IamA potato scientist, AMA!

I think its a pretty impressive achievement to become a scientist despite being a potato. What's your secret to success? What sort of science do you do? How do you avoid being eaten?

Hey, you made me laugh! :)

When are you going to cross breed a potato and a marijuana plant such that the potato has THC in it and you can just fry up some french fries that get you high?

POTato(TM)

Since it's not marijuana it's not illegal.

DO THIS! I've been thinking about this for 10 years and I don't know how to make it. You make this now! GO NOW AND MAKE THIS!

edit: if you can't breed it then GMO it! Just make it happen!

edit2: i am aware that you can just use THC oil to fry the potato, this is not what i am talking about. I am talking about creating a new species. Please improve your reading comprehension skills.

So much pressure!

Hi, I love you. What's your favorite potato? I grow purple ones, from Peru.

That's awesome! I like red lasodas because that's what I grow here in Florida!

You didn't say it back man ://

I love you MORE

[deleted]

Hello friend!

How did you even get into this field in the first place?

I was studying plant nutrition and water quality and the potato producing areas in Florida have a lot of issues with nitrate in the groundwater.

TIL there are potato-producing regions in Florida!

Life takes a lot of turns so this might be a silly question, but do you plan on sticking with potato research? Or do you want to work with other crops?

I work with sweet corn as well, but I have an affinity for potatoes so it's something I see myself sticking with for a while. I'm about to write a grant that would mean at least 6 more years of potato research.

I love eating potatos, may I eat potatos for 6 years as part of your research?

Yes!

No question, I just wanted to say thank you for treating us with kindness. We will spare you when the time comes.

:)

Did you help with the potato famine in Ireland?

I didn't, I'm a bad person :(

• does being a potato scientist ever get you girls?
• is there a weird, not-widely-known fact about potatoes you'd like to share?
• i imagine you get a lot if taters for free and eat them all the time. What kind of stuff do you make with them?
• have you ever been apart of some kind of crazy, messed up potato situation in the field?
• what kind of things do you research about potatoes?
• do you love your job?
• kind of a stupid one, but that potato pic in /r/wtf isn't eatable at all, right? Or can you eat around the rot?

Thanks for doing this AMA!

I get very smelly and dirty in the field, plus I'm a lady myself, so I don't get too many girls :( Uh, something cool I didn't know before I started studying potatoes, is that the potatoes you eat are just clones from the seed piece. If you let the plant flower (and nothing eats the flower, or they aren't aborted), you can grow some crazy potatoes that are nothing like the plant they came from! And yes, so many potatoes... I throw a potato party at the end of every season and everyone makes a bunch of yummy things and gets really drunk (so I can't quite remember all of the dishes). No crazy situations... yet, I'm still hoping!

Thanks for doing an AMA! What do you mean that you can grow crazy potatoes after the plant has flowered?

They just won't be the same variety as the one you planted and you can end up with some weird potatoes.

Where can I buy these red lasodas? I live in tampa.

My favorite potato so far is the German butterball. Can't find em here though :(

And... I want an invite to this drunken potato dinner/fest at the end of harvesting season. Isn't that soon for the red lasodas? Or has it already passed? I will come help harvest and cook something up! Ps... I'm a chef, so say yes!

YES! It'll be May, so we've got a while!

What do you mean by clones from the seed piece? When I think clones, I think of petri dishes in a lab: is it that sort of thing, or is it a more of a special way of harvesting that results in the "clone"? (I don't know that much about biology so apologies if this is a dumb question)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Botanically, the tubers start out as little stem pieces. They enlarge into a tuber, storing carbohydrates. If you cut off the eyes, a new stem will sprout and you can grow another plant, this is how we generally produce potatoes and the result is a "clone" of the "parent." But if you let them produce seed and then plant the seeds, you'll get some wild new variety that won't resemble the parent.

Potatoes have played a huge role in human history. Where do you see potatoes in the future, socially and literally?

As we face a growing population (a projected 9 billion by 2050), crops like potato will continue to be important in terms of food security because they are so calorie dense.

Does anyone really know the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?

They're two different species!

In the store all the signs say "sweet potatoes" but the boxes say "yams" and it drives me nuts. What's an easy way to tell the difference just by looking?

