My family has been growing potatoes for generations. We have had some interesting questions about potato sprouts over the years. In this article I will answer some of the more common ones that people have asked us.
Here are some of the questions that we have had:
- Why are my potatoes sprouting?
- Are potato sprouts poisonous?
- Are potato sprouts edible?
- Can I eat a sprouted potato?
- Should I break off the potato sprouts before planting them?
- Will the sprout grow a potato plant?
Why are my potatoes sprouting?
The potato is an interesting vegetable. It is a tuber that is formed on the roots of the potato plant. The potato itself has growth buds on it. These growth buds are called eyes.
When a potato senses warmth and moisture it triggers these eyes, or growth buds, to germinate and grow. The eyes use the potato itself as the source of energy to grow a new plant. The eye sprouts and can grow rather long.
What the sprouts are trying to do is to reach sunlight. If you have had some potatoes sprout in a cellar or cupboard you may have observed the sprouts growing towards a source of light.
When conditions are right with warm temperatures and enough moisture potatoes will naturally sprout. Here is an article telling you how to keep your potatoes from sprouting. Otherwise you can use the natural cycle of the potato and grow potatoes yourself. Here is an article about growing your own potatoes.
Are potato sprouts poisonous?
The potato sprouts, plant, stem, and leaves are all poisonous. They contain solanine and glycoalkaloids. These are poisonous and toxic to people. Solanine is more concentrated in the sprouts, eyes, and skin of the potato.
As the potatoes begin to sprout the potato goes through a chemical transformation. The starches of the potato will change into sugars. This is usually where you will find soft spots on the potato. The sugars are part of the nutrients that get pulled into the new sprouts. The sprouts themselves get a higher concentration of the toxin solanine.
The toxins in the sprouts can cause headache, stomachache, vomiting, and if in large enough quantity death. However, it would take a lot to make this happen. Most people could not eat enough to cause death.
On a side note: When a potato tuber is exposed to the sun while growing, the skin of the tuber will react and turn green. This changes the composition of the starches in the potato to toxic glycoalkaloids and solanine. If you eat enough of the green skin it can cause you to have headaches, stomachache, and vomiting just like eating sprouts. You can cut the green skin off of the tuber and the rest of the potato is fine to eat.
Are potato sprouts edible?
No potato sprouts are not edible. I mean you can physically eat them, but they are full of toxins that will make you sick. It is not a good idea to eat them.
Can I eat a sprouted potato?
Don’t let the sprouting of a potato discourage you from eating the potato itself. If you cut off the soft spots and the sprouts the potato is fine to eat.
The process of turning the potato into a new plant happens over time. Usually part of the potato around the eye will change composition from starch to sugar. This is where the toxins are introduced into the eyes and sprouts. This part of the potato becomes soft. The stronger the sprouts get, the more nutrients from the potato they will use; and the more part of the potato becomes inedible.
The easy way to determine what not to eat is finding the soft parts of the potato. Cut out the soft parts and the sprouts and the rest of the potato is good to eat.
Should I break off the potato sprouts before planting them?
This is an interesting question. It doesn’t really deal with eating the potato but with the propagation of new potato plants. As you might already know the potato sprout is the beginning of a new potato plant. You can plant the part of the potato with the sprout and get a whole new plant.
I have an article on planting and growing potatoes here.
Sometimes when you get seed potatoes, or you leave your potatoes in storage the sprouts get long and are delicate. It’s really easy to damage or knock off the sprout. A damaged sprout is less likely to grow a strong healthy plant.
I have heard many gardeners say that they knock off the sprouts and their potatoes grow fine. In fact, we have experienced this in our patch. However, we have found that being careful with the sprouts results in stronger, healthier, more vigorous plants. Keeping the sprouts intact has also increased the yield.
Will just the sprout alone grow a potato plant?
When growing potatoes, you generally plant the entire potato, or a piece of potato with 1 or more eyes on it. The potato or piece of potato becomes the nutritional resource for the eye to grow into a sprout. The sprout will continue using the potato or piece of potato as nutrition until the roots are established and the sprout turns green and begins photosynthesis.
With the nutrients from the soil and the sunlight the plant will no longer need the potato or piece of potato as nutrient. Some people want to bypass the use of the potato itself as the nutrients and just use the sprout for propagation of a new potato plant.
You can plant the sprout and get a potato plant with some preparation. There is a process of preparing potatoes for growing it’s referred to as chitting. Chitting is the process of getting the potato sprouts awakened and growing.
The process involves putting the potato into a warm well-lit area. This triggers the eyes of the potato to sprout and grow. As the sprout grows it will respond to the light and turn green. The green color shows that photosynthesis is happening.
Once the sprout is growing and photosynthesis is happening you can plant the sprout. You will want to keep it a little shallower than normally planted potato seed to keep the photosynthesis working. Hill up the plant as it grows, and you can grow a good potato crop.
Chitting potato sprouts has been a technique used when people want to use more of the potato for eating. The risk of the plant dying is a bit higher when using this technique. Without the nutrition of the tuber or potato itself the plant can sometimes be too weak to grow directly from the soil.
These questions about potato sprouts seem to come up often. I hope that this article can help answer some queries about the sprouting spuds. I have really enjoyed growing and eating potatoes. They are one of my favorite vegetables. Please don’t let potato sprouts discourage you from eating them. Just learn to leave the sprouts out of your dining and you can use sprouting potatoes to grow more.
