found something a bit unexpected in my Jerusalem cricket enclosure

So i sliced a potatoe in half and put it in the Jerusalem cricket enclosure a while baxk so it would have something to eat. I must have for got to take it out because earlier today i found a small green stem coming from the substrate i grabbed my feeding tongs and blpulled it up only to find that both potatoes produced small plants. Anyone else ever find this before?

yeah, that's what potatoes do. most potato like root vegetables will grow like this. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips etc...

And that potato plant is loaded with a powerful poison as is the greenish part of a potato. Solanine, one of mom natures most effective insecticides.

I actually found an old sweet potato the other day that had a plant growing from it with actual leaves coming off of it. About 5 of them each the size of a penny. I kinda marveled at it a bit, then threw it in the compost heap

The Snark said:

And that potato plant is loaded with a powerful poison as is the greenish part of a potato. Solanine, one of mom natures most effective insecticides.

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Wow glad i got rid of them when i did then. Thanks for the info.

Yeah the culture is getting further out of touch with nature. I often stop by the cheap veggies that are getting old just to see what kind of root/tuber veggies they have so I can put them in the ground just for the heck of it. I told the two cashiers I was going to put them in the ground, that I didn't even like radishes... One said, you mean this stuff grows?! The other said, "I know someone that put one of those purple potatoes in the ground and it grew!" "NO WAY!" They also put a carrot in the ground and it grew too!" "You mean this stuff grows if you put in the ground?!" I said, "All this stuff grows in the ground." "That's cheating!" I almost couldn't believe my ears. I wonder what they are putting in the water here in Austin. Anyway, yeah I wouldn't worry about the potatoes and the skin, it will instinctively know to eat that or not, it's more of a natural deterrent in nature. Humans did a lot over the centuries to breed as much out to make them safe for human consumption. I feed potatoes to my feeders, roaches and crickets, sometimes a little green but they handle it with no apparent problems.

Galapoheros said:

Yeah the culture is getting further out of touch with nature. I often stop by the cheap veggies that are getting old just to see what kind of root/tuber veggies they have so I can put them in the ground just for the heck of it. I told the two cashiers I was going to put them in the ground, that I didn't even like radishes... One said, you mean this stuff grows?! The other said, "I know someone that put one of those purple potatoes in the ground and it grew!" "NO WAY!" They also put a carrot in the ground and it grew too!" "You mean this stuff grows if you put in the ground?!" I said, "All this stuff grows in the ground." "That's cheating!" I almost couldn't believe my ears. I wonder what they are putting in the water here in Austin. Anyway, yeah I wouldn't worry about the potatoes and the skin, it will instinctively know to eat that or not, it's more of a natural deterrent in nature. Humans did a lot over the centuries to breed as much out to make them safe for human consumption. I feed potatoes to my feeders, roaches and crickets, sometimes a little green but they handle it with no apparent problems.

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Many animals develop a tolerance to Solanine. Some larvae actually make themselves toxic as a defense mechanism. But the rot sets in that the toxin is just too darned powerful to take a chance with. If you've ever scarfed down a potato salad that was hiding green not quite cooked potatoes under the dressing I guarantee you will be potato shy for the rest of your life.
Also of interest, they now have reason to believe, backed by laboratory findings, that some chronic diseases are caused or exacerbated by the presence of Solanine in the body. Certain forms of arthritis and osteoporosis to name a couple.

Isn't it flat out amazing how removed modern day man is from the real world? Just looking at the average city dwellers it makes me wonder how the human race has survived this long.

One that really drove that point home was my dad was a caretaker of a scout camp. It fell on me to lecture the kids on the various hazards around the camp including the ubiquitous poison oak. NONE of the kids or the leaders/councilors took me lecture seriously. Every single group that came to that camp had some kids that went home with the rash-itch.

