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Post by doccat5 on Dec 27, 2007 17:24:20 GMT -5
We prefer Annie Oakley to the Clemson Spineless. The plant is more of a dwarf, but we get excellent yield with it. I normally try to "fudge" a bit, by warming the soil with plastic milk jugs and planting soaked seeds in the hills. I also protect the hill with the jug until the seed germinate. I take off the lid and check the seedlings regularly. Once they are established and I can winnow down to the strongest plant, the milk jug goes back in the stack. I add a pack of matches with no cover or strike area with some bone meal and compost to the planting hole. I side dress with bone meal and compost mixed. And occasionally use Epsom salts water if I'm getting poor blossom set. We usually do about a dozen plants and I get enough to feed us, friends and other family members. Plus it's amusing to watch the neighbors hide........LOL I use shears and wear gloves to harvest. The little buggers will bite ya. I harvest the pods small and we like the young leaves with dandelions and other greens. I let a couple plants go, those pods I harvest for dried flower arrangements. I have a friend who does arrangements will buy all I can produce. Not huge amount of money, but enough to pay for seed and new plants.
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Post by downinmyback on Dec 27, 2007 18:52:43 GMT -5
I plant Clemson spineless okra as that is the one i have the most luck with in my area. I try to plant it in full sun as the hotter it is the better its does. I have also noticed that if you put too much nitrogen to the plants all they produce are leaves.
I plant mine in the poorest area of the garden where i don't spread my manure and the same area my blackeye peas grow. The shorter the plant is the more fruit its produces. I don't add anything special to the soil and my harvest is very good.
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Post by Alan on Dec 27, 2007 22:40:10 GMT -5
Thanks for the information guys! I will try some of these methods this year and give the Annie Oakley a go and see how it does here.
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Post by doccat5 on Dec 29, 2007 11:25:06 GMT -5
No problem, please let me know how Annie does for you  |
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Post by Alan on Dec 29, 2007 20:06:20 GMT -5
Will do and am looking forward to growing it and trying to sell it in the North.
-Alan
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Post by tatermater on Dec 30, 2007 22:23:23 GMT -5
If anyone has any questions about potatoes in great detail, I might be able to help. I create my own varieties by doing the old-fashioned breeding work. I reduced the number of potato varieties and clones this past year and am not sure what I will continue for 2008. I started about 100,000 seedling plants here in the NW part of Washington, for the years 2004, 2005, 2006, but none in 2007. When you pick up by hand about 100,000 lbs. of potatoes, you know you've over done it! I have collected potatoes from all over; namely tissue culture plantlets , 1st year seedling tuber families, Plant Introduction clones, seed potatoes from growers, etc. I also collect true seed (TPS) and bank many of my OP seed and thousands of crosses. I have been a certified seed grower for the last two years and doing this on organic ground. My nuclear generation potato varieties are Skagit Valley Gold, a yellow/orange fleshed potato of mostly Peruvian crosses. Nordic October, a red skinned, white fleshed potato, and the old heirloom from Ireland, Lumpers, a white skinned, white fleshed potato that hasn't been grown much since 1850. Tom Wagner |
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Post by cff on Dec 30, 2007 22:34:16 GMT -5
Hello Tom"
Glad to meet an experienced plant breeder; I know very little about the breeding side of the garden and would love to learn some tricks of the trade. I would also like to ask you what verity you you would pick for a large baking potato for south central North Carolina.
Thanks in advance
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Post by Alan on Dec 30, 2007 23:12:51 GMT -5
Glad to have you hear Tom, you seem like a great source of information from the posts that I have read of yours over at Tomatoville.
I was wondering if you do much breeding in Potatoes along the lines of color selection like that work which you have done with tomatoes in the past, I know this seems like a strange question since it doesn't apply so much to taste, disease tolerance, or productivity, but I was wondering what some of the stranger potatoes you have come accross and or bred are and what their qualities are. Any truly deep red varieties?
I also wanted to ask you where you stand currently in the commercial release of some of your hybrids or open pollinated lines of tomatoes and potatoes. I know one particular tomato that was namedroped a lot in the past two years was Verde Claro, is there an outlet yet for this variety that you think will be fair to you as a breeder or does the search continue?
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Post by tatermater on Dec 31, 2007 1:51:50 GMT -5
To Carolina Family Farm,
My favorite potato for baking is Amey Russet. It was going to be dropped by the USDA back when it was known as B9922-11. Dr. Haynes agreed with me that it had excellent flavor and named it for a former professor of hers. I grow it but it may be hard to find otherwise.
