These berries contain hundreds of seed, and these can be grown and will create viable plants.
One problem though, before you decide to harvest some potato seeds for next year’s crop, is that they won’t be true to seed.
When we grow potato plants from tubers, they are a clone of the parent plant. So the characteristics of the potato are already known.
When grown from seed, they could be anything, so the potato might be small, it might be huge, it might be delicious, or it might taste so bad it is inedible. It’s simply not known.
This form of breeding is how new potato cultivars are created, but there is a lot of trial and error.
Removing Potato Flowers
I remove the flowers as soon as I see the buds, before they even get the chance to open.
By doing it as early as possible, I am maximising the benefit by reducing the amount fo energy the plant expends on flowers and seeds.
This is a plant up at my allotment, and this is the stage I nipped out the flowers.
You can just see them starting to appear; pinching them out now is perfect.
