True Potato Seed Trials

[RpR]

Dec 6, 2017 16:23:32 GMT -5 farmermike said:

Dec 6, 2017 15:39:06 GMT -5 billw said:

No dormancy is the norm with diploids. If you time it so that they are ready very late in the year, you can usually keep them alive for spring planting by storing them at about 38F.

What about for eating? Are the diploids still edible if they have already sprouted before harvest? When I read "The Resilient Gardener", it seemed Carol D said that any amount of sprouting or green skin renders the potato inedible. Of course, when I search online "are sprouted potatoes edible?", most sources say to just cut off the sprouts and the green skin and they are fine.

I have often eaten, french fries made with potatoes that have a lot of green.
They have a uniquely pleasant taste.
I always peel green potatoes for mashed potatoes but no more than a normal one. I have made skin on mashed potatoes but the skins are a hassle to mash so I do it rarely.

[reed]

I think sprouts are one thing, you can just knock em off and if the potato isn't too shriveled up still eat it. Green skin is another thing, it is poisonous, and I think, tastes very bad. Green skin is caused mostly by exposure to light, like often seen in grocery store potatoes. To me even if the green is barely detectable to the eye the awful taste is still there.

I like to bake potatoes with the skin on till it is crispy, then mash em skin and all, but not if it's green.

[billw]

Dec 7, 2017 14:02:54 GMT -5 RpR said:

I have often eaten, french fries made with potatoes that have a lot of green.
They have a uniquely pleasant taste.
I always peel green potatoes for mashed potatoes but no more than a normal one. I have made skin on mashed potatoes but the skins are a hassle to mash so I do it rarely.

Deep frying dramatically reduces glycoalkaloid content, by 90% or more. So you can eat almost any kind of greened domesticated potato if it is deep fried.

Peeling and boiling also reduces glycoalkaloids, with estimates ranging from 30 to 80%.

Green doesn't always mean high glycoalkaloids. For example, potatoes that green under fluorescent light have higher levels, but not dramatically higher. But, the greening is the best warning sign you will get other than tasting for bitterness.

It would be easy to assume based on these experiences that greened potatoes aren't dangerous, but you would be likely to have a very different experience with a dry cooking method and unpeeled spuds. Greened potatoes can easily climb to glycoalkaloid levels of 100mg/100g or more, a level at which it would only take 5 ounces of potatoes to make a 150 pound person sick. Most people would notice the bitterness, but ability to perceive bitterness varies significantly.

[reed]

I always figured it probably took quite a bit of the green to actually be dangerous, more than most people would eat anyway because of the taste. It never occurred to me some people might like that taste or be unable to perceive it. For me if I see a little green on the skin by time I'm done peeling a large potato there isn't much left but one small french fry.

[steev]

Oxbowfarm: I'm so jealous of your progress with TPS; drought has been screwing me so badly, of late, that I've barely any spuds at all; I especially like that red spud that looks like oca.

[farmermike]

Dec 6, 2017 7:58:29 GMT -5 oxbowfarm said:

The one problem with some of the more exotic diploid TPS I planted was much of it had essentially zero dormancy. If I found them already sprouting when I dug them then they weren't any good to me. I just washed them up and took them to market and tried to sell them as mixed potato "Adventure Packs". They didn't sell that well, but I did sell a few. Need to work on the marketing?

I am no expert, and I'm not selling anything at market (yet), but it seems that a little bowl of cooked sample diploid potatoes (and toothpicks to skewer them) might be the ticket. If customers realize they're tasty, that may overcome the unusual factor.

[oxbowfarm]

farmermike Cooked samples are a logistical impossiblility in this state. Cooked food has all kinds of regs around it at farmer's markets here. I'd need a bunch of permits and either use a commercial kitchen or an entire inspected mobile cooking set-up. Totally not worth the hassle.

[oxbowfarm]

A few of the nicest TPS plants I grew this year from nathanp 's seed. The seed was Sarpo Mira x bulked pollen mix of several varieties. I got quite decent yields from several of the plants and collected quite a bit of promiscuously pollenated TPS, I bulked the seed from the whole group. I'd keep seed separate in the first tuber year.

These were the highest yield, similar looking to the mother plant I believe. More floury than waxy from the one I tasted, but not super floury.


Very attractive purplish skin, but not so dark a purple they were hard to see.


Buff skin with pink splotches and spectacles in the splotched areas


These were just the most beautiful tubers, rosy and smooth and perfect. I kind of felt like I saw some evidence of low dormancy, but if they keep till spring I will definitely plant these beauties.

[nathanp]

Oxbowfarm, I've had some potatoes, such as Tom Wagner's AKT, or SAIKAI 35, that show low enough dormancy where they sprout within a month of digging, but still last long enough over the winter to be planted fine. They may not be in good eating condition in 6 months, but may still be fine for a seed potato. The yellower flesh of the #7 makes me suspect the male pollen donor of that one was something like Fiesta Gold or Chaposa. Those are the two in the bulk pollen mix with yellow flesh. Both also have low to medium dormancy.

[richardw]

Can someone tell me how long will pollen stay viable for? ive striped the male petals off a few flowers off a TPS that came from Moie moie berries, i'm planing on getting pollen from the original Moie moie clone to cross back again, but the Moie moie is a poor producer of pollen so ive gathered a heap of its male petals that are now on a plate thats covered with black tape so i can see the pollen if there is any, hoping the pollen will fall out.

Or is there a better way to gather from poor producers

[walt]

I don't know about potatoes, but tomato pollen can be stored for some time, all season I would think, like you say.  And potatoes and tomatoes are lumped in one genus now.  Should be similar.
Dr. Clayburg, once a noted tomato breeder, said tomato pollen can be stored in an open cup on a shelf in his office for a year and still work.  He didn't recommend it though.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was a professional tomato breeder, I would use red fingernail polish on my left thumbnail.  Tomato pollen would show up well against the glossy red.  My wife hated it.  I mean the thumbnaiil was bright red for 3 months out of the year.  Did I complain about her left thumbnail being red?  Never.  And it wasn't just her left one.  And not just her thumbs.  Life isn't fair.

[billw]

It will last a year dried and then frozen. It will last a couple of months at room temperature in a container with some desiccant.

[richardw]

ok thanks guys, i tried again this morning while the flowers were open and have managed to get a very small amount on the thump nail, so hopeful some is better than none, had two flowers stripped last night on a Moie moie TPS plant so dabbed the stamen in what i had, it stuck to it so must have been receptive. I'll keep going back with more over the day.

This is my first time trying potato crossing, i managed a tomato cross last summer

[oxbowfarm]

Hey Richard,

I'm not much of a potato breeder, but I was able to get a pretty decent amt of pollen like this. I apologize for the low production values, but I think the pollen shows up pretty well.

[richardw]

Hi Tim, I saw your video before posting this thread, there was no way i got as much pollen as you got in that video, that may explain why Moie moie is such a poor producer of berries, bugger all pollen