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Post by DarJones on Dec 22, 2010 20:30:57 GMT -5
Fairy ring?
You been nipping at the jug more than is good for you? The little people DON'T like to be talked about at all.
There may be a use for perennial grain, but as noted, it might not work very well for logistical reasons. DarJones
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Post by silverseeds on Dec 22, 2010 22:01:36 GMT -5
There may be a use for perennial grain, but as noted, it might not work very well for logistical reasons. DarJones They need some selection and breeding work is all..... Im sure it was some time before annual grains were even close to as useful as they are now. The good thing is we have abilities such people didnt, namely breeding(more powerful then selecting alone) which allows us to shift up the traits somewhat, and offers the quicker potential to find more desirable forms.
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Post by silverseeds on Dec 22, 2010 22:05:49 GMT -5
Tom Wagner and I would like to breed some frost-resistant potatoes if it is possible. If nothing else a potato that were as coldhardy as an onion would reduce the risk of losing all your potatoes from freezing. Might want to check with oikos tree crops. they have a small blue potatoe, which they claim has this ability. surviving freezing in th soil that is. supposed to be what survived after some breeding work with a bunch of mountainous potatoes I believe.
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Post by Hristo on Dec 23, 2010 12:57:09 GMT -5
Really? Potatoes left in ground over winter will sprout and grow? HMMMM.... we weren't sure about this. Fact! We have volunteer plants every year. But I can't say what the survival percent is! All of the mother tubers are placed at least 10 cm. (4 in.) deep in the soil. Now I ask myself why i have not experimented with this?! Well, I will plant now about 10 tubers of each variety I have (less than 10). At least I will know if survivability is variety dependent. What are your over wintered potatoes like when harvested? Usually we rotate potatoes with corn, so they pop in the corn patch some of them we weed and some dig as new potatoes. They are definitely 1-2 weeks earlier than the spring planted (most year we plant them late march and they sprout around 1 May)
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Post by mjc on Dec 23, 2010 13:06:43 GMT -5
Overwintering of potatoes was one of the main contributory factors to the Potato Famine being so devastating, in Ireland, in the 1840s. (Monocropping and using a particularly susceptible variety didn't help anything, either.)
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Post by atash on Dec 23, 2010 13:43:12 GMT -5
They don't have it listed but I could ask them by email. I did some Internet searching on the keywords "potato frost resistant tubers" and got nothing but hits on experiments related to the feasibility of potatoes with frost-resistant foliage for places like Alaska, Estonia, and Finland. Ha! I think they already exist and have for a long time--the Peruvians already seem to have some varieties with frost-resistant foliage. Even though the country is tropical potatoes are grown at elevations high enough to see nightly frost! Problem is getting tropical potatoes to tuberize early at really high latitudes, or in places too cold to have any growing season left after the autumnal equinox. There are however commercial potatoes from places like Finland and Estonia that are designed for extremely early tuberization. Just need to combine that trait with frost-resistance. This is the species the researchers have been using: es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_commersoniisome reporting success, and some failure. I'm curious if there are native potatoes, or near relations, in Chile that would work. I wonder if some of the problem is that species at higher latitudes and rainier climates tend to lack tubers. No need for tubers if there is no dry season.
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Post by atash on Dec 23, 2010 14:26:19 GMT -5
Overwintering of potatoes was one of the main contributory factors to the Potato Famine being so devastating, in Ireland, in the 1840s. (Monocropping and using a particularly susceptible variety didn't help anything, either.) That's right, they left rotting tubers in the field. They also did not recognize the infection, so harvested potatoes in storage not only rotted but spread the disease to potatoes that had not yet been infected, thereby destroying most of the crop. Tubers sufficiently deep in the ground are unlikely to get it. Shallow potatoes sometimes get it from either exposure to the surface or the infection spreading down the stem. Potatoes are natives of the southern hemisphere and as is typical of southern hemisphere natives tend to have zero resistance to Phytophthora rots because they did not occur in the southern hemisphere until recently. However, growing potatoes in blight-infested parts of the world is resulting in some survivors that have favorable mutations that help them resist late blight. It is amazing to see potatoes still healthy and green after their neighbors are all collapsed dead. There are now multiple genes associated to resistance. One problem is that late blight comes in several strains and it's challenging to have resistance to every strain. Blight hits fast. It kills potatoes in a day or two, and tomatoes in a few hours. No kidding. There are a few blight-resistance genes for tomatoes too but they are not in the ones like Legend advertised as blight-resistant. If they survive the first onslaught they'll usually survive until heavy frost kills them. Late blight seems to like a fairly narrow temperature range and is not active when too warm or too cold. We up here have the problem that "late blight" also hits in Spring. Tomato seedlings seem more vulnerable than potatoes. It has made it complicated for me to get tomatoes outdoors in the spring. I carefully cover them over and keep them on the dry side in a polytunnel until nights stay warm enough to discourage "late" blight.
