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Post by philagardener on May 7, 2018 18:13:17 GMT -5
Several years ago I also started overwintering my potatoes in the ground. What really amazes me is how early they emerge! This past winter was probably the harshest in a few years on my perennials and figs - I lost a lot of things that had been consistently overwintering - but Tom Thumb (a red fingerling) popped right up and is now 6 inches+ tall.
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Post by nathanp on May 7, 2018 19:07:51 GMT -5
Yesterday I went through my various seed tubers that have their lineage from TPS that I had in storage and selected the best for planting today. I got the area prepped yesterday so it will be a quick planting project consisting of 3 rows, 75 hills. Selecting tuber lines grown from TPS has been very frustrating for me. Since I started this project the only selecting I ever end up being able to do every year is for: 1.) Diversity. and 2.) Good long term storage characteristics. I seem to be stuck there. While the diversity is really getting noticeable, most of the tubers from TPS simply do not keep well for me in storage and end up sprouting way too early, going soft, and having a high failure rate as compared to saved tubers of commercial lines that are stored in the exact same manner and location. In other words, selecting stock for planting based on important traits such as promiscuous pollination, true seed production, yield, flavor, texture, disease resistance, general hardiness, etc. all take a back seat and mean absolutely nothing if the tubers do not keep well in storage until the next year's planting time. Then, what is the point if the tubers that keep the best in storage end up not tasting that great, which is a very real possibility - I am caught in a tail chasing thing. Selecting out for replanting the best tasting potato on the planet means absolutely nothing if those seed tubers are not going to keep until the next planting time using common, proven home storage methods. Frustrating. Seed tubers from purchased commercial lines or from my saved stock of commercial lines from the previous year are still far outproducing and out-storing any stock I have ever grown from true seed. Now that I get a glimpse of what is involved I must give credit and respect to the breeders of such commercial potato lines, it must take an incredible commitment and investment in time and effort for a successful outcome. I do not see much of a future in me tinkering with TPS anymore, but I still find having TPS on hand to be a critical thing if the SHTF. Ultimately that was what my whole interest was about, having a backup option if commercial seed tuber sources dried up (the same thinking applies to sweet potatoes and TSPS, which is why I consider the work reed is doing to be very important and valuable). Perhaps that is where I will have to leave things after this year's growout - put my entire harvest of TPS tubers into my food supply and end the experiment. Did you take any of the TPS I put in the KPP train labeled WHEROROA 16-4? That is descended from the Maori URENIKA, and it has fantastic dormancy. I find the New Zealand potato lines such as that or MOEI-MOEI descended tubers have the best dormancy I have seen. What you point out, I think, is the reason to actually keep track of lineage. I did not set out to do so, preferring to just grow out TPS in a landrace style, but I quickly found out there was a good amount of value to being able to track lineage across generations, then make intentional crosses. Not every TPS line, batch or variety is equal, and I find some specific lines, even some years' are better than others. To me there is value to saving and growing out TPS from lines and specific years that have produced what I am looking for. |
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Post by nathanp on May 7, 2018 22:02:57 GMT -5
I just think there is value to keeping track of at least some lineages. Because the genetics are so complex with potatoes, I do think you really have to be do heavy selecting and culling of those that do not fit your criteria. I find tracking genetics help with this in both narrowing down what each line has contributed to the overall gene pool, and attempting to predict what certain crosses might result in contributing. I suspect that having little selection or unclear selection can result in a reversion to the mean of the genepool, which probably would prove rather disappointing.
I do think there is something to this. Between the complexity of the genetics, if you are trying to grow potatoes as a landrace, you need to do both heavy selection, and heavy genetics introductions. And culling the majority of what you grow after new introductions. If my end goal is about 100 clones that fit my criteria, that I grow from tubers each year, and if I set out to add 10 new TPS plants as clones each year for 10 years, I might end up with 100 clones. Some lines might take me 500 plants to get to that number if I cull 80% of the TPS plants, other lines might take me several thousand. My average for keeping clones around for 3-4 years seems to hover in the 5-7% range. Some varieties might be as high as 20%, others close to 0%.
Fertility actually can be a detriment here as well, since TPS from selfed plants may have a lower percentage of plants with hybrid vigor, compared to crossed plants. Probably what you would want are hybrid crosses from parents who are both male and female fertile. Something that is going to happen more if you are hand pollinating using fertile varieties than relying on open pollination of the same varieties which may be selfed and lack at least some hybrid vigor.
Back to the question of introducing genetics, I really do think this is key to a long term strategy to have a high amount of genetic variation. It just also introduces less desirable traits, one of which for you would be low dormancy. The value of these varieties is having different genetic traits. But keeping too many of varieties or clones with undesirable traits in the genepool can be detrimental to the overall landrace, since it can steer the genepool in the wrong direction. My current theory is introduce new genetics annually in some way, but cull heavily.