Hmm, they're most likely all sweet potatoes if you can't tell the difference!

I really need to know this. I looked it up once and left a bit more confused than when I started.

I'm trying to phrase it so it's not more confusing, basically sweet potatoes are roots that store carbohydrates and yams aren't. What I'm not sure of is if a yam is a stem tuber, but I don't believe it is...

Do you get free potatoes?

I get PAID for doing this and get potatoes, so I'm basically getting paid for all of these potatoes!

On a scale from 1 to potato, how many Latvian jokes are going to be made in this AMA?

Less than I had guessed, so far

Are you to potatoes as Dwight Schrute is to beets?

I'd like to think so

Are the skins of the potatoes actually healthy for you?

This response warranted more detail than I gave, so I'm working on a better response to clarify what I meant

But... but... potatoes grow underground! How would you spray the skin of an underground potato?

(I know you've already gone off to bed, but please, I am thoroughly confused by this).

I didn't mean sprayed directly, sorry! You're right, the shoots are sprayed and not the tubers themselves.

It is ok to eat (the) "green" (parts of a) potato?

It's only chlorophyll... correct?

I'm sorry, I thought I answered this somewhere below! It depends which green parts you're talking about, but generally no. Do you mean the tuber itself?

two questions

1) is it true that a healthy human diet can be totally comprised of just potatoes and butter?

2) would you say your line of work is a-peel-ing?

1) I really don't think so, but I'm not a human nutrition expert! 2) YES!

Favorite potato dish? How do you personally pronounce the word potato?

Hachis parmentier, like a french shepherd's pie! Po-tay-to!

EDIT: Puh-tay-toe

Can you post a recipe?

This is the recipe I use!

What exactly does your job as a potato scientist consist of, and how did you become involved in the magical world of potato science?

I grow tons of potatoes (actually, tens of thousands of tons), and measure nitrate leaching under different production practices. I was working in plant nutrition and water quality and the potato production areas in Florida have a lot of issues with nitrate in the groundwater.

What kind of potato research do you do? And how will it ultimately enhance my potato enjoyment?

I research nitrate leaching under different irrigation and fertilizer management practices. It will allow potato growers to produce potatoes, while minimizing negative impacts to surrounding water bodies... so, you'll feel better knowing the negative impact of your potato consumption was reduced! :)

Is it true that potato can cause cancer?

Just benign tubers

How many clocks do you have that are powered by potatoes?

One! Got one for my secret santa gift!

Do you get an unlimited supply of potatoes?

Pretty much.

Have you ever fermented potatoes into Vodka?

Sadly, no. But for our annual potato party, I buy potato vodka for everyone!

Favorite type of potatoes? Discuss flavor, texture, color, and picture quality.

My iPhone! Terrible picture quality, but nice texture. Flavor is meh.

I'm going to tag you as the potato queen. Thanks for the AMA very informative!

I love it!

If you were given the choice to change your career path, would you? What would you want to do instead of being a potato scientist?

I would do the same thing I'm doing now, only with a crop that didn't require so much digging!

So are potatoes the most nutrition food that you can have?

In terms of calories!

Yeah like if you could only have one food to live with what would you choose?

I think I'm obligated to say potato

Why does that potato center brown rot happen mostly to bigger potatoes? I have grown lots of potatoes and have only seen it in the larger ones.

When the potatoes grow rapidly, it can split apart the center and/or damage the cells that can lead to rotting in the center. Is it happening to larger ones that are being harvested at the same time as smaller potatoes you're digging up?

What agricultural techniques make the tastiest potato?

Adequate water and nutrition! Potatoes don't like excess water (and on the flip side, nematodes like excess water and like to bite potatoes), but they're not drought tolerant either!

That's really interesting! I've always been under the impression that potatoes are pretty reliable crops. Are they not?

(Disregarding the Irish Potato Famine, that is, because that disaster was a culmination of a lot of unfortunate human decisions and natural conditions.)

Well, we're having more and more problems with disease like early and late blight that can really wipe out a whole crop. I'd say they're reliable as far as any other crop we produce large scale, but when you're producing large scale and you get an instance of a disease like that, you're spraying like 2-3 times per week.