Eventually irate parents took things up with the people in charge of the camp and got up in my dad's and my face. GET RID OF THAT NASTY PLANT! NOW!!
I explained, "Approximately 70% of the vegetation at the camp was poison oak. The camp is also in a critical erosion prone area and poison oak is the hardiest and most effective erosion control plant available. All the trails are cleared and all campers clearly warned. What more do you want? And by the way, one quarter mile down the stream from the camp is a run off catchment basin. When it fills up it costs about $80,000 to clean out. If the camp causes it to fill up by cutting down all our erosion control plants, guess who they are going to bill?"

After I left the camp they had someone else come in who cut back all the brush. All four of the overnight stay cabins went over the cliff during the next rainy season.
MORONS!!!

I know, it's pretty strange to me, strange that "strange" can be so normal to such a mass of people but it happens, ...all my opinion of course. I want to get back to taking care of myself more, not relying so much on centralized systems that provide your water, waste water removal, electricity and food. People say, "What are you afraid of?" It's not fear, not what they are thinking anyway. If I threw the idea of fear in there, I would say I'm 'afraid' of resenting not having fresher vegetables, afraid of 'resenting' paying somebody else for water when I can have the source on my own property..... I'm sitting on bedrock though, I like it here but, too much I don't like. The potato thing is in reference to inverts, they can handle the greenish organically grown store-bought potatoes. That's what my feeders get on a reg basis, no problems to them or things fed the crickets. The exotic pet store has fed their crickets the same way for 30 years, I've seen no problems there. But I understand, for the fanatically careful, whatever. Sometimes I counter fears here that seem unreasonable 'to me' to try and stop fears/rumors from getting out of hand, like fear of a mushroom growing in a terrarium, cleaning the terrarium like it's a problem. Mold and other fungi are OK in trop terrs ime, they live in all that.

Jerusalem crickets may actually be resistant to solanaceous toxins..


remember to give em meat too!

Galapoheros said:

Sometimes I counter fears here that seem unreasonable 'to me' to try and stop fears/rumors from getting out of hand, like fear of a mushroom growing in a terrarium, cleaning the terrarium like it's a problem. Mold and other fungi are OK in trop terrs ime, they live in all that.

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Quite right. We don't need to start another farcebook blitz of a new deadly nasty horrible blah blah barf.

The thing about Solanine is it is so unpredictable. The staple diet of a good chunk of the population of the planet relies on potatoes but the green plant above has been known to kill cattle. Green potatoes are also deadly but how and why certain invertebrates develop a tolerance or even immunity is unknown. But other versions, as Jimson weed, are downright toxic to everything including grubs that thrive on green potatoes. And then there are other toxins mixed in which complicate things; tropanes and nicotine.
And as always, oddities that get into the works. Capsaisin is also present in many of the Nightshade family. Now, tell me why it, like an habanero pepper, will blow a mammals head off but birds are completely unaffected? The seeds have been known to cause or aggravate peptic ulcers but can remain in a birds intestinal tract for days without having any noticable effects.

But the bottom line is, especially for newbies in the animal keeping game, avoid the Nightshade family. If for no other reason, the toxins tend to be accumulative, and the effects compound over time.

Smokehound714 said:

Jerusalem crickets may actually be resistant to solanaceous toxins..


remember to give em meat too!

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I do feed my jerusalem cricket a superworm now and again. I always was fascinated by the way they eat prey.

The reason birds are immune to capsaicin is because the plants target them.

Capsaicin is used by nightshades to repel mammals and other chewing animals.

The seeds pass through a bird intact, but mammals destroy seeds.


That's why those toxic berries are red.

It is interesting stuff, I first learned about it when I was younger, I would actually pick out the green potatoes to eat! I assumed they were possibly just a little better for me. Then years ago, I decided to look up the history of potato culture for some reason, don't remember why, and learned of the whole nightshade family. Fortunately I never felt even slightly nauseated eating green potatoes, which is just chlorophyll but is a good indication there is higher concentrations of Solanine. I read some people tolerate an amount much better than others, genetics. Plant eating inverts that can't handle solanine should instinctively turn away from eating that stuff, it's very common around here. I have some fruit of a wild nightshade plant. They are unusually large so I wanted to find out what species it is, almost the size of a pingpong ball, still haven't figured out what sps it is.