This is an interesting idea, since I basically have come to that conclusion too, predominantly. Even though my season is not considered a warm weather, long season (~140 days), it is long enough where I can grow long season potatoes most years, meaning less time during the fall where I am storing tubers. Digging in October, planting in May seems to be a fairly good schedule for me. If for some reason the climate changes and frosts are early in the fall or late in the spring, that migth turn out to be problematic unless I have varieties with some frost resistance. (By the way, the New Zealand tubers have tuber frost resistance). I have other lines that have vine frost resistance down to about 27F, so combining those traits may be a valuable long term goal, but it's not my priority. I'd actually rather have tubers that do not overwinter.
I know you have a shorter season than I have, but I find TPS plants that can grow about 4+ months outdoors after planting, to be the most successful and easiest to evaluate. Ones harvested sooner have smaller tubers and are difficult to evaluate.
There actually is a method of storing potatoes, used more commonly in warm climates, of using indirect, diffuse light, to stave off sprouting. When I visited the Parque de la Papas in Peru in 2017, their storage facility used a combination of this method, positioned over pools of water, to add humidity, cool the air, and buffer temperatures during the coldest periods.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 7, 2018 22:42:00 GMT -5
I cull around 90% of seed grown potato plants at harvest time during their first growing season. That is after I have spent the whole growing season culling for slow germination, meager growth, disease, susceptibility to pests, etc. Then some of them self-cull during storage.
I found a single layer deep in a lighted storage area to be the best method of keeping tubers for me.
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Post by reed on May 8, 2018 7:10:01 GMT -5
I like the idea of growing from TPS but haven't had a lot of luck. I don't have good overwinter storage for any potatoes. I'v kept little TPS tubers fine overwinter in the refrigerator but don't think that is really a good option.
I need a crop that yields both food and seeds in one season so we can eat the potatoes before they spoil and grow from seed again the next year. I think it just gets too hot here, plants from TPS bloom but the flowers or small fruits dry up and abort. So far I have produced a total of two seed balls from TPS, one last year and one the year before.
Both of those plants however made good amounts of small, very tasty, blue potatoes so I think they are good candidates to go on with. I also have the seeds from a selfed White Superior plant. I just have all those seeds in storage right now.
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Post by oxbowfarm on May 26, 2018 11:02:41 GMT -5
I am slow getting all my potatoes in the ground this year. I still have some tubers to plant from my 2017 TPS selections. The best performing TPS seed I had last year was from nathanp's Sarpo Mira X Bulk Pollenizer mix, Tollocan I think I got from trixtrax, and some "favorites mix" seed from Tree Leaves (who I don't think is on HG, or I don't know her screen name). This year I grew out about 30 plants from seed collected in the first year from the Sarpo Mira mix, also I've got TPS seedlings going from several different seed lines given to me by nathanp, Sarp Duro X Bulk, CIP 396286-7, SG Cross, Igorota X Tollocan. I also have a row of diploid TPS plants of Criolla Rosada and Chaucha Amarilla Larga from billw. And some Round Burgundy from wingnut ( don't thinks he's been on HG in a long time) Also three accessions of Solanum jamesii from GRIN, as well as some interesting potatoes BS 283, BS286, and GS 399 which is a Solanum verrucossum X S. cardiophyllum bridge clone . Should be a really interesting potato year, if I can get all the spuds in the ground. |
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Post by atilgan on May 26, 2018 12:12:03 GMT -5
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Post by atilgan on May 26, 2018 12:24:32 GMT -5
Above picture are seedlings that I obtained from tps last year. I planted the tubers this year. Unfortunately they did not produce any berries last year. Among those tps there was a russian commercial variety named krasa. With good care one can obtain decent sized tubers from this tps. One problem with this tps is that while the tubers were uniform they looked nothing like the ones on the seed envelope.  |
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Post by fliver on May 27, 2018 8:35:02 GMT -5
At least two genotypes of my 2017 TPS survived the winter in the ground as tubers. Did you have much snow cover? Here in Missouri we had very little snow this winter and temps in the single digits F and below. I wonder if tubers left in the ground under those conditions would survive? |
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Post by StripedCorn on May 27, 2018 13:20:19 GMT -5
From about 100 seedlings I have lost around 90 to damping off and the wind deciding to throw the seedling trays across the yard. The remaining eight look healthy though, so thats nice. Also planted some french fingerling tubers to see if those can set seed.
