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Post by steev on Apr 8, 2017 3:37:17 GMT -5
Nice plants; best of luck.
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Post by philagardener on Apr 8, 2017 6:34:40 GMT -5
Great looking seedlings! Yes, there often is a correlation between plant pigmentation and tuber color. I would plant them deep - and mound soil/mulch up on the stems as they grow for the best yields (and to protect tubers from sunlight). I've had issues late in the season with mulch breaking down and exposing tubers when I was busy doing other things in the garden, so it's worth keeping an eye on that. You are off to a great start!
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Post by nathanp on Apr 9, 2017 15:54:34 GMT -5
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? Yes, and yes. The stem color and color within the leaf (not leaf underside) gives a clue to the tuber color. Generally, blue or red may be visible, which corresponds to blue or red tuber color. Blue/purple is dominant over red, so purple tubers may segregate in their TPS for blue and red. Deep yellow flesh may also be indicated by pale leaves, especially where the leaves connect to the stems. Regarding if they are like tomatoes, yes up until a point. They will reroot by burying the stems, especially when they are small. When you hill potatoes, they generally send out a new layer of roots. However if you bury too deeply, or wait too long to bury them, you risk having the stems rot. Often with TPS seedlings, you will see stolons start to be sent out from the stem above the soil. Just bury them a bit deeper or hill if they are doing this after planting outdoors. |
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Post by reed on Apr 10, 2017 3:32:36 GMT -5
Thanks for the info. I got quite a variety of stem and leaf coloration and plant form. Some are taller with smaller leaves, some are short with thick stems and big leaves. I like the looks of the short squat ones best and they are primarily the red stem ones.
I'm a little afraid a frost could still come but pretty sure hot, dry is just around the corner and I know from last year they don't like that. I decided to risk the frost and went ahead and planted most of them into the ground yesterday. Potted up about twenty to keep as back up.
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Post by steev on Apr 10, 2017 4:14:31 GMT -5
The fun stuff is always a stretch.
Hoping you have great success.
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Post by steev on May 15, 2017 23:40:36 GMT -5
Very honorably ambitious; best of luck to you; given my climate, I envy your rain forecast; after this year's excess, I'm sure I'll see none 'til late October.
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Post by richardw on May 16, 2017 15:14:54 GMT -5
Looking at a tray of well aged berries on my windowsill yesterday thinking i best get them sowed today for slow over winter growth in the tunnelhouse. Nearly have all the past summers crop has been dug and is in storage, very pleased over all with the crop, there were 10 plants dug which came from one single TPS which are now third generation, these were descendants of Moie moie, they produce a good number of huge tubers even though they are just a boring white round spud they do hold together well when boiled so i'll keep these going.
So plans are to keep sowing more seed and hopefully one day a TPS clone will turn out more like the Moie moie clone, so far nothing comes close.
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Post by reed on May 16, 2017 21:13:42 GMT -5
I have about 50 really nice looking tps plants, most in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 inches tall. Beautiful things right now but a little worried how the 90 degree days will effect them.
I wonder if anyone has experimented with frost tolerance so they could be planted say in February to get a harvest before the heat arrives. Or maybe plant them in shade, gotta figure out something since I'm not set up to irrigate.
I dug a hill of tuber grown for supper the other night, they sure were good.
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Post by steev on May 16, 2017 22:23:01 GMT -5
That shade thing is why I'm stoked about the PVC pipe I scored; I've long planned a shade-tunnel/poultry-run; I think I've about got all the components, except the re-bar to tack it down (wind can be an issue on the farm, so it needs to really be robustly anchored, although potentially move-able); not to forget the poultry and their feed/water/shelter gear, of course. There are many crops that would benefit from that shade, easily fenced off from the poultry.
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Post by reed on May 22, 2017 8:18:27 GMT -5
Regarding Superior - setting Open Pollinated berries is not the same as selfed berries. Europotato lists it as pollen sterile. That means all it's berries would be open pollinated (hybrid), with pollen from other potatoes. It would be about the furthest thing from producing TPS that would be stable. This is useful for breeders who want to ensure all the berries are hybrid. Not very useful if you want to get away from male sterility. All its' TPS is likely going to also carry male sterility. "Open Pollinated" in this case does not mean stable, and it does not mean produces seed like itself. It mean, in the breeding sense, "Pollinated only by another potato variety". SuperiorI have a row of these that have pretty much finished blooming and I found two berries, both on the same plant. If this variety is supposed to have cms something odd has happened as no other potatoes were bloomed. At first I was excited thinking this plant for some reason was not cms but then I realized the pollen could have come from a different plant. How do I know when the seeds are mature? I might have time to grow a second crop this season in isolation and see if I can get berries from it again. If so then I could turn them loose with the others next year as they are very tasty potatoes. |
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Post by nathanp on May 22, 2017 18:27:39 GMT -5
Too Many Irons said:
I am doing the same with the main location I plant potato tubers in. Moving to a different field on the same area, 1/10 mile away. And I am waiting to plant any solanum plants until the 2nd week of June. I am weeding overwintered potatoes once a week in an effort to starve any CPB that have overwintered. I saw one mature CPB this past weekend, and it laid eggs on one plant that had it's stem out of the ground. Waiting until June hopefully misses the first round of CPB.