Galapoheros said:

II have some fruit of a wild nightshade plant. They are unusually large so I wanted to find out what species it is, almost the size of a pingpong ball, still haven't figured out what sps it is.

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Do you have a picture? I'm trying to get through terminologies and nomenclature here. The 'Deadly' Nightshade plant produces purple black berries smaller than peas. So something the size of a ping pong ball might be over in the eggplant makes and models.

That is another one. To many Americans eggplant is a purple elongated vegetable the size of a fist or a little smaller that when cooked turns into slime. When I came to Thailand there is a bewildering variety of them. Small greenish white the size of marbles, yellow a little larger than cherry tomatoes, white ones that look like ping pong balls, purpleish or gray-green ones an inch or two thick and up to 18 inches long as examples. All edible, all in the nightshade family.

the snark said:

after i left the camp they had someone else come in who cut back all the brush. All four of the overnight stay cabins went over the cliff during the next rainy season.
Morons!!!

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lol!!!!

I may take a pic later, I threw it in the back of my truck in Summer. It looks much like Solanum elaeagnifolium, Silver leaf nightshade, yellow fruit but they are much larger than anything I've seen. The plant was more compact too, lower to the ground. Might only be only Silver leaf going with the odds, that grew that way because of the immediate eviro it was in. I questioned it because they were so big. A mower took it down before they got their color but turned yellow later. My dad is almost 80 and been a smoker most of his life, he was getting hand tremors, went cold-turkey, stopped smoking and the tremors almost went away. I wonder if solanine was pushing him just past the point of getting tremors due to solanine in tobacco(read something about it), another nightshade.

Galapoheros said:

I may take a pic later, I threw it in the back of my truck in Summer. It looks much like Solanum elaeagnifolium, Silver leaf nightshade, yellow fruit but they are much larger than anything I've seen. The plant was more compact too, lower to the ground. Might only be only Silver leaf going with the odds, that grew that way because of the immediate eviro it was in. I questioned it because they were so big. A mower took it down before they got their color but turned yellow later. My dad is almost 80 and been a smoker most of his life, he was getting hand tremors, went cold-turkey, stopped smoking and the tremors almost went away. I wonder if solanine was pushing him just past the point of getting tremors due to solanine in tobacco(read something about it), another nightshade.

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There are pictures on google. That's one they call an eggplant here. The plant is one of the common cattle killers and a ranchers nightmare because it's so invasive.

It is way too common to point fingers at a single source for a disease. IMHO, most diseases are compound effects that accumulate until they reach a tipping point. Smoking, maybe added to having eaten a lot of beef plus assorted chemical exposures plus .... and so on.

People are also always finding some miracle food. Q-10 made me feel 83 years younger!! Well, any food supplement will, if you don't have it in your normal diet or can't assimilate it for any of a few thousand reasons. Vitamin C prevents colds! If you haven't been able to assimilate it or get enough in your diet. If you have, or if you try to get it from ascorbic acid it is just a mild diuretic.

He's a retired doctor and said it was the cigarettes pushing him over to the shakes but he didn't go into any of the details, I wonder if he considered Solanine. His doc was trying to figure it out too. I'm going to ask him for more details. You're right though he also has distal neuropathy, ...age, a bunch of cliff hangers ready to go.

Solanales are super diverse.. it's a shame datura gets a bad rap, some species are very striking..

Smokehound714 said:

Solanales are super diverse.. it's a shame datura gets a bad rap, some species are very striking..

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Nod nod! In the verges of the forests here just at the start of the rainy season they poke their trumpets up in a sudden riot of flowers. About the time I get around to carrying the camera and getting some shots they are done flowering for the year.