On Mulching/Hilling Potato Plants: Should I bury the lowest set of leaves?

In the past I've just left potato plants without hilling or mulching and enjoyed whatever came of that. Now I'm researching these techniques and I'm getting some conflicting advice from people on whether to bury the lowest set of branches and leaves when mulching or hilling. I've had people tell me:

Don't cover any branches or leaves because the plant could get sick when they decompose, so just mulch/hill below them

Go ahead and bury the lowest set of branches, they'll just die and the plant will be fine.

Cut the lowest set of branches off the plant and mulch/hill up to the bottom of the next set.

Has anybody compared all these methods, or had consistently good results with one? Thanks.

We have always hilled up the dirt covering about 3/4 of the plant. Have never pruned off lower limbs.
Always get a great harvest, well....dependent on rainfall.

I give my potatoes a good layer of mulch - leaves, grass clippings, small prunings, whatever I have lying around. Some of the potato leaves and branches get buried at that point. Then I use the potato bed as my weed pile for the rest of the year until it's time to harvest. More leaves and branches probably get buried. I never pay attention. I always get a decent harvest.

Potatoes are my plant and forget about crop. I don't water or anything.

Jan wrote: Potatoes are my plant and forget about crop. I don't water or anything.

Sooo... do the vines die back, and you just leave them alone until havesting them in the fall?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:

Jan wrote: Potatoes are my plant and forget about crop. I don't water or anything.

Sooo... do the vines die back, and you just leave them alone until havesting them in the fall?

June is usually fairly rainy here, then it's not uncommon for there to be no real rain after that until into September - certainly not enough rain to get through all the mulch. The potatoes seem fine with that. Up until now I've been growing full season potatoes so the frost usually kills most of them, and I harvest sometime after that, sooner or later depending on weather and gopher appetite 🙄

This year I'm growing early, mid, and late season varieties - nine different ones! I'll see which ones work with my methods.