Volunteer potatoes poisonous???

 


okay i know this is a dumb question but are volunteer potatoes
poisonous?
my mother is driving me around the bend on this issue:S.
we have a few red potato that came through from last years crop so we
hilled
them up.
my mother said they were poisonous if they came up from last years
potatoes and
darn well not to even think of eating them.
now to my way of thinking i dont see it as she does i think volunteer
potatoes
should be just as good as any other potatoes.
anyone got thoughts on this :S.
cyaaaaa, sockiescat:).




--
sockiescat

 

sockiescat said:

These volunteers are clones of the plants you planted last year, not
random seedlings.  No, they are not poisonous.  They are just
'seed potatoes' that were stored in the garden rather than in a
root cellar.

The only problem with volunteer potatoes is that they might be a
reservoir for diseases -- PLANT diseases, like virus or blight.
That's the reason that there might be any sort of taint attached to
them.

--
Pat in Plymouth MI
    
"So, it was all a dream."
"No dear, this is the dream, you're still in the cell."  
 
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sockiescat wrote:

No.  There is no reason for them to different from any other potato.

David

 


'David Hare-Scott[_2_];862383']sockiescat wrote:-
okay i know this is a dumb question but are volunteer potatoes
poisonous?
my mother is driving me around the bend on this issue:S.
we have a few red potato that came through from last years crop so we
hilled them up.
my mother said they were poisonous if they came up from last years
potatoes and darn well not to even think of eating them.
now to my way of thinking i dont see it as she does i think volunteer
potatoes should be just as good as any other potatoes.
anyone got thoughts on this :S.
cyaaaaa, sockiescat:).-

No.  There is no reason for them to different from any other potato.

David


thanks so much for the quck replies. i really appreciate it :).
thanks again. sockiescat:).




--
sockiescat

 


'David Hare-Scott[_2_ Wrote:

different from any other

Perhaps there are more kinds of "other potato" than you are aware of.
Some
varieties of potatoes are poisonous due to naturally high alkaloid
levels in the
tubers, even without being exposed to light.  In
particular, one reason that
native (south) Americans devised the freeze
drying process to make chuno was
that native potatoes had high levels of
alkaloids and needed that processing to
make them safe to eat, just like
cassava has to be processed to be made safe.
Nowadays they have
selected potatoes for low alkaloid levels, and making chuno
is done for
preservation and because they (strangely) like the taste.

So if you grew potatoes from seeds, ones that set in the fruits (I
don't know
how easy that is to achieve) rather than "seed" tubers, one
might be concerned
they would not breed true but revert to a wild type,
and have high alkaloids.
After all people don't propagate from seed,
which is usually cheapest, so
probably there is a good reason why they
don't. But in general, I have not heard
of volunteer germination of
potato (true) seeds taking place.

But since it seems these are volunteers from forgotten underground
tubers, not
fallen seed, then they are vegetatively reproduced, and the
same as the
ones previously collected.




--
echinosum