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Post by reed on Jan 18, 2018 8:34:07 GMT -5
Never heard of those, at first I thought maybe I should call ghost busters. I looked up what they are, interesting. I expect the notion of breeding for the trait is pretty goofy, probably take 100 years to pull it off and then how would you ever collect it before the ants and bees got it?
In the mean time a second plant has started doing it. I'm collecting it each day on a wood toothpick. Got a nice little crystal, I expect in another week, maybe two, I'll have enough to sweeten a cup of tea.
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Post by reed on Jan 19, 2018 3:20:41 GMT -5
On closer inspection last evening all but one plant is producing the little sugar drops now. When only one was doing it I thought it had just gone unnoticed last summer in the garden. Now I imagine it must be some stress reaction to the environmental conditions on the window sill.
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Post by reed on Jan 19, 2018 4:34:53 GMT -5
I'm getting excited about my sweet potatoes this season. I didn't expect such luck as I had last season as far as lines that produced both seeds and roots. I guess I thought putting seed production as first priority it would take a long time for both but that wasn't the case. Very few seed grown plants failed to produce good roots, even those with the ornamental as a parent. Most culling was for poor blooming or seed set. The first season of seed grown trials produced the six plants I kept so about 12% of the new varieties met both criteria.
Amazingly those six also meet almost all my other criteria, easy and early to sprout without any artificial stratification, short season maturity in both seed and root production, compact growth habit. The only shortcoming is that only one has nicely sweet orange/orange roots which is what people around here think a sweet potato should be. The less sweet purple/white roots aren't bad at all though, used as you would a regular potato.
The orange one and the several orange ones that were culled due to poor seed production I'm pretty sure are descended from the variety Patriot which unfortunately isn't available this year from Sandhill. O'well I have a good amount backup from 2016 so many of them will have those genes.
I got them all out last night to pack some up for a trade and didn't realize how many I still have. Enough that even though I expect a very high failure rate I'm gonna add some new dimensions to the project this year, starting in cold frames and direct seeding. I should easily be able to clone several each of my plants and roots so I'll also grow some in pots as last year and some in the ground.
I'm adding in two or three new kinds this year and devote a sizable part of my gardens to the project with a goal of 1000 seeds from plants that also meet at least some of the other criteria. I think 1000 seeds alone might be fairly easy but I really only want seed from plants that sprouted easy and that also make good roots.
I'm afraid, although I'd like to know these things, that tracking or knowing what particular one is compatible with itself or what other particular one or anything at all resembling a pedigree is just out of the question. The only way for me to do that would be to only grow a few plants and I'm not gonna do that. For any seed I'll only be able to describe the phenotype of the mother plant and maybe not even that cause unless a plant really stands out for some reason like "Bushy Bloomer" did last year I'm not gonna mess with keeping it's seed separate.
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Post by walt on Jan 19, 2018 13:21:39 GMT -5
Back in my grain breeding days, there was a wheat breeder who said "If you know your plants pedigrees, you aren't making enough crosses." Same goes for sweet potatoes maybe. Good luck.
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Post by reed on Jan 20, 2018 7:39:30 GMT -5
Back in my grain breeding days, there was a wheat breeder who said "If you know your plants pedigrees, you aren't making enough crosses." Same goes for sweet potatoes maybe. Good luck. Sounds good to me, I'm officially declaring it to be so. However a lot of questions remain. For example, in 2016 I had two plants that were selfed descendants of the purple ornamental. They both bloomed profusely but together they produced maybe five seeds. They grew tangled up with others that made lots of seeds. Why did three or four flowers set a couple seeds and hundreds of flowers set none? Did a "particular" other plant pollinate the seeds I did get? Which one? Even though they didn't make seeds are they the fathers of a lot of my 2016 seeds? Is one of those plants the father of "Bushy Bloomer" that made hundreds of seeds in 2017? Even at that only maybe 40% of it's flowers made seeds while "First Bloomer" who bloomed far less made seed in nearly every one. Is lots more flowers necessarily better? Will BB's children bloom a lot but make no seeds? Will they make lots? It's gonna take more that a couple hundred square feet of garden and a kitchen window to figure it out so guess in the end, it's still best to just keep getting more seeds and not worry about it.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 20, 2018 7:58:58 GMT -5
Never heard of those, at first I thought maybe I should call ghost busters. I looked up what they are, interesting. I expect the notion of breeding for the trait is pretty goofy, probably take 100 years to pull it off and then how would you ever collect it before the ants and bees got it? In the mean time a second plant has started doing it. I'm collecting it each day on a wood toothpick. Got a nice little crystal, I expect in another week, maybe two, I'll have enough to sweeten a cup of tea. I don't see any way to make the nectar useful as food/sweetener, the only way to make nectar useful is to steal it from bees. The main benefit to the plant, and possibly to the gardener of the plant, is that the nectaries attract predatory wasps, which defend the plant from leaf eating insects simply by concentrating the predatory eyeballs in the vicinity of the plant. When my cowpea is putting out nectar, the patch can be heard some distance away due to how many wasps are congregated, I'd hate to be a caterpillar or even an aphid trying to hide from that.
