this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
1741 points (99.3% liked)
Microblog Memes
5845 readers
1370 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Potatoes you have to keep mounding up with dirt to force the plant to grow more roots (tubers) instead of the leafy tops.
TIL. Thanks.
Potato tubers are not actually roots. They are modified stems. So the surest way to force more potatoes is to “hill” them. In the commercial fields this is done with a huge tractor raking soil from in between planting rows and piling it up on the plants. You essentially bury the plants stem as it grows taller. Then the buds on the stem will push out stolons (horizontal underground stems.) these will terminate in tubers, aka: potatoes!
Source: did potato disease research for my PhD.
Additional edit: loose/sandy soil is critical. Too dense of soil and your tubers can’t expand well.
Alert: agronomist infiltrated the chat
Hacker voice: “I’m in 😎”
Does this apply to any other root vegetables? Beets?
Warning: I am not a beet expert. But I believe beets are actual roots. Just like carrots. And I think you only get one beer per plant? Burying the stem would just make it harder for new leaves to come up.
Potatoes are pretty unique in this sense. Even sweet potatoes are not the same.
Don't plant them too close to each other. It doesn't work.