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Post by reed on May 13, 2018 5:55:22 GMT -5
I put out most of my seedlings yesterday. Actually more than I really wanted too. I had made a rule that I would only have one per small pot. I culled some but still broke the rule and put two in some pots. I have 10 large tubs, each with 2 smaller pots sitting on top rather than 3 like last year. That leaves more room for a production crop planted directly in the large tub. Some large tubs get got a mixed planting of seedlings but I saved 5 for production. Slips from "First Bloom First Seed" will be used for my production crop. I kept 9 of the best from "Bushy Bloomer", some of which have green rather than purple leaves. I'm in hopes that indicates a possibility of orange roots. I kept 7 from "First Bloom First Seed" they vary in color. The mother plant was the only one last year with nice orange roots. Then about 20 from mixed and 2016 backup seeds. I chopped up the ones I had in the window sill over winter and got about 20 nice starts so will have to find room for them. The woman says I can put some in with the flowers in some of her large pots so that will help. I won't tell her that unlike the ornamentals she is used to, these do make large roots. I still have some room in the pots for slips from the saved roots. I was worried that they may have been getting badly root bound in the little cell trays but they actually came out about right. Here is what some of them looked like at planting time. The one in the middle is a little unusual in that it's seed leaves dried up. Last year a lot still had the seed leaves at the end of the season. There was just one example of it but I also had one later sprouting one that had more roots than the bigger ones. It made me think of Carol Deppe's writing about how some corn grows it's roots first and can be an advantage. Maybe the same applies here, maybe discarding later sprouting ones isn't necessarily the best policy. O'well just the one example and I still like the first ones best. I did plant and tagged that one. Will see how it grows compared to the others.
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Post by reed on May 16, 2018 7:38:18 GMT -5
I got mine out with exception of all the slips from the one I'm using for production. It just keeps making more and I'm gonna keep planting them till the first of June or so. This plant has pretty much everything I could want. Good seed production, excellent flavored sweet roots of good size, roots keep perfectly all winter, produces slips easily and abundantly, compact growth habit.
They certainly don't like cold that is for sure, I think I reported before that last year a cool wet period in August caused a lot of blooms to abort. It's been horrible hot and dry here. Purple leaved ones especially, wilt down in hot sun, they did that last year too but doesn't seem to effect blooming or root development. The are just wilted looking in the afternoons, does make me wonder if they might do fine in a little shade.
I hope to have enough seeds this year that I could if I wanted too, do trials for cold tolerance but there are lots of other things I could be doing with them as well. For example planting some in isolation to test for self compatibility or growing lots in very small pots to see if they reveal their seed production ability and root type that way. Then I could keep good ones as windowsill plants for the next year. This project got way bigger way faster than I ever imagined it would. For now I am going to do the isolation test on one each of my two favorite plants.
(sweet potato roots and slips from are not for sale or trade)
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 16, 2018 11:04:58 GMT -5
Hey reed: No worries on the cold tolerance testing. I got that. I needed room in the house for other things, so I moved the sweet potato seedlings to the greenhouse, which I haven't been heating. About 10% of them promptly died. Nighttime temperatures have been around 40. I know what you mean about the project getting bigger! I have somewhere around 70 plants, and have only just started to pull a few sprouts from last year's tubers.
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Post by reed on May 17, 2018 8:30:01 GMT -5
Ah, I'd say that shows cold tolerance is variable and if it's variable, it can be selected for. I think I'm already selecting for those less picky about germination conditions with my less than ideal methods. This year I suppose was especially good for that with the long periods of cool cloudy weather. My overall germination was only around 40%.
I only kept 40 seedlings, well I still have the others for now but not paying them much attention and undecided on what to do with them. I focused just on the first and strongest, about 1/2 of which came from BB and FSFB. The rest of the 40 are first and strongest from mixed seed and 2016 seed.
Unfortunately still no phenotype indication of a cross to I pandurata. A couple of those seeds are in the group but apparently the bees repollinated those flowers with other batatas. Also no pandurata seedlings. I bet they would have benefitted from some cold stratification but I'm keeping them watered to see if they come up later.
Then I have both BB windowsill clones and root slips. That is interesting cause they, at this point look very different. First year genetic mutation like the literature indicates is common?? Guess I'll find out.
And root clones from FSFB, one of those is a little off type from the rest, with more purple to the leaves.
And the three out of 50 that sprouted in the cold frame, they got a special spot. If they make seeds I'll be really happy. If they make seeds and good roots I'll be really, really happy.
Then there's the ornamental collection over in the woman's flower garden, she is mostly responsible for those.
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Post by richardw on May 17, 2018 16:13:44 GMT -5
Daaamn, I am so envious. Our sweet potatoes flower reasonably (2 varieties) but I don't think they are interested in each other as there has never been any seed. Don't expect any this year either, it's been a lousy year for sweet potatoes here. So what made last summer a lousy year for SP ferdzy
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Post by ferdzy on May 17, 2018 19:32:13 GMT -5
richardw, we had a very cool, rainy summer. We did get a better harvest than I expected, but that's because we kept them covered in plastic for much of the summer and also early fall was reasonably mild so we could leave them in the ground until quite late. But none of the more heat-loving plants did really well last year. The tomatoes in particular were absolutely dismal.