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Post by DarJones on Dec 23, 2010 18:05:05 GMT -5
Legend is limited to ph2 which conveys only limited tolerance to late blight.
Re cold tolerance, this is a desirable trait in tomatoes as well as potatoes. I have a line of tomatoes that has survived 22 degrees F (-6 C). I have also gathered a few tomato seedlings that have been exposed to extreme low temps and have survived though the best of them so far can handle 28F at most.
DarJones
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Post by ianpearson on Mar 1, 2011 11:20:37 GMT -5
The traditional (oldstyle) way of storing potatoes overwinter in the UK is in a 'clamp' — a heap of spuds with a layer of straw, then a layer of soil over the top. This is to prevent frost penetration. Tubers which are frosted will rot, so yes, I'd say that overwinter potato survivors are those that are deep enough to avoid frost penetration. However the foliage is another thing altogether. Mainstream varieties are all tender, but I have noticed that varieties I have grown which are not pure Solanum tuberosum display more frost resistance. Four varieties grown last year (three were tuberosum x phureja, one was at least part Solanum ajanhuiri) survived a Spring frost almost undamaged, when pure tuberosum varieties in the next bed were killed back to soil level. I have descriptions of the varieties here: oca-testbed.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-that-other-andean-tuber.html
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Post by ottawagardener on Mar 1, 2011 14:49:17 GMT -5
I read about the oikos potatoes too and figured I could probably encourage some of the volunteers that I missed during harvest but had the same concern about harbouring diseases not only to the potatoes but to tomatoes and related plants. Trying to break both blight(es) resistant and frost resistant potatoes is very interesting though.
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Post by silverseeds on Mar 1, 2011 15:40:00 GMT -5
Looks like oikos doesn't have it listed this year.
So a question then, could, not would, this imply the oikos potato had some bight or disease resistance? Maybe it just isn't a blight prone area. Of course they don't have it listed this year either, so perhaps disease caught up to it.....
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 21, 2011 14:24:26 GMT -5
Today (March 21st) I planted several thousand corn seeds. I'm screening for seeds that survive in cold soil, and/or for plants that are frost tolerant. As part of this same experiment I made previous plantings in mid-September, and in mid-December.
This planting is about 10 weeks before our average last frost, and about 7 weeks before su sweet corn is typically planted here, and about 12 weeks before I normally plant se+ sweet corn.
I planted three types of corn: Bear Island Flint, Painted Mountain Flour, and sweet and flour corns from my hybrid swarm.
I planted at two depths: About 1" and about 5". I'm wondering if planting deeper will aid in frost tolerance.
p.s. I planted the 5" deep row where potatoes were grown last summer. There were lots of rotted potatoes, but none that were viable.
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Post by silverseeds on Mar 21, 2011 17:25:20 GMT -5
Tim Peters did some level of work on this (Im not really sure the scope) but I have a few pounds of it. So this is more then feasible.(having trouble germinating this though, so far not a one, going to try tome other means this year) He had it germinating well before the last frost, and then surviving several frosts as a seedling, a few nights in a row even. If you still have frost EVERY night that may be an issue, but if youve got a window enough for it to germinate well I think its got lots of potential.
I find it extra interesting because if I prep it right I can still have good moisture in my soil at that point most years, which lessons the need for water and makes my dryland corn aims possible. (along with other tactics)
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Post by spacecase0 on Mar 21, 2011 17:53:53 GMT -5
I find it extra interesting because if I prep it right I can still have good moisture in my soil at that point most years, which lessons the need for water and makes my dryland corn aims possible. (along with other tactics) I wanted corn that can do that for the same reason, did not know that others had already been working on it.
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Post by cortona on Mar 21, 2011 18:45:35 GMT -5
i'm working on corn for exactly the same reason! dry land corn(flour corn is my goal)
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