So, How Many Potatoes Actually Grow From One Potato?

There is no single right answer to the question of how many potatoes grow from one potato; the yield depends on a range of factors, such as the potato variety, the time of planting, the growing conditions, and more.

Understanding all the variables will help you to determine how to calculate the number of potatoes you should plant.

How Many Potatoes Can Grow From One Potato?

Roughly, one potato yields 5 to 10 new potatoes, but it can be less or more depending on the following factors.

Potatoes fall into three main categories—early, mid-season, and late-season varieties—and the type of variety impacts the harvest amounts.

Early potatoes, such as Yukon Gold, mature in less than 110 days after planting, so they tend to yield less for the simple reason that they have less time to grow; late-season potatoes, such as Kennebec, need more than 120 days after planting and are usually the biggest producers.

Because the common way of growing potatoes is to cut seed potatoes into several pieces, the original size of the potato makes a difference, too.

A large Russet Burbank potato is easy to cut into pieces, and each piece produces a potato plant, whereas small potatoes, such as fingerling potatoes, are usually planted whole and each produces only one plant.

Whether you grow your potatoes the conventional way in soil or in buckets also has an impact on the yield. Potatoes in garden soil produce the best yield, and having more space to grow contributes to that.

Additional factors are the texture and quality of the soil, as well as the weather, moisture, and pest and disease pressure.

Planting Seed Potatoes

To successfully grow potatoes, you need special seed potatoes, sometimes called tubers, from a reliable source to make sure they are free of diseases.

If your seed potatoes don’t have eyes that protrude, it’s important to put them in a cool but frost-free location until sprouts emerge from the eyes.

Do not cut smaller potatoes; plant them whole. If the potatoes are large, cut each into several pieces so each piece is about 2 inches in diameter and has at least one eye, better two sprouted yes on it.

Let the cut surface callous over for a few days to minimize the risk of rotting, then plant your potatoes with the sprouted eyes facing up. Each potato piece will grow into a potato plant.

Growing Potatoes From Potato Seeds

While it is possible to grow potatoes from seed, it’s not the common way to grow them, for several reasons.

The main reason why potatoes are not grown from seed but from seed potatoes is that each seed produces a genetically different potato, so there is no predictability as to what type of potato you will harvest.2 Seed potatoes, on the other hand, are clones from varieties that have been bred for their superior qualities.

The process is also lengthy and involved. You need to wait for your potatoes to bloom (which is easy to miss because the flowers are inconspicuous), catch the moment when the seeds are ready, and then prep the seeds like with tomatoes.

4 More Tips for Growing Potatoes 

• Regardless of the method you use to grow your potatoes, hilling the potatoes to keep the light away from the tubers is important; otherwise they will turn green and become inedible. Make sure to keep adding soil as the stems grow.
• Just like their nightshade cousin the tomato, potatoes need consistent moisture—at least 1 inch of water per week, to produce a good crop. If there is insufficient rain, water regularly. Install a soaker hose or drip irrigation and mulch around the plants to preserve soil moisture.
• Potatoes are highly susceptible to pests like the Colorado potato beetle and diseases like late blight that caused the Irish potato famine. Inspect your plants every few days so you can act at the first sign of trouble.
• Fertilize your potatoes, but make sure it’s one that is low in nitrogen and high in potassium (such as 3-4-4 or 8-10-10) to encourage root and not foliage growth. Do not use wood ashes; they will raise the soil pH, making it more alkaline and encouraging potato scab, a bacterial disease.