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Jan 20, 2018 13:00:09 GMT -5
Never heard of those, at first I thought maybe I should call ghost busters. I looked up what they are, interesting. I expect the notion of breeding for the trait is pretty goofy, probably take 100 years to pull it off and then how would you ever collect it before the ants and bees got it? In the mean time a second plant has started doing it. I'm collecting it each day on a wood toothpick. Got a nice little crystal, I expect in another week, maybe two, I'll have enough to sweeten a cup of tea. I don't see any way to make the nectar useful as food/sweetener, the only way to make nectar useful is to steal it from bees. The main benefit to the plant, and possibly to the gardener of the plant, is that the nectaries attract predatory wasps, which defend the plant from leaf eating insects simply by concentrating the predatory eyeballs in the vicinity of the plant. When my cowpea is putting out nectar, the patch can be heard some distance away due to how many wasps are congregated, I'd hate to be a caterpillar or even an aphid trying to hide from that. Ok, I'll admit I haven't been following this thread that closely since I'm not breeding sweet potatoes, but something just occurred to me... if the nectar attracts predatory wasps, wouldn't it also attract ants? In a good way, that is. Because the ants on my property farm aphids like it is their solemn duty to do so, and they are damn good at it. Since there's no way to get rid of thems (their urban super colony extends far beyond my small backyard) perhaps sweet potatoes that leak nectar could serve as a trap crop, of sorts? I'd much rather grow a bunch of beautiful sweet potato vines away from my main garden if it encourages the ants to harvest that by-product nectar, which doesn't hurt the plant, instead of 'herding their cows' all over my eggplants, peppers, corn, sunflowers, melons, etc. (Also curious about the cowpea oxbowfarm mentioned, but I don't want to derail the thread.)
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Post by reed on Jan 20, 2018 13:47:22 GMT -5
I also wondered about the ants and aphids which would not be good. The predatory wasps on the other hand are quite welcome. I think it is irrelevant anyway in regards to sweet potatoes. I have never seen it till I kept them as house plants. It about has to be related to conditions on the windowsill, very hot when sun is shining, subject to drafts on cold dark nights and kept quite dry to discourage rotting.
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Post by walt on Jan 20, 2018 13:55:25 GMT -5
Day. Interesting question. Generally ants herding aphids on plants is bad in the garden because the aphids can spread virus. But would they instead just use the free nector? Don't know, but I doubt it. Aphids aren't real bright, and they might just go ahead and feed their normal way even if they are 1/4 inch from the extrafloral nectory. Then again, while that may be true, or not, the wasps might be chowing down on the aphids and those protecting the whole garden. This could stand some watching.
