There are many gardeners who are quite surprised at finding little green berries – almost like cherry tomatoes – growing on their potato plants. This is mainly because it does not happen all the time, and indeed not to all the potato plants you may have planted.
So can they be eaten? These little spheres are called ‘Fruits’ – but they are unlike any other fruit that you may have tried, as they are filled with solanine and as such are toxic and NOT suitable for human consumption.
The only part of the potato plant that is edible is the potato tubers that grow from the roots. Green potatoes (tubers that have been exposed to sunlight), foliage and the fruits are all toxic to humans.
What are Potato Fruits?
They are in fact seed pods that come after the flower, and are filled with 2-300 tiny seeds that would in time form potato plants – but not of the same variety as those they have grown from.
These green seed balls are what professional growers would use to grow and produce different varieties of potatoes for domestic and commercial use by potato growers.
Unless you have several years to spare, they are best ignored or even removed for safety’s sake if nothing else – especially if you have young children who may be tempted to eat them.
These seeds should not be confused with ‘seed potatoes’. Although the tuber is not in fact a ‘seed’, potatoes are grown from the eyes on the tubers that will produce potato plants – not from the seed pods themselves as a general rule.
Should you remove potato fruits or flowers?
Apart from safety reasons regarding the fruits, some growers remove the flowers and the fruits (if any have escaped their notice), in order to produce a more abundant harvest.
In fact, a study by the Canadian Journal of Plant Science in 1990 ‘The effect of flower removal on potato tuber yield’ seems to confirm this practice. However they point out that potato tuber yield is subject to many other considerations including soil conditions and the potato family being grown.
They summarise their finding thus “Attempts to use flower removal to improve yield should probably be reserved for clones that show a consistently high positive response to the treatment and express traits that are unique and valuable enough to justify the extra effort.”
What to do with potato fruits
Apart from just ignoring them and letting nature sort them out at the end of the season, you can remove them as they appear and after chopping them up add them to the compost heap.
As said earlier, these little fruits or berries are filled with solanine which is toxic but fear not – the process of composting will in effect neutralise this so the compost produced will be fine to use in the garden.
You can also remove the seeds from inside the fruits and try to grow your own potato variety. This will take a few years to accomplish, but if you have the time and inclination then try it out!
Best time to harvest the pods for this purpose is when they have ripened and fallen from the plant.
Do you have to remove the Potato fruits?
Absolutely not! In fact the majority of gardeners, not convinced about the theory of larger crops without the fruits, simply just leave them alone and separate them from the tubers come harvest time.
Any of the fruits left in the ground are unlikely to grow again in the coming season – unlike any potato tubers (no matter how small) you leave behind after harvesting. Even if there is a small eye on the tiniest potato left in the ground, it will grow through you next season’s crop of cabbages!
Summary:
With regard to the inital question of fruit removal or not – Personally I do not really trouble myself with this issue. Sometimes I will remove the fruits and sometimes not – just depends on how much time I have on my hands!
I am swayed however to believe that the potato harvest is likely to be slightly better if I do remove these seed pods, mainly on the basis (rightly or wrongly) that the seed pods are just denying nutrients to the plants and de-facto the tubers.
The main thing to remember from all this…DO NOT try to eat them!
