield and that's why farmers use them to grow potatoes as crops from.

Sprouted shop-bought potatoes are fine to plant but obviously the disease issue is there with them and you won't get a huge crop - but that's fine because we don't want to be absolutely inundated with them anyway!