Bad spots in center of potatoes

[Onatah]

So tired of cutting into my otherwise quite beautiful potatoes only to find these nasty brown holes.
No insects. No entry/exit holes. No mold. Just this.

I have planted a few different types of potatoes. Don't think it matters much.
What is causing this? What exactly is it and how can I prevent it next year?

 

[Owdboggy]

Two choices, wireworms or keeled slugs. Both extremely difficult to deal with as they live in the soil and attack unseen. Farmer by us has given up on Potatoes because of the keeled slug problem.

 

[Chuck]

So tired of cutting into my otherwise quite beautiful potatoes only to find these nasty brown holes.
No insects. No entry/exit holes. No mold. Just this.

I have planted a few different types of potatoes. Don't think it matters much.
What is causing this? What exactly is it and how can I prevent it next year?

View attachment 9412

The problem you are having with your potatoes is not caused by disease or insects or slugs. It is a common problem which is named hollow heart. It is caused by environmental changes or very rapid growth. Overwatering, poor drainage and irregular watering is the main reason for it

 

[Owdboggy]

Been growing potatoes for over 40 years and I have never seen this in any of our tubers. New one on me then!

 

[Durgan]

First the condition does not impact on the taste or use of the potato. It is unsightly and they cannot be marketed due to appearance.

In my case I consider a poor potato crop due to weather conditions, which I try to alleviate somewhat by good drainage, watering if dry, and maintaining a constant ground temperature by mulching. I have a major failure in my small patch of about 100 plants about one year in six.(blight or poor quality tubers). Variety appears to be not an issue. I grow Pontiac, Superior, Yukon gold,with great success.

I consider most of this effect to be due to growing conditions, moisture and cold temperatures at a critical time, not often encountered. A home gardener can control somewhat with mulch and watering or insuring good drainage whichever is paramount.

Bugs are usually not an issue in our cold climate except for the potato beetle,

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs197 A link describing the condition.

 

[Chuck]

Been growing potatoes for over 40 years and I have never seen this in any of our tubers. New one on me then!

Google it. There has been a lot of universities studying this for years. It seems to be a localized problem due to weather changes. Some years it happens and then it doesn't happen again. In the US it happens mostly in the colder regions although it sometimes happens in the south, but is usually triggered by unseasonable rain and/or irregular watering along with very rapid growth of the tubers

 

[Owdboggy]

Read up on it, interesting. As I said, not something I have ever seen and we are somewhat cold here. For example we cannot grow Dahlias as they get frosted off before they flower. Squash we have to grow under cover as even the 90 days ones do not get enough heat to thrive.
We do get a lot of slug damage to our tubers though. Easy enough to tell, there is always a small entry hole!

 

[Chuck]

Read up on it, interesting. As I said, not something I have ever seen and we are somewhat cold here. For example we cannot grow Dahlias as they get frosted off before they flower. Squash we have to grow under cover as even the 90 days ones do not get enough heat to thrive.
We do get a lot of slug damage to our tubers though. Easy enough to tell, there is always a small entry hole!

It's a strange thing. I don't grow potatoes anymore due to the fact that there is no economical way to store them but during the time of my parents having a vegetable truck farm we grew a lot of them and even after I left home I grew them for a few years, all in all I would guess about 25 years and during all of those years I can remember only 2 or 3 years that it happened. You wouldn't even know anything was wrong until you cut one in half

 

[marlingardener]

We've been growing potatoes for several years here on the farm, and have encountered this hollow heart only once, and that was in Red Lasodas, which are the preferred variety for our soil/climate. The year we got some, but not all, potatoes with this problem was the year it rained like crazy in March and April, and then dried up in May and June.

 

[Onatah]

Thank you so much, everyone. Hollow heart seems to be it. Goodness. We have had it more years than not! I thought perhaps I needed to find a different place to grow the potatoes. We want to grow even more next year so it was a big concern. This year, it's less of an issue than previous years. We took three years off of gardening so not sure if that contributed or not. It seems to be only the large spuds that have it. Frustrating when you just want some baked potatoes but are afraid of having this in the center at the table.

We also have scabs on some of the potatoes. We have four varieties and not all of them got it. The russets grown from peels from the kitchen were pathetic at best but the potato bugs got them terrible during a week hubby and I were both very sick and he didn't spray. The potiacs and yukons got the bugs but not as bad. The russets were practically consumed so the harvest was mostly seed size potatoes and even some empty holes. I forgot what the variety was called on the other potatoes. They were said to be drought and bug tolerant so we gave them a go. They were, indeed, bug tolerant! I'll ask hubby for the name when he gets home.

