Not sure why nobody is answering this. I don't grow potatoes, but I think it is well understood that in order to concentrate growth in the tubers, you want to get rid of the flowers, because the flowers will just produce potato fruit, which are like small cherry tomatoes. Also, those fruit are poisonous (lots of solanine), so if you have kids or pets who like to munch on little tomato-like things, best not to have those fruit around.

Gee, i never bothered. I always took it as a sign that tubers (potatoes) were forming and that small potatoes were there if I needed them… that in the ground .

Most people don't do anything when they see their potatoes flowering as typically the flowers just fall off and nothing comes of it. As Kate mentioned, flowering usually seen as an indication that spuds are growing (new potatoes can usually be harvested at flowering time). Sometimes the plants won't flower at all.

Remove the flowers, or don't. It's your choice. If you decide to leave them and find little green berries growing, take those off.

Rodney

My parents grew potatoes for many, many years, never removed any blooms or seeds, and harvested hundreds of pounds of potatoes. I think it's silly and useless to do either of those things.

While "in principle" pulling flowers and potential fruit off of potatoes helps with tuber formation, the fact of the matter is that commercial growers don't do it. That would be hugely labor intensive. Compared to the size of a tuber, flowers, and perhaps fruit, are small pieces of the plant.

Never have I ever pulled flowers off. I foud this a while ago, when someone asked me about pulling them off. Makes sense....: When the inflorescences break off, the bush has to expend energy to restore the injured stem. The released nutrients do not reach the tubers, and the ripening period of the potatoes increases. In addition, the risk that a damaged plant will become ill, for example, with late blight, which can destroy up to 70% of the crop, increases several times. Disadvantages of cutting off flowers on potatoes: the size of tubers decreases; the risk of disease in the bushes increases; the ability to grow potatoes from seeds to renew planting material is lost; picking off flowers, a person walks between the rows, trampling the soil, and also transferring fungi, viruses, bacteria, this inhibits the development of bushes and leads to their infection. The advantage of lengthening potato flowers is only one – there are many small and medium tubers suitable for planting next year, but from the procedure itself there is more harm than good. If, nevertheless, it is decided to remove the inflorescences, then this must be done before the buds bloom or after the seeds have ripened, otherwise the bush is severely injured. Source: https://farmer-online.com/the-benefits-and-harms-of-removing-potato-flowers/

hmmm.... interesting; but it does make sense.

We're probably over-thinking this, but ag extensions do sometimes recommend pinching off flowers.

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/home-and-landscape/potato/cultural-tips/index.html

"Not much is required in terms of training or pruning your potatoes, but it is a good idea to pinch off any flowers that develop on the plant to favor tuber growth."

No one is saying that you won't get a lot of potatoes if you don't do this. But you may be doing the plant a favor.

Almost daily I walk through my potato rows trampling the soil, transferring fungi, viruses and bacteria while looking for and removing potato bugs to avoid pesticides. During the walks I also pulled off all the flower buds only to save pollinators a premature death if there was a reason I had to spray with a deadly agent, and nothing to do with yield. This week the time came when I noticed a major infestation of leafhoppers sucking my plants dry and sprayed. I kind of hated to do it because I enjoyed the help from my beneficial insect friends hunting down potato bug larvae, but I did it anyway. (I had hoppers on my beans also but used insecticidal soap because they were in flower, and will need to do it again, and again and......))

During my walks through the rows I often looked at the stems I removed flowers from and never saw any indication the plant was trying to restore the injured stem. Just a dried up spot like you'd see on any stem removed from a plant. I don't believe I'd detect a loss in yield if I didn't remove the flowers, but certainly would if leafhoppers and potato bugs went unchecked. So I spend my time killing bugs, fertilizing and watering right and should easily make up for anything lost not picking the flowers.

My go to on potato production, The Potato Association of America Handbook and has no mention of flower removal for yield gain, but list just about everything else for gain and will cause losses. Removing them won't do any harm to the plants so there is nothing to lose but bloggers and utube stars aren't exactly creditable so don't get your hopes up. I've been growing potatoes for 25 years and don't see the logic for the claim, and read studies from 1947, 1987 and one from 2019 done in Ethiopia with results of better yields. but then another study from 1988 stating no significant increase. The 1987 and 1988 are credit worthy so it looks like a 50/50 chance so far.

I think we're all basically in agreement here, that pulling off flowers doesn't make a big difference, but The Potato Association of America Handbook isn't necessarily a good source for the home gardener. They're about lowering costs for potato production, and it would increase the cost of potatoes dramatically to have people busy cutting off flowers. While there might be some net gain in productivity, the increase in cost would not make up for it. There are many practices that home gardeners use that commercial farmers would never use because of labor costs. Our labor is free.

Silly me thought that's how you could tell the tubers were ready to harvest - when the blossoms died.

Lots of good info in this thread!

I almost never see the tiny round "tomato" fruit develop, so as said it really isn't a major issue. I don't know if certain cultivars are more likely to produce seed fruit, or it is just random from conditions.

Keeping the vines alive to keep growing mass into tubers is probably more important. Does removing flowers help keep them growing? Hurt? I don't know. There are early "determinate" potatoes like 'Red Gold' which produce and tend to die off quickly, while later "indeterminate" potatoes like 'Pontiac' which can keep growing if conditions are good.

Funny - this is the first year ever that not all of my potatoes flowered. Out of 3 varieties, only 1 (magic Molly) flowered. It's been a weird year all the way around - I'm blaming the drought.

And I dont think I mentioned this earlier, but I have never pulled flowers off, and have had excellent yields. This is one of my purple vikings last year.

I have always found that when there are blossoms then there are 'new potatoes'... the small ones. These continue to grow larger as the year goes on until the vine itself dies.

I almost like 'baby' potatoes better than the big ones, so I have my hand in the soil feeling around for potatoes for dinner as soon as there's blossoms.

@ekgrows what was the inside like for that 15oz potato? I find some of my huge potatoes, and even a few huge baker potatoes I've bought like yours had hollow hearts because of excess growth caused by to much water followed by soil drying out and then to much water again along over fertilizing with potassium.

If you want big potatoes just add extra potassium every couple weeks after they flower when they start bulking, because potassium is a luxury uptake so the plants will continue to pull it in and store it in the tubers, but you need to have consistent soil moisture or risk hollow hearts. I used to grow huge monster Norland reds like yours but had to many hollow hearts so switched to Pontiac reds which tasted better and were less prone to hollow hearts.

Adding potassium after flowering and maintain consistent moisture isn't the easiest thing to do with overhead sprinklers because water and fertilizer ends up between the rows. So this year I'm using drip tape and can add potassium to the water and get deep watering with the fertilizer right over the potatoes. I can't wait to see what I get, 18oz'ers? I'm also growing Kennebec potatoes but tried for over a decade to get big Burbank russets but stop because I never got enough big potatoes. If this drip tape works really good I might try Burbank again next year.

@outpaientzero - I've grown purple viking for at least 6 years now, and have never had hollow heart. In fact, in the 12 years I've grown potatoes, I only experienced it once with purple majesty potatoes. It was a new bed, and I tilled too much leaf matter into the soil - it was hard to keep moist enough. I always use drip on all my gardens, and it is a game changer for sure. If you like big potatoes, try purple viking. I've never had any issues with them. We'll see how my yields are this year - earwigs are shredding many things they have never touched before - including my potato plants. :(