Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Has anyone grown AP Potatoes?

im not huge on potato, but its nice to have them sometimes and they are so expensive at the shops for what they are. 90% water and some starch.

id like to be able to grow them up here in the tropics over the dry season
whil ethe temps are nice 10/26 C
and the bug pressure is low

what im wondering about is a system to mound them up?
maybe cylinders sat on top of the substrate and built up by adding more pebbles over the season?
with a small trickle pipe coming in at the top to supply moisture?

also what substrate have people used? Hydroton?

Not really successful, I reckon your best off making a normal potato patch, and watering it with AP water. Small trickle pipes always get blocked up

Haven't tried potatoes, but today I ripped the weet potatoe vines out of my hydroton grow-bed. It had gone feral. The bed is full of sweet potatoes, literally hundreds of them. Many are still imature, but many quite a few of them are large, proving they can be grown to a good size in AP.

The downside, I have not eaten any of them. I can tell by the dull colour inside (these are the orange type) that they are going to have little flavour. This is not likely due to them being grown in AP, but rather because with only a couple of fish in my system and a huge vine, there would be very little nutes going into the tubers. The low nutes has also meant that the tubers are a regular shape. I'd say with proper nute levels the tubers would be a richer colour (and more tasty) but kinda feral in shape, with roots and shit coming out of them too.

Bottom line, I'll probably not bother with sweet potatoe in AP again because the soil is a good place to grow them. I'd never intended frowing in AP - had simply put a piece of sweet potatoe in there to sprout it before putting the slip (shoot) in the dirt garden . BTW - the vine also jumped across to my gravel bed and the tubers grew large in there also.

Thanks

im not as keen on sweet potato but its ok
pig food lol

I imagine Taro would be excellent
i have a few types in the ground i should try out

still that only a marginal replacement for the many fine flavours in a potato

dutch creams are my preferred! like a spud with the butter already on it

I like to grow potatoes in straw (or actully, I use sugar cane mulch).

You should be able to grow potatoes in AP but the mounding is kinda an issue. You would not need to worry about trickle feeding though. Only the initial seed potato really needs access to irrigation and if planted in the flood and drain gravel bed, it should get all the moisture it needs. Ya might even get away with using alternative materials to mound up around the potato plant the only issue would be trying to separate the straw, or leaves or wood chips from the gravel when you harvest the potatoes. Perhaps even some burlap or other rough fabric, just make sure it isn't treated with any chemicals that could be bad for fish. Then again, regular potatoes may be easier to grow in a mulch bed on the ground instead of AP.

Sweet potatoes I like and they are easier to grow in AP, heck, here they are easy to grow anywhere. But Sweet potatoes are hot season crops and so won't be competing with Irish Potatoes in any case. A side note about the sweet potatoes, the young leaves and vine tips are edible too and out tilapia and chickens really like them as do we in summer salads and stir frys.

Sweet potatoes that are not cured properly and aged a little bit won't have good flavor. Proper curing, a bit of aging and then long slow baking will give the sweetest results.

Sweet potatoes are really good for you and the "healthiest" way to have them is baked in their own skin as you get the most nutrients and fiber that way.

A few have had success with satellite pots tall pots that you can plant low down as they grow just put more media in [same as the dirt garden ] when flowering they need water and after that they need very little
Garry d uses this method and waters with fish water and run to waste i am setting up a simler thing i will run the waste to other trees

I grew em in a standard flood and drain bed. each seed potato produced half a dozen new taters.
Not knowing what I was doing, I pulled them too early. they were very small, 1" across, see my thread for details of growth. I have a series of photos showing progress over time.

I grew potatoes in hydroton in a flood and drain system and it was a great success. I really need to update my thread with some pics, but I also pulled them up small, and they were devine I am about to put more in. I just used an old potatoe with some shoots growing - I cut it into sections with each having a shoot, and shoved them in the hydroton about 6 weeks later, lots of little ones...

Yup that's what I got snakes... I found that pic...

nice work fellas!
bring on those photos!

ive grown spuds in straw and it didnt work out
and in ground i had scab problems (prob too much lime)

and this was in inland subtropical NNSW
where the summers are bug laden (28 spot ladybird and other leaf beetles)
and the winters are frosty (-3 to -6C)
so a potato crop was a rare treat as they dont tolerate either situation

i tried many varieties. Dutch cream, all teh commercial ones, toolangi delight, Blue, purple, nicola, pink eye, kipler etc whatever i could buy or find
a few hung on , kind of as weeds! never making a crop but never dying out fully either!

im thinking that a seed potato in an AP system is likely to stay cleaner for more generations than one in soil.

youve convinced me that one day will be trying AP spuds
probably next march
ill bet $5 some varieties will be better than others and itll be good to find out which

Look at this http://www.aquaponics.net.au/newsletter2010-8.html

Wow. what a thread revival.
as a tip CJ, for ppl like me with crap internet: I wont bother clicking on your link if you can't be bothered writing something about it yourself.
Say something, have an opinion. Introduce the site so I know if it's clickworthy or perhaps something I've seen before.

Well its from my Murray Hallam newsletter, I see that he is a legend here. So isn't that a worthy almost effortless click

With slow internet, nothing is effortless.... especially if the boss is watching.
But click I shall nevertheless.