I want to grow my own potatoes this year. When should I start? Any tips? I'm in California.

Start as soon as you know there won't be any more freezes, I'll be planting mine a little late at the end of this month because I didn't fumigate in time. Best tip: don't over water, but don't under water. Potatoes are sensitive when it comes to water!

What's your favourite type of potato?

Red lasoda, delicious and beautiful!

What's the best (hardiest/easiest) potato to grow in temperate environments. New Jersey specifically.

Honestly, potatoes are VERY easy to grow! You're pretty much limited by the seed pieces you can get in Jersey, you'll have a bad time if you just cut up store potatoes and try to grow them (lots of disease, usually).

Which type of potato, in your opinion, tastes best?

Also, what's your favorite non-potato pass time?

I like red lasodas, but I specifically like the potatoes on the edge of the field that didn't get adequate water/nutrition. They're small and creamy, super delish!

How did you decide to study potatoes? What kind of schooling is necessary for such a job?

Graduate school in any plant related field or environmental science! When I first started grad school, I didn't know much about agriculture and just had a background in environmental science.

-What's your favorite dish with potatoes?

-Is true that too much potato can cause harm in the long term to a human body?

-Can you submit a potato quality pic as proof?

-What's the BEST quality of potatoes?

-What have you discovered so far?

-What is your current research on potatoes?

Look up the instagram pic, I'm holding up some potato plants we grew and they're beautiful red lasodas! My favorite dish is hachis parmentier

Thanks for the potato quality picture.

Now where are the rest of the answers?

I'm trying to keep up!

I'm not sure about causing harm to the body? I'm more worried about potato health, not human health! As far as quality, I love me some under-watered red lasodas! I've discovered that controlled-release fertilizer is a viable alternative to traditional practices and potato farmers can maintain yields in Florida, while reducing nitrate leaching!

Are potatoes grown for sale in Florida? It always seemed that it was more of a mountainous crop, because, you know, Idaho being famous for potatoes and all.

We grow them here because it's warmer here, so we can sell them earlier and get a higher price for them :)

Answer this: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1x8ae0/just_bought_these_today_sorry_for_the_potato/

I did! That's where I was asked to to an AMA

Every so often I'll come across something saying that one could eat nothing but potatoes and butter, and they could do so indefinitely as it supplies all essential nutrition. How much truth is there to that - obviously with the carbohydrates from the potato and fats from the butter, but beyond that?

You'd be seriously deficient in some important micronutrients!

So you're a Potato Scientist, in Ireland? Do you ever have a shortage of work?

^{I'm sorry, that was terrible. I'll see myself out}

I'm not in Ireland, I'm in Florida. I mean... haha I get it! :)

What is the superior potato? There are different types of potatoes right?

There are tons of different varieties! It's a personal call, though. It also depends on what you're going to use them for.

Are certain varieties of potatoes better for different cooking methods the way apples are?

Yep! But it usually tells you right on the bag what the variety is best suited for!

where did you go to grad school? I work in a tomato lab!

UF, that's awesome! My advisor did a lot of tomato work!

I have heard horrid things about how chemically treated potatoes are that are farmed for supermarkets and such. I.e. soaked in fungicide and pesticide and then fungicide again, and of course a few sprays of pesticides during growing. I've heard it's so bad that severe genetic damage occurs to the plant overtime and that's why potatoes aren't as nutritious anymore. All anecdotal things so I have no idea if it's based in fact. Any knowledge on this subject?

I can attest to all of the spraying, that's for sure!

I'm guessing you live in Idaho?

Florida!

We put a potato under my roommate's bed because he's a messy fucker, how long do we have before Messy Roommate notices it?

It's been 3 weeks and agent potato is still undetected.

Thanks!

You probably should have gone with something that will go bad faster, but he'll eventually find a smelly, squishy thing of nightmares!

If I were to take a grocer potato, cut it up, throw it in a large bucket of potting soil and eat the new growth, would I be a moron? I live in a near-tropical environment. If not a moron, are there any complementary plants that can be planted with it?

You're not a moron, but you're more likely to have issues with disease if you do that!