Potato stem cuttings

I sowed true potato seeds for the first time this year. They germinated well, but I think I didn't manage to give them enough light, as they quickly grew extremely leggy. Some of them are shaping up decently now, but still with rather long, fragile stems. The problem is they're still a couple weeks and some transport away from planting, and I'm concerned they might break. So I thought, why not prune them, and use the cut stems as cuttings? That would reduce the risk of them breaking, and best case I'd have two plants for each plant I have now. Some things I've read suggest that it should be possible to get them to root.

So what do you all think? Should I do it? Have you done it? Are there other, better solutions for this problem? (I've thought of simply planting them deeper, but that would need an extremely large pot.)

Eino Kenttä wrote:I sowed true potato seeds for the first time this year. They germinated well, but I think I didn't manage to give them enough light, as they quickly grew extremely leggy. Some of them are shaping up decently now, but still with rather long, fragile stems. The problem is they're still a couple weeks and some transport away from planting, and I'm concerned they might break. So I thought, why not prune them, and use the cut stems as cuttings? That would reduce the risk of them breaking, and best case I'd have two plants for each plant I have now. Some things I've read suggest that it should be possible to get them to root.

So what do you all think? Should I do it? Have you done it? Are there other, better solutions for this problem? (I've thought of simply planting them deeper, but that would need an extremely large pot.)

I start seeds early March for transplants and set them out after my last frost date. When they begin to make suckers, and the suckers are 3-4 inches long, I will root them for fall tomatoes. I take some plastic 'dish pans' and drill drainage holes about an inch up from the bottom. I then fill the pans with river sand and insert the suckers into the sand. The area below the drain holes acts as a reservoir so that they never go dry. I seldom loose a cutting with this method and never use rooting hormone.
Hope this helps...

First, I haven't tried that, but potato has to be among the easiest to make that work. At least that's my intuitive sense.

I don't know what you have them potted in, but could you just fill them deeper or put them into deeper pots and then fill those? I'm thinking of emulating the stabilizing effect of a neck-collar for a trauma patient.

Christopher Weeks wrote:First, I haven't tried that, but potato has to be among the easiest to make that work. At least that's my intuitive sense.

I don't know what you have them potted in, but could you just fill them deeper or put them into deeper pots and then fill those? I'm thinking of emulating the stabilizing effect of a neck-collar for a trauma patient.

Yeah, that's my feeling as well. Tomatoes root in literally no time, and since they are so closely related, potatoes probably do the same. As for filling the pot deeper, I would if I could, but it's already full almost all the way up, and the seedlings are just too tall for what little soil would fit to make any difference. And since it's just about the deepest pot I have access to, replanting them probably wouldn't do much good. Well, we live and we learn...