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Post by reed on May 18, 2018 5:30:45 GMT -5
They look good. You got one, top middle, with the lobed leaves. I didn't get any of those this year, even from the 2016 seeds. Are you growing any of your others, those that produced the volunteers last year? Be real nice to get those genes mixed into the pool.
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Post by reed on May 18, 2018 16:43:44 GMT -5
We gotta do something about this issue of sweet potatoes curling up their leaves and croaking just cause of a little cold snap. That's why I'm excited to hear about Joseph's experience with some that did and some that didn't.
Also very exciting to have the three cold frame seedlings. Germ rate there was 6% which I'm realizing now is a very encouraging number. I don't know if cold sprouting translates to cold tolerance but sounds good to me.
Besides cold tolerance and more within reach, the other thing I want is short season maturity. I want that in every thing I grow. I know the argument that maximum yield is achieved with longer season but I don't buy it. It requires hospitable conditions for the duration, something that can't be counted on. A successful harvest IS maximum yield as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by reed on Jun 1, 2018 4:58:07 GMT -5
I was more careful collecting seeds last year than the year before but apparently missed some as I just found two volunteers. They are just getting true leaves so I guess they are maybe a week to 10 days or so old. Must have sprouted around May 20. Also two of the volunteers from last year survived as windowsill plants over winter and are doing well since planting out. I scrounged up another big tub and moved the new ones into it. I want to see if they have time to mature and produce usable roots and hopefully seeds.
The three cold frame plants are doing well. I'm thinking it might not be necessary to go to the trouble of starting seeds early or even inside. Cold frame in early/mid May rather than inside in early April might be just fine. That would simplify things greatly for me. Just got to keep selecting for early maturity.
I wonder how long it would take or given their erratic nature if it is even possible to stabilize a productive seed grown variety to the point it can be reliably grown from seed and produce seed for the next year. Or will it always be that multiple phenotypes have to be grown together? I'd be OK for example with a line where some plants had green leaves and orange roots and some had purple leaves and purple roots. You would just never know at planting time how many of each you would end up with. Is it possible for a purple plant to have orange roots? Maybe I'll find out this year.
Actually color from leaves to roots isn't a one or the other situation it is more of a blend. Leaf shape is one or the other, either heart shape or lobed, but there is lots of variation within the lobed group.
How are every one else's TSPS plants doing this year?
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Post by walt on Jun 5, 2018 12:31:40 GMT -5
I thought last year was a bust for sweet potatoes. I never got a single seed. But the 20 gallon pot I grew sweet potatoes in last year has many seedlings in it this year. My doctor says I have catoracts. Maybe he's right. I'm putting off surgery until garden season is over.
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Post by farmermike on Jun 9, 2018 12:22:34 GMT -5
How are every one else's TSPS plants doing this year? Here are my TSPS plants that I got in the ground on May 18th. The 3 on the left are from Bushy Bloomer. The rest are from Reed's general TSPS mix. We had a couple weeks of cool windy weather in late May, so they haven't really taken off yet, but they're still looking healthy. I also ordered 4 purple sweet potato varieties from Sandhill (Nam Hai, Purple Delight, Dingess Purple, Molokai Purple). I planted those on June 7th in the same bed as the seed grown plants. Hopefully I'll get some crosses with the purple ones! I have high hopes for getting a decent amount of seeds this year. I also had one more Bushy Bloomer seed pop up 2 months after the rest of the seeds. I may just grow that one in a pot, as I'm out of garden space now.
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Post by reed on Jun 10, 2018 4:26:58 GMT -5
Our weather has been a little screwy too and mine were slow to take off after planting. I'v had to water a lot since it turned hot but they are taking off pretty good now. Once the roots get out the drain holes of the pots and into the larger tubs below and or the ground, watering won't be needed near as much. I think most have done that already.
A couple have bloomed a little but they didn't coincide with one another and didn't set seed. I inspected good yesterday and about fifteen or so, have little bloom buds. They take a good while so I don't expect mature seed in June but will be saving seed from the earlier plants separately from the later ones.
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Post by richardw on Jun 10, 2018 15:05:32 GMT -5
So the plants that are forming bloom buds, are they from tubers or this seasons seed?
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Post by reed on Jun 10, 2018 17:30:11 GMT -5
So the plants that are forming bloom buds, are they from tubers or this seasons seed? They are from seed grown, I didn't count the ones grown from last years roots or the ones I kept in the window over winter. Don't know what the full total is. Both of those that have already opened flowers are also seed grown.
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Post by reed on Jun 11, 2018 9:12:30 GMT -5
farmermike, that plant in lower right of your picture is the first I'v seen with green lobed leaves. Will be interesting to see what comes from it. I'm also looking forward to seeing how your mixing in the purple ones works out. Genetics for purple roots is possibly in the seeds I sent you. I had two last year with purple roots. Unfortunately they both had issues with some kind of disease or insect that left thin black streaks inside the roots so I culled them both. Both purple ones had it and no others did so I culled them. One was real pretty, other than the black streaks. It was two toned, light purple with dark purple star pattern when cut in cross section.
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