Potatoes - Arran-Pilot

Scottish, 1930s, first early. Low yielder in pots (often less than 1.5 lbs in a 2 gallon pot); tubers small and variably shaped; smooth skinned. Potatoes usually out of the ground before blight appears, which is just as well, because the blight resistance is not good. (about 4). Flavour very mild; midway between floury and waxy but tubers don't disintegrate on cooking.

In 2011 I saw a remarkable sight - a person I know had obtained a seed potato of Arran Pilot weighing three and a half pounds; he set it in a plastic dustbin in compost and it grew into an enormous plant; he topped up the container as it grew, and eventually in late September he had an enormous sprawling plant about six feet across cascading down the sides. It will be interesting to hear how many potatoes he ended up with ..... this is the only time I've seen a really large potato container used successfully. (11 Sep 2011)

UPDATE - he got 28lbs. On planting one of the resulting tubers in a similar way the following year he got 16lbs. Unfortunately he took no pictures.

29 Sep 2012

Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

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