True Potato Seed Trials

[Nat]

Got it. My mother tended to store hers between layers of newspaper in the box, which reduced the tangling a little, but it still happened. I remember finding arm-length sprouts on golf-ball-sized potatoes fairly regularly at planting time.

[nathanp]

There are a few other methods of storing potatoes. Some better for seed tubers than for eating tubers.

Here are a few links

storage link

Diffused Light discussion link

Traditional methods

[reed]

I used to have a nice damp cellar with rock walls and dirt floor, taters kept great there, as did about anything else.

[billw]

Mar 5, 2017 16:17:19 GMT -5 philagardener said:

Mar 5, 2017 13:35:31 GMT -5 billw said:

Zolushka is pretty boring, but fairly uniform. Round whites with medium yields mostly. Pollen sterile.

Interesting - I had assumed that in order to get TPS seedlings with a consistent phenotype, Zolushka had to be a self-fertile, inbred line . . . how would that work if it is pollen sterile? 

I would imagine that it is a hybrid between a pollen sterile and pollen fertile variety. Both are probably multiple generations inbred and yield a fairly consistent phenotype. This is true of all the Russian/Ukrainian TPS seed lines that I tried. It's a fine, if unexciting, potato, but probably not a good place to start a breeding project.

[nathanp]

The pollen sterile parent, as Bill suggests, ensures that there is a cross by the pollen fertile parent. Since the pollen sterile variety cannot pollinate itself, all the TPS from it would have been pollinated by the pollen fertile parent. What they likely sell as TPS from this would be the hybrid TPS from the cross. Not the selfed TPS if the pollen fertile variety self pollinates. It ensures the TPS from the cross is a hybrid, with a better chance of hybrid vigor (in whatever capacity that exits with potatoes). The result, if both are highly inbred and genetically similar, probably has the best chance you could have to produce uniformity in appearance, growth and other traits.

I would echo Bill's advice. If I were starting a project that involved breeding for certain traits, I would start with some wide genetic crosses. Especially if your goal is somewhat of an attempt a anything close to resembling a landrace. Wide genetic crosses and TPS from them has the best chance to segregate and show multiple traits to select from, especially if you are doing intentional hand pollinated crosses.

[farmermike]

My first sowing of TPS is going well so far. I received seeds from Joseph Lofthouse, and jondear this winter and germination has been excellent. I over-planted a little, and am assuming I should just thin down to the strongest seedling in each cluster.


I planted these seeds during the last week of Feb. I probably should have planted in Jan. I'm getting pretty close to the end of the season when I feel safe planting potatoes. We often get our first 100F day in May, which causes potatoes to wither up pretty quick. I wish I could be planting these seedlings in the ground today, but they seem like they have a ways to go. I may have to plant these in large pots and grow them under shade cloth in order to get some seed tubers for my fall planting.

I would really like to start producing some of my own TPS, but I wonder if my hot summers and split potato growing season (they only grow in spring and fall here) are going to make that difficult. Come to think of it, it has been a long time since I have had potatoes even flower. The last time I had a potato produce berries was 10 years ago, when I was gardening at 3000' elevation on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, on the north facing side of a deep canyon. I wish I had saved those seeds! Maybe I just need to find the right variety that will flower reliably in my climate.

[steev]

I've yet to see a spud produce a berry on the farm, it gets so hot and dry; I think I'm lucky to get spuds at all (those I do are pretty damned good, though).

[reed]

My seedlings are a little farther along than those and I had similar issue of over crowding. I plucked out puny ones but trimmed a drinking straw into a tiny trowel and was able to separate and transplant some stronger ones.

I'm not sure that I have ever seen a potato berry. I'm thinking of planting mine in the new garden. It has rather heavy clay soil which probably isn't the best for taters but it slopes a little to the north east and gets a small amount of afternoon shade. Either that or planting them north of pole beans or corn.

[philagardener]

I get seed set on some varieties here in PA, varies from one year to the next, from none to some. I think on Kahatadin and Kennebec, but don't know who the pollen donor(s) might have been. If you grow only cms varieties, that might an explanation for no berries.

[garand555]

I just received some diploid TPS in the mail today. I'm kinda excited. It's like a late birthday present.

[billw]

Mar 17, 2017 5:01:14 GMT -5 reed said:

My seedlings are a little farther along than those and I had similar issue of over crowding. I plucked out puny ones but trimmed a drinking straw into a tiny trowel and was able to separate and transplant some stronger ones.

You probably don't need to work that hard. I just wait until some of the seedlings are about 3 inches tall and then remove the soil from the pot, pull apart the root ball, and replant all the seedlings. At that stage, they aren't very fragile and even if there are some small ones that got shaded out, they bounce right back once they are in their own pots.

[farmermike]

Mar 19, 2017 13:37:55 GMT -5 billw said:

I just wait until some of the seedlings are about 3 inches tall and then remove the soil from the pot, pull apart the root ball, and replant all the seedlings. At that stage, they aren't very fragile and even if there are some small ones that got shaded out, they bounce right back once they are in their own pots.

Thanks, billw, that is good to know! (That's basically how I deal with onion seedlings -- except they go straight in the ground after separating.) How long after that would you plant the potato seedlings in the ground?

[reed]

My TPS plants have reached size where they need moved to bigger pots. I'v got it down to fifty now but some have two per and a few have three. It has been very warm here, I'm seriously considering skipping the up-potting step and just planting them in the ground. They have been outside mostly since sprouting anyway so they don't need hardening off. I just got a few survivors from the cold frame but that's my fault, several frosted a while back when I moved the frame and didn't reseal around the bottom, those for sure are going in the ground.

[billw]

Up-potting is optional. It makes transplanting a little easier, but if you plant them in a trench and backfill as they grow, that will work fine too.

[reed]

Just curious, does the color of the stems give an indication of the color of the potatoes?


Also, and more important, are they like tomatoes in that if you bury lower part of the stem it will just turn into root?