Reed said:
I have planted potatoes and TPS seedlings successfully in partial shade. Yields do suffer somewhat, but plants will grow fine in the shade.
Berries are fully mature at about 60 days after forming. Usually when they start to soften means they are ripe. After about 30 days, they are usually mature enough to have viable seed inside.
Male sterility does not always mean it is from CMS. I think there are something like 12 known factors that could cause male sterility and a few that can cause female sterility. And that just covers the known factors, not the unknown. Other potatoes may have viable pollen that is very week. It is possible that if you or a neighbor have another potato variety nearby, a bumblebee has done the pollination work. Otherwise, perhaps it is not fully sterile. I had a 120 Kennebec plants a few years back and got 13 berries, even though I had 50 other types of potato plants adjacent to them. Kennebec is completely male sterile, and the 13 berries were all on a handful of plants. Any offspring of that seed will also be male sterile, so I am not keen to grow that out other than just seeding what turned up.
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Post by reed on May 22, 2017 21:28:31 GMT -5
Thanks for the info. If it takes 60 days that is probably too long to think of a second crop this season. I have other potatoes but none in bloom. My closest neighbor that gardens is over a mile away so pollen had to come from the same patch. Haven't seen bumblebees on the flowers just a dark colored fly, I think, with orange on it. I'm not familiar with it and they are very uncooperative as far as getting a good look. They fly away if I get within three or four feet.
I'll grow these seeds next year but to be safe keep saving them separately. If they do have good pollen it can mix into the rest anyway.
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Post by nathanp on May 24, 2017 0:08:45 GMT -5
Reed - you don't need the full 60 days to have viable seed. That is ideal, but many berries will have viable seed at about 30 days.
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Post by reed on Jun 6, 2017 5:21:18 GMT -5
The two berries on my White Superior are continuing to develop and larger than I thought they would be, about the size of a nickel. Several of my TPS grown plants are getting ready to bloom. Plants are much bigger than last year. Maybe I'll get some potatoes big enough to sample. A couple of the larger ones have new shoots coming up 6 - 8 inches from the main stem, never saw a potato do that before. Will be interesting to see what is going on there when it's time to dig.
They were all looking a little stressed in the heat but we got a little rain last night and it cooled off some, only supposed to be in the high 70's today. This morning they look happier already.
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Post by nathanp on Jun 6, 2017 20:49:34 GMT -5
100 percent of my early planted Yukon Gold plants are setting flower buds. 50 percent of my early planted Pontiac Red plants are setting flower buds at this point, and I am expecting more. The rest of my potato plantings are not as far along at this time but they are growing fast. I have had good success in the past getting a lot of seed berries from Yukon Gold, as a result I really don't want seed from this variety anymore as it's genes are already predominant in my TPS mix. Should I let them do their thing and keep a little bit of the seed and maybe give the rest away here or to the Kenosha Group, or just pluck off the developing flower buds and skip it The commercial varieties I planted are primarily for harvesting for food... I would just ignore the berries on plants you don't want. Even if they fall on the ground, the vast majority will never germinate. Not enough to worry about, unless you are afraid the berries will get mixed in with the ones you would rather keep. If you have the time to process it, I am sure you would find someone interested in trading for it or purchasing it in the Kenosha PP group. The two berries on my White Superior are continuing to develop and larger than I thought they would be, about the size of a nickel. Several of my TPS grown plants are getting ready to bloom. Plants are much bigger than last year. Maybe I'll get some potatoes big enough to sample. A couple of the larger ones have new shoots coming up 6 - 8 inches from the main stem, never saw a potato do that before. Will be interesting to see what is going on there when it's time to dig. They were all looking a little stressed in the heat but we got a little rain last night and it cooled off some, only supposed to be in the high 70's today. This morning they look happier already. "A couple of the larger ones have new shoots coming up 6 - 8 inches from the main stem, never saw a potato do that before" This trait is probably linked to the plant doing one or both of two things. One, having long stolons, so you may find tubers quite far from the center of the plant. Or two, producing a higher amount of small tubers instead of smaller amounts of large tubers. Number of stems is inversely related to tuber size. More stems = small tubers, generally. Reed, incidentally, I have had some potato plants send stolons 5-6' from where the tuber was planted. Some of the southern chilean 'landrace' tubers have this trait. In general, the tubers are very frost resistant, but are hard to get rid of. Even tubers smaller than a pea will survive in the soil. Ideally, you want 11 square inches per stem to achieve maximum yield for commercial varieties. Closer together and you'll tend to get smaller tubers and possibly lower yields per plant. I just got my tubers planted last weekend, intentionally planting late to avoid the first round of CPB this year. I have been digging overwintered sprouts on a weekly basis and have found eggs the past two weekends. Much easier to destroy on tiny sprouts than large numbers of plants. Most of my TPS plants have been in the ground for 3 weeks at a location I typically do not have CPB problems. I'll get the last of those in the ground this coming weekend. About 230 seedlings planted with room for a few dozen more at the most. |
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