It seems last year’s dismal summer is still having an effect on amateur gardeners. The high rainfall led to several crop failures in the seed potato crop. As a result, there is a cut in the number of varieties on sale with a couple of popular potatoes unavailable.
I always get my seed potatoes from Dundry Nurseries who have long stocked a huge range of varieties – until the pandemic, they ran a very popular Potato Weekend with seed potatoes for sale, specialist stallholders, cultivation advice and competitions.
In the past, Dundry had as many 130-150 different varieties, most of them from Scotland with some sourced from producers in Holland.
Since Brexit and the difficulties of importing what is classed as seed, that number had dropped to 100. This year, the range is at its lowest with just 90 varieties available.
Nursery shop manager James Mclean told me the bad summer meant many potatoes were lifted late and the quality wasn’t good enough.
“They call that crop failure as it doesn’t pass the necessary standards.”
Two of the missing varieties are among the most popular with home growers: ‘Arran Pilot’ and ‘Pink Fir Apple’. There’s only one grower for each of these varieties and so a crop failure means a complete wipeout of seed potato supplies for that year.
‘Ratte’ is a good replacement for ‘Pink Fir Apple’ but Dundry’s supplies are short this year after a poor harvest.
A reduction in the number of growers and their, understandable, preference for concentrating on the more commercial, modern varieties is making some old varieties unattractive to grow.
Meanwhile, the nursery is limited to growers who are able to supply potatoes by the sack – many are geared up for selling to farms rather than the amateur market.
“There are other varieties of seeds, because, of course, you get different varieties in supermarkets, but they’re not available for the amateur gardener,” explained James.
New varieties are appearing – ‘Skywalker’, a second early, and ‘Paradox’, a main crop, are new this year.
‘It’s not all doom and gloom but the older varieties are vanishing.”
Hearing last summer that there might be a problem with ‘Pink Fir Apple’, I kept some of my crop and those are now chitting to get them ready for planting. I don’t usually save potatoes as I prefer to grow from new tubers each year to ensure they are disease-free. I’m glad I made an exception this time.
You can see the list of available potatoes at Dundry Nurseries here.
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Dundry Nurseries are very, very good, fun to visit, friendly and helpful with an interesting variety of seed potatoes, as well as onions, shallots, beans, etc. They also stock dahlia tubers. They are independent and purely horticultural, rare nowadays.
Long been one of my favourite nurseries 😍