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Jan 20, 2018 14:43:59 GMT -5
very hot when sun is shining, subject to drafts on cold dark nights and kept quite dry to discourage rotting. Interestingly, apart from the cold nights, my growing conditions are not unlike your windowsill. Hot and dry I have aplenty. Then again, while that may be true, or not, the wasps might be chowing down on the aphids and those protecting the whole garden. This could stand some watching. A good point, that regardless of the ants it may still prove a useful attractant for wasps. Though I'm still curious about the ant factor. Hm... thinky thinky
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Post by reed on Jan 21, 2018 7:33:18 GMT -5
Day, why don't you grow sweet potatoes? I bet you could do so year round.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 21, 2018 9:42:07 GMT -5
Definitely ants are attracted to extrafloral nectaries. Ants are just wingless social wasps after all. I'd say the likely reason that you only see the nectar on your window, if they are indeed extra-floral nectaries, is that outdoors some creature is going to harvest it, so the conditions for a huge droplet to form aren't present.
As far as ants and aphid cows, I have no idea. It seems like some species of ant might make a cost banefit choice and abandon the cow and just go straight to the tap, while others may have co-evolved with the aphids so much that they can't let them go? It wouldn't surprise me at all if aphids wouldn't even be capable of drinking from an extrafloral nectary due to having the wrong sort of mouthparts.
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Day
gardener
When in doubt, grow it out.
Posts: 171
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Post by Day on Jan 21, 2018 11:46:54 GMT -5
reed - well, I'm definitely thinking about doing so now! I think the reason I never considered them before was because I already grow so many viners (squash, melons, cucumbers, etc) that I figured the last thing I needed was another 'garden takeover' project. Knowing what I know now however, I'm definitely considering it. I think the most difficult part would be finding varieties that 'leak' like yours. Unless what oxbowfarm says is true, and most/all do so, we just don't see it because it's already been harvested by the outdoor critters. oxbowfarm - Hm, lots to think about. I wonder about growing it as a ground cover under susceptible aphid farm plants like eggplants/corn/sunflowers... seeing as the ants would be walking through it to get to the stalks they already farm, perhaps they may consider a 'pit stop' along the way for some labor free nectar. Might not stop them farming entirely, but might slow them down, or redirect some of their attention to the sweet potatoes. Screw vegetables, maybe I'll just start a backyard wide ant farm. XD But I guess the first step is to see if they prefer this nectar, tolerate it, or aren't interested at all. The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that. Reed, if you happen to see an ant in the new future can you go shove some nectar in his face and ask his opinion? I'm dying to know XD EDIT: I'm actually putting in a huge mammoth/redsun sunflower patch as an aphid trap crop and minor wind break a few paces from my wibbly andean corn stalks. Does anyone know if sunflowers are allelopathic to sweet potatoes? If not, that might be a great groundcover for this plot.
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Post by reed on Jan 24, 2018 3:56:03 GMT -5
I don't think the sugar drops is really anything to consider in my breeding project but it is a fun little phenomena to watch. Weather has turned off much warmer so windowsill environment has changed. Drafts are not as cold and wood stove about 20 feet away isn't as hot. Not exactly a controlled green house environment and who knows about humidity levels except it is definitely on the low side. Anyway plants have about all resumed a little top growth and sugar drop production has mostly stopped.
I still don't think they make the sugar outside. Once flowering starts I have to inspect practically every single flower, every single day. That's the biggest pain about getting sweet potato seeds, they make a few at a time and you have to be there when each capsule matures or it might shatter on it's own. Also have to dig through the foliage, turning over leaves looking for maturing pods. There are a lot of buzzing insects but if there was much in the way of ant activity or the sugar drops I would surely would have seen it but I'll still be more on the lookout this year.
While the sugar isn't a consideration in breeding I think maybe ability to stay alive and even grow a little in such conditions to make the next years starts might be. Also roots that keep well in the same less that ideal conditions. So far the plants seem fine as do all but one root. Unfortunately it is the only orange/orange root in the bunch. It isn't rotting or getting soft it's just prematurely trying to sprout slips. If it starts to degrade I'll go ahead and pot some slips cause that plant has several other traits I definitely want to keep.
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Post by farmermike on Jan 24, 2018 11:12:30 GMT -5
reed, how are you storing the roots you intend to sprout for slips? I was keeping mine in a paper bag at room temperature. They weren't getting soft or rotting, but a few were starting to sprout. They were on a high shelf where the temp was 70F (or +) when the heat was running. I decided to stick them in the fridge.
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