UK potatoes

[Mark]

I have uploaded some pictures of potatoes I have grown to the photo part of considera - https://photos.app.goo.gl/74vxDGFFcq7NQVSr9.

You can see 14 rows of potatoes planted over 7 days with the middle day being the eclipse as indicated on the considera site - https://considera.org/stars/testers . So far all the rows look reasonably healthy but the eclipse rows are decidedly scrawny compared to those planted before and after.

[Mark]

Yesterday we harvested some rows of potatoes. I had used the dates suggested for showing up contrasts from the considera site - https://considera.org/stars/testers - and planted 3 days before and 3 days after as well as on the day of an eclipse (29 March 2006).

All the plants looked pretty similar by the time the harvest came around
although the difference was clear when the first shoots came up - see photos again - https://photos.app.goo.gl/74vxDGFFcq7NQVSr9
We sorted the harvest by date. We got the following yesterday ...

Planted 28-3-06 Yield: 39.3 Kg/20 plants
Planted 29-3-06 Yield: 25.5 Kg/20 plants
Planted 29-3-06 Yield: 20.5 Kg/20 plants
Planted 30-3-06 Yield: 36.15 Kg/20 plants

So depending on how you do the maths there's around a 40-50% difference in yield with the lowest point during the eclipse. I think a farmer would be happy to be on the right end of this information!

The harvest from the eclipse did not taste sufficiently different for our small select band of expert gastro-gnomes (me, wife and daughters) to confidently assert a preference.

Some of the potatoes are now going to be stored til next year and, after noting how well they store, they will then be planted all at the same neutral time according to Thun's workings and we will see if there is any 'nachbau' (?) difference.

[Mark]

Farmers Moon

p193-194

"This looks to me like the first decent crop-yield eclipse experiment since historical records began...."