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Post by nathanp on May 27, 2018 22:55:55 GMT -5
From about 100 seedlings I have lost around 90 to damping off and the wind deciding to throw the seedling trays across the yard. The remaining eight look healthy though, so thats nice. Also planted some french fingerling tubers to see if those can set seed. I had that happen the first year I grew TPS. Between that and a few other unintentional, self-caused problems, I had about 3 plants out of 180 that survived until a harvest. Rather painful, but a good learning experience. There is probably better documentation that covers things like this now, but watering only from the bottom of the containers once the seedlings are growing mostly eliminates damping off. Watering from the top encourages fungal diseases at the base of the stem. For my TPS this year, I started 60 lines of TPS. Some are very small quantities with only a few plants, others I started as many as 30-40 of each. I selected out what I thought were the best 177 out of the roughly 600 seedlings I grew out from the 60 lines below. It is a useful exercise to try with lines that I can afford to start many more than I can realistically plant. It will be interesting to evaluate at the end of the year. These are the lines I planted out from. Another 22 lines were all discarded for various reasons. DIPLOIDS Careta Amarilla Mix BIG DOG 2016 17-T1 Pirampo 2015 Tetramix 15-12 red dipl yellow flesh 2015 BS 282 Mixed TPS Doug Strong 2013 BS 290 F8704 2017 TETRAPLOIDS Black Irish 2014 Blue Leslie Bora Valley x Monstruo Azul 2017 Chellan x Monstruo Azul 2017 CIP 396286-7 16-8 2017 CIP 396286-7 16-9 2017(might be duplicate of 16-3) GS 201 GS 201 16-3 2017 GS 201 16-6 2017 GS 209 GS 209 16-2 2017 GS 209 16-3 2017 GS 397 NYM68 Igorota x Monstruo Azul 2017 Igorota x Tollocan 2017 India 1035 2017 India 1038 x CIP396286-7 15-1 2017 Johnny Gunter x Tollocan 2017 Negra y Azul x Irish Tom F2 PI 243361 CCC 4 LIZARAZA BLANCA May be CIP 705126 CCC 4813 PI 243384 CCC 114 Local Name OJO DE BUEY or OJONA may be CIP 703369 CCC 4643 PI 243391 CCC 142 Local Name PAMBA MORADA May be CIP 705210 HCS 568 PI 280952 WAC 1445 andigenum PI 281215 WAC 649 PI 320021 Juanita 2017 PI 473255 OKA 3997 BAL 71193 (4x) PI 595409 CIP 575045 2017 Red OW 2015 TPS red flesh 2017 Saikai 35 2015(AR) SG x pollen from CIP 396286-7 15-1 or Wheroroa 16-4 2017 Star Ruby Tetraploid Mix from DS tubers 2014 Unk Lost Label worth trying 2017 Unk OW 2015 TPS fingerling x Monstruo Azul 2017 VIR N73 PI 595621 16-2 2017 WHATUMAWHERO I also have about 140 seedlings from these 6 lines from the USDA that I am growing out to evaluate as possible Colorado Potato Beetle resistant parents to use in the future. GS 397 NYM68 TPS PI 243361 CCC 4 LIZARAZA BLANCA CCC 4 TPS PI 281215 WAC 649 TPS PI 243384 CCC 114 OJO DE BUEY/OJONA TPS PI 243391 CCC 142 PAMBA MORADA TPS PI 473355 OKA 3997 COLLUMA TPS |
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Post by richardw on May 28, 2018 15:48:12 GMT -5
For what ever reason there appears to be a deliberate attempt to conceal the pre-european history of these lands www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlLHpfG9k_U But now thanks to DND testing its been proven that the human settlement goes back a long way further than whats been officially recognized, in that doco it shows a red headed lineage that links them to Easter Island and to the indigenous peoples of South America. Its likely that the New Zealand potato lines were brought here much earlier that whats been officially documented, given that TPS was a common method of growing potatoes at the time of colonization its likely that this method was used for many 100's years before that. This is probably why the New Zealand tubers have such great tuber frost resistance and dormancy tendency. |
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Post by reed on May 31, 2018 14:44:24 GMT -5
I got down on my belly with a flash light to see if I lost any sweet potatoes under the storage bench in the kitchen. I did, and they are perfectly good, wow. But I also found this. I forgot I put these down there. They are form the only TPS plant I had last year that made seeds from seed. Rather than rotting or drying up the two or three ping pong ball sized tubers converted themselves into a bunch of pea sized tubers and roots. Never saw nothin like it. I wasn't working with TPS this season but guess I have to put these in the ground and see what happens. I got a spot where I been dumping weeds and such so I think I'll just poke em down in it and see what happens. It's in a little afternoon shade too, maybe that will compensate some for being planted so late. ![]() ![]()  |
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Post by nathanp on May 31, 2018 23:26:16 GMT -5
I have seen this before. Usually it is due to tubers that stored poorly, and/or aged seed tubers. It is a survival strategy where the old tuber is trying to produce a new storage tuber before it is too aged. Unless this is a short dormancy diploid, the new tubers here probably will not grow this year without a dormant period. You may be better off separating them and storing them for 30+ days, then planting.
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Post by atilgan on Jul 11, 2018 5:46:16 GMT -5
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