Q&A: Grow Potatoes
- Can we grow potatoes in a hydroponics system without soil? Has anybody tried this method?
- Tian
- Look at how NASA grows potatoes, look at the tuber inducing factor, and the candidate crop testing
specifically. Don't let tubers become exposed to light or this could render them inedible.
- Steve
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- I have sort of done this. I've put potatoes in an 18 gallon rubbermaid container with a mixture of a
little top soil, perlite and vermiculite. Potatoes need a lot of nutrients. I got potatoes, they were just
dinky. When I finally got a soil testing kit, I found there weren't nearly the nutrients needed, but it can
be done. They don't require nearly the light of say, tomatoes, 12 hours a day is plenty.
- John
-
- I've had no experience with that here. I do know that exposure to light causes the tuber to transform
its starch into a substance that is ill-tasting and if consumed in large amounts (with nothing else to
dilute it) can cause illness, but it doesn't make the tuber inedible. I have eaten plenty of green
potatoes and I'm still among the living (and didn't suffer any illness). Of course if your only source of
food was potatoes and they were all green, this would be a bad thing, so the tubers should be
protected from the light as much as possible.
- Roger