I have numerous descendants of Amey Russet in the works. One I really like is a cross of it to my Gold Pan variety called Golden Amey. The cross I liked this year is a cross of Golden Amey and Navan. It averages about 12-14 per tuber with yellow flesh and heavy netting. I will have to expand my production, since this past year production was curtailed due to various reasons. So availability outside of just a few lines will be limited this spring.
To Alan,
My work with potatoes is to make them more interesting, more flavorful, more nutritious. faster cooking, adapted to organic farming, and directed to TPS, true potato seed breeding. So I have blue potatoes that make All Blue look pale, Red fleshed potatoes that make Red Thumb, All Red, and others look pink, Yellow/orange potatoes that make Yukon Gold look pale yellow white, and many other color combo, bicolors, tricolors, etc.
I try to find clones that are resistant to Virus X, Y, and leaf roll. I try to get Late Blight resistance along with all kinds of other disorders tended to. Using diploid germplasm aids in this effort.
What I would like to do someday is to provide clean seed potatoes grown from TPS. 1st year seedling tubers of many varieties are easy to produce and disease free since true seed doesn't carry over all the possible viruses, fungal, bacterial, and other problems. One plant of some of my varieties produce enough berries to yield enough true seed to sow enough seedlings to transplant to a full acre. Rapid and clean and diversity is the name of the game.
The certification process as it currently done is expensive,; lab clean up costs, mini tubers cost 75 cents per tuber once clean up is done. Maintenance cost is 300 dollars per clone per year in the lab. Certification field visits costs hundreds, petiole leaf samples costs hundreds, storage costs are high,
Tom Wagner
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Post by ohiorganic on Dec 31, 2007 6:12:48 GMT -5
Tom I was under the impression that you could not grow out true varieties from the seed balls, which I am assuming is the seed source, am I wrong?
My husband saved all sorts of potato seed this fall for planting next spring. Should we be expecting true to type spuds from this or a lot of surprise and mystery? granted nothing was isolated and we had French fingerling co-habitating with German Butterball and some sort of blue tater as well as some Red Norlands
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Post by cff on Dec 31, 2007 9:29:46 GMT -5
Thanks for the information Tom.
One more question .....................................................
How do I talk a potato breeder (like you) into sharing a hard to find type like Amey Russet and then turn that into a learning experience?
I have ample room for potatoes but I'm as interested in learning how to propagate a line as I am in growing a good potato. To Carolina Family Farm, My favorite potato for baking is Amey Russet. It was going to be dropped by the USDA back when it was known as B9922-11. Dr. Haynes agreed with me that it had excellent flavor and named it for a former professor of hers. I grow it but it may be hard to find otherwise.
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Post by plantsnobin on Dec 31, 2007 11:26:32 GMT -5
I came across an interesting site -growseed.org There are links to some good info on potato breeding.
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Post by tatermater1 on Jan 3, 2008 0:57:35 GMT -5
True, but who wants to grow out the same potato when you have chances of growing thousands of new ones?
I like to sow seed from each variety separate so that I can check on the segregation of each.
No true to type, but you will get some interesting near look alikes. The selection pressure on OP's is severe. You will get less than 10% that will be keepers. If they get chance hybridized, your chances and selection percentages go way up, but never will you want to keep the bottom half of a progeny.
I wrote a summary earlier that I lost due to a computer crash about colors to expect from each line that you may save potato berries from. Write me again and tell me which variety for sure are the female parents. All Blue and Norland will be the most apt to produce potato berries.
Carolina Family Farm,
My guess is that you will not have any luck on finding Amey Russets.
I have been trying to get a website together TaterMaterSeeds.com that would address that problem. Email me later is see the progress on that effort.
My website was to offer information on growing your own potatoes from true seed. Someday I may get around to listing a few pointers here.
Tom Wagner
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Post by Alan on Jan 4, 2008 21:33:33 GMT -5
Hey Tom,
I was wondering if you have ever done any work with any other root crops like sweet potatos, maca, oca, or yacone? If so, what type of work and what were you selecting for.
I was also wondering if when you get your website up you were planing on marketing seed potatoes as well as true potato seed or mini-tubers.
-Alan
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Post by tatermater on Jan 5, 2008 1:21:57 GMT -5
Alan,
Most of my breeding work has been in tomatoes, potatoes, corn, peas, beans, wheat, and chickens. Anything else was just trialling, and the only viable entity left has been limited to the first two.
There is only so much cowbirding a person can do when he doesn't own any ground.
Tom
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