long sprouts on potatoes

[gps]

hi i got access to a bit of land and thought i would plant potatoes first year to clear it.
left in bag too long and now got 28lbs of pots with very long sprouts and roots.
i wanted to do no dig any advice would be apprecated sprouts are about 6in long.
i thought i would drop each one down a hole deep enough to cover sprouts ? any thoughts anyone.
thanks gps

[burnie]

Are they seed potatoes or just some from the supermarket?

[Mark_Riga]

They should be OK. Will probably take a while to get going so if early potatoes will be harvested a bit later. 28lb seems a lot of seed potatoes to be planting.

[ameno]

They should still be fine. Just be very careful not to snap any of the sprouts, as once a sprout breaks off it will not regrow.

[Muddy_Boots]

Remove the sprouts and put the the spuds in a container like a seed tray, egg tray or anything that suitable. Leave them in a place that has light, not direct sunlight and is unheated but doesn't get frosts. Mine are in a back bedroom, unheated in seed trays and in the light.

This makes them produce strong, purple/green shoots, removing the 'leggy' sprouts won't harm them and it will encourage the tubers to produce more shoots. If you try planting them with the leggy sprouts you won't get strong plants as the foundation is weak like a buildings foundations. One of my seed potato varieties sprouted in the delivery box before I got around to put them in the trays, I knocked all the sprouts off and now I have a full batch with each one having at least 6 sprouting shoots that are strong.

[Stan79]

Is it good to have multiple sprouting shoots then? I understood you should only have one or two?

[ameno]

Is it good to have multiple sprouting shoots then? I understood you should only have one or two?

I'd say more two or three, but yeah, you don't want too many.

Also, long, leggy shoots growing weak plants is a myth. Gardening Which have done tests, and the plant vigour and yields were the same for both normally chitted potatoes (with short, sturdy sprouts) and those chitted in the dark, giving them long, thin, pale sprouts.