We had very little rain so we rain the sprinkler a lot. Oops! Maybe overwatering was our issue. How much is too much? How do you regulate for a garden with various needs like that, then? Don't some plants require even more water? We want to grow a lot of potatoes, squash, corn, tomatoes and pepper plants next year. And some onions. Not much of anything else on our need list as of yet. Just planting what we use a lot and can process to store via canning or freezing.

 

[Chuck]

Thank you so much, everyone. Hollow heart seems to be it. Goodness. We have had it more years than not! I thought perhaps I needed to find a different place to grow the potatoes. We want to grow even more next year so it was a big concern. This year, it's less of an issue than previous years. We took three years off of gardening so not sure if that contributed or not. It seems to be only the large spuds that have it. Frustrating when you just want some baked potatoes but are afraid of having this in the center at the table.

We also have scabs on some of the potatoes. We have four varieties and not all of them got it. The russets grown from peels from the kitchen were pathetic at best but the potato bugs got them terrible during a week hubby and I were both very sick and he didn't spray. The potiacs and yukons got the bugs but not as bad. The russets were practically consumed so the harvest was mostly seed size potatoes and even some empty holes. I forgot what the variety was called on the other potatoes. They were said to be drought and bug tolerant so we gave them a go. They were, indeed, bug tolerant! I'll ask hubby for the name when he gets home.

We had very little rain so we rain the sprinkler a lot. Oops! Maybe overwatering was our issue. How much is too much? How do you regulate for a garden with various needs like that, then? Don't some plants require even more water? We want to grow a lot of potatoes, squash, corn, tomatoes and pepper plants next year. And some onions. Not much of anything else on our need list as of yet. Just planting what we use a lot and can process to store via canning or freezing.

Please describe step by step how you plant and grow your potatoes. When do you water and/or how often? What is the Ph of your soil. There are a bunch of potato growers on this forum so I am sure we can help in your endeavors

 

[Corzhens]

The last time I bought big potatoes, I was disappointed to see borers inside - the black spot that penetrates inside up to half a centimeter maybe. It is useless to pry away that black spot so what I did was to cut the potato to see the interior. I was able to salvage some parts in some potatoes but there were potatoes which have several black spots that couldn't be saved. Our housemaid said that it is safer to buy small potatoes. But I guess it is the infestation of the farm hence all those potatoes have those black spots.

 

[Chuck]

Did you actually see the borer, the worm looking thing? If not, what you are seeing is the bruising of the potato caused by the harvesting, handling, bagging, age and shipping of the potatoes. Borer damage is usually a soft mushy rotten area and not black and you don't have to cut into it to find out

 

[Onatah]

There is NO bug/pest signs at all. ZERO. No entry/exits. Just a hollow spot in the center with dark edges.

Sorry, I don't know the PH of the soil but happy to get that tested. We have mostly sandy soil here but the area where the garden is was previously part of the area where my dad had many pigs pastured (he had a commercial hog farm). We added a lot of aged cattle manure over the years. None this year and none the previous three years that we didn't garden. I did add in a few wheelbarrows of rabbit poop, which is a cold manure. Given the size of our garden, this was a light dressing of fertilizer but I have a huge pile building up that will continue to pile over the winter and we will be applying that in the spring. It will be a pickup load or two (depending on how much breaks down as it does tend to break down quickly). I raise meat rabbits so have a LOT of manure.

Planting is just digging holes about 8" deep, putting in the seed potato and covering up. My husband often cuts them in half and placed 2-3 per hole. They are about a foot apart. When the plants are a decent size, we hill them to make sure the potatoes aren't exposed to the sun. We weed weekly. My husband sprays for potato bugs weekly once they are of a decent size plant and we see our first beetle sightings. Otherwise, we'd lose the entire crop.

We water depending on weather but I'd say an average is running sprinkler every 2-3 days? Overnight if the days are too hot. Otherwise for about 2-3 hours.

 

[headfullofbees]

That's far too much water, especially since all that manure will help retain it.
I'm also thinking that, since so much manure has been used on your plot, there's a chance that the soil is fairly acidic.

Nitrogen. Looks to me like you're adding too much nitrogen.
When you're growing potatoes, the nitrogen should be added in three doses, rather than all at once.
Probably you're manure is too fresh too. Add it in the autumn prior to planting, rather than the spring.


Do you ever get marking like this (scab) on your potatoes, because, with your use of animal manure which carries it, that is likely to be a good indication of roughly where your pH is?