Talk:Potatoes/@comment-46946775-20200921132153

First of all, whovever wrote the above article has never grown potatoes. The tubers that are the potatoes do not contain seeds. New plants are grown from the tubers eyes on the surface. Second, how did they get potatoes to Mars in a state where they were still viable to grow? They would have been packed on Earth well in advance of the mission, then spend at least eight months traveling to Mars. Any method used to store the potatoes that long without sprouting or rotting would have left them unable to grow. In the movie they show the potatoes in what looks like a vacuum bag. This would not have worked because the potatoes would still have been full of water indeed would have rotted. Try it, they quickly rot. If you pack them and then sterilize them, then they don’t grow. If you freeze them they turn to mush and probably would not grow. In my opinion, Mark Watney dies when his food from Earth runs out. End of story.