Intro: I'm one who technically fried plants at the start of last year, having read that it was preferable to plant tubers deeper in southern states -- yeah, that didn't work out well as I had new plants cresting the soil literally towards the end of the season (Oct-Nov...), and the majority had gone out as pre-sprouted tubers. They also went into new rows, new '50/50" soil. I had mixed results past the above situation - many didn't show up at all. Keep this in mind for my actual questions.

So, I left them in the ground as long as possible, having fallen to the "must be in the ground 120 days", lol, so I gave them even more time (planted first week of May). Also, because I'd fallen to Covid that turned into Long Covid, which meant I could barely get out of bed, though I did manage a regular watering schedule, nothing was ever fertilized. Plus, no staking occurred, either. 🙄 Best laid plans. And all of that...

Digging began December 06. I had many tiny tubers that I knew wouldn't make it through storage, so those came into the house immediately, potted up, put under lights.

Roughly Jan 06 (so only a month or 3-3.5 weeks later) we had temps that dipped into the low 20's and stayed there for several days. My only storage option is an unheated shed. I dreaded checking on them, discovered many totally frozen tubers, saved what I could,,, brought them inside. The majority weren't potted up right away. After checking & rechecking them, having laid them out flat in trays for maybe a week-to-two weeks, I bagged the majority of them up. Gradually I started putting them in individual pots and under lights. Let's say Feb. I figured if I could start early(ier), I might be able to salvage obvious $-losses by starting the cutting process. Not sure I will do this again next season! Not to digress --

I am noticing what seems to me to be a major difference between last year and this year. Last year they eyed up seemingly much faster than this year. I buy into larger tubers are slower to eye up and also that the selections that are considered late season bloomers also factor in to slower to eye up -- it just makes sense.

HOWEVER, with all of that aside I still have quite a large selection of tubers that I am sure there are eyes - they aren't developing. AT ALL. Keep in mind, though they really didn't have much of a chance to 'go to sleep' so that they could 'wake up', they've been kept in grow conditions now for 2-to-2.5 months. So, ha, I'm now wondering how much moon phases have anything to do with any of this. I'm grasping at straws. Or maybe not?

What would you say, from all of the above, is the major contributor to this scenario? Should I be expecting that I just have weak tubers because of last year's challenges?

I've noticed several growers on Insta saying that their tubers are eyeing up very slowly. But undoubtedly theirs were in storage, and got that typical rest phase.

Sorry to be so long winded with this but the devil is somewhere in the details.
Thanks....