Potatoes which way up!!

[FRUITFULLS SIS]

  Please Please don't laugh today is the first day in my life I have planted a potatoe I have just gone out to my garden looked at the soil then at the potato and don't know what way up to plant it sprouts up or down!! HELP

[Rangerkris]

Ermmm i panted mine with sprouts up hope i was right my first was on Sunday hahahah

[mumofstig]

Sprouts up is correct

[FRUITFULLS SIS]

Sprouts up is correct

Thankyou Got my answer on my way out to the garden again

[too many girls]

so glad you posted that question, i was too embarrassed to ask

[mumofstig]

Watch video
http://www.gardeners-world.net/videotest.asp?videoID=59

These sorts of questions are often answered here on the forum home page

Grow Your Own
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Hope it helps

[mrs bouquet]

Will try to plant mine this weekend, but the chitting is sooooo slow, some of them are only about 1/2 cm.  Will that be OK  ?   Mrs Bouquet

[mumofstig]

You can even plant them without any chits, but as it's turned colder again - it might be worth leaving them to chit in the warm for another week or so 

[FRUITFULLS SIS]

so glad you posted that question, i was too embarrassed to ask

I must admit I did feel a bit of a twit but I was desperate
Good Luck with yours

[Aunt Sally]

Potato chitts are leaf shoots rather than root shoots so YES they go UP 

[Moosey]

I asked the same question a while ago!  I felt stoopid too 

If you dont know though, you don't know, even if to some its obvious!!! 

[HLS]

I didn't know but had guessed that they were leaf shoots - because if you forget a potato at the back of the cupboard you end up with masses of shoots growing upwards rather than downwards.  I'm puzzled, though, because (as far as I remember - I could be completely wrong) don't seeds generally produce a root first, before the shoot that will eventually grow leaves?

Anyone know whether I'm right, and if so, why potatoes are different?

[Aunt Sally]

because seed potatoes are not "seeds"

They are root tubers which are dug up from last years plants and planted to grow again.

[HLS]

I know they're not the same thing, but as potato plants still need roots for moisture and nutrients and leaves for photosynthesis, I'm curious about why they develop in the opposite order.  Is it because tubers contain more moisture than seeds and therefore don't need to start drinking as soon?  Or because they're naturally going to be further under the earth than most seeds it will take longer to produce leaves than roots?

Or am I just getting curious about something unimportant?  Wouldn't be the first time, certainly - I always want to know why things happen.  I must have driven my parents mad when I was two!

[Aunt Sally]

I think you must be right about the water content of the potato giving it time to get it's leaves into the light to start photosynthesizing before it needs to bother with roots to take up water.

When a seed germinates the radicle (root) is always produced first.  There is almost no water in a seed so it would not be able to produc any growth without getting water on board first.