I’ve been chitting a batch of potatoes at room temperature for about ten days now. About half have started to sprout vigorously. About half have not.
This is mostly a function of potato variety. I’d say more about that if I could, but these are from bags of grocery-store organic potatoes. (Organic, to avoid potatoes sprayed with a potent sprout inhibitor.) The grocery store is a cheap source for potatoes for planting, but a downside is that all I know about the varieties is “gold” and “red”. Because that’s what it said on the bags.
The early-sprouter is “gold”. This may be a result of some Yukon Gold potato somewhere in its family tree. Or it may be an actual Yukon Gold, for all I know. (Yukon being a pretty good indication that the potato was marketed to growers with cold climates and short growing seasons.)
Or maybe none of the above. The exact variety doesn’t matter. What matters is that all of these potatoes end up chitting at about the same rate. I want them all equally ready to be planted, at the same time.
Ideally, these will all be in the same sprouted state, a month from now, on St. Patrick’s day (March 17). That’s the traditional day for planting potatoes and peas in this area (Zone 7).
I have to slow down the ones that have already sprouted, both to avoid the sprouts getting too big, and to let the others catch up. The ones that haven’t really gotten started yet will remain at room temperature. The ones that are well on their way are now in a box, to be placed in a cooler, non-freezing location, such as the garage. The nights are still getting down into the 20’s F here, so I don’t think the sprouts will survive on my back porch.
This is all part of this year’s chit-versus-no-chit experiment. A similar number of potatoes sits in the fridge, not sprouting, in a bag with “DO NOT EAT” written on it. The fridge potatoes are destined to be the control group in this experiment. Assuming all goes well, sometime in July I’ll see whether chitting made any (statistically) significant difference in potato yield.
