True Potato Seed Trials

[mnjrutherford]

I'll do my best for ya then. It occurs to me though... is there any way to encourage seed production? Any thing to stop the berry drop?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

This is what the potatoes look like 13 weeks after sowing true potato seeds and keeping them in my window closet under grow lights:



The only species that did well for me was S. tuberosum. The other species barely grew. One variety of S. tuberosum succumbed to an aphid attack, the others grew great.

I dug around in the pots last night and found treasure in one of them:



The variety was called Leksands Vit. I figure that I'll let the tubers sit around for a week, then soak them in beer overnight, then plant them. I normally plant tubers 2-4 weeks from now.

I'll check the plants for tubers again in a few weeks. There are sure a lot of stolons in some pots. I also took stem cuttings from the plants that grew well, and am rooting them. I expect to plant them out in about 8 weeks.

If I do this project another year, I think I would start the seeds earlier. No harm done though if the stem cuttings root and grow well.

[mnjrutherford]

Wow, 13 weeks? Seems to me that the seeds I had last year (there were 3 plants that grew) came up a lot faster than that. My TPS are into the third week now. They are a bit over 2 inches long, a couple maybe be close to 3 inches, but that might be pushing it.

We bought a bag of those giant bakers back in the early winter and one of them grew a TON of eyes so I was loath to eat it and of course I wouldn't throw it away. I planted it in the corner of the #8 garden patch and it has just started to break through the mulch layer. I was kinda wondering when to plant the TPS out and I'm thinking that when this guy has some real leaves and at least a few of the other taters are showing themselves above the mulch, I'll plant them out.

I'm interested to see how productive this monster potato is going to be as well.

[mnjrutherford]

A lot of the other "ordinary" potatoes are breaking through the mulch now as well. Still no sign of our "fancies" but they didn't have the eye development the ordinary taters did.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I harvested tubers from some of the potatoes that were growing indoors overwinter. I was hoping to get tubers for planting by spring:

Here is what one of the controls looked like when harvested after 120 days:



(There were also two marble sized tubers harvested from this pot a month ago).

The other pot of controls failed (possibly due to an aphid attack). Two of the South American potatoes produced tubers: 245847 and 558369. Another one is almost dead but offered no tubers when I checked a week ago. The other 3 varieties died.

I took the survivors and planted them in my garden. Also some cuttings from 558369 survived and are growing in pots waiting to be transplanted in a couple weeks. I didn't have a very good success rate with stem cuttings. I've planted more seeds for transplant outside after it warms up.

I did 4 treatments to test breaking dormancy on the Leksands Vit potato:

1- soak freshly harvested tuber in beer. Plant.
2- Take tuber harvested a month ago and kept in bright window, soak it in beer. Plant
3- Keep tuber in bright window one month. Plant
4- Plant fresh tuber.

I look forward to reporting results.

Last fall I harvested a potato grown from true seed. It had purple skin and white flesh. I got about 1.5 cups of tubers from it. I used a few for various experiments during the winter. Today I planted a 40 foot long row of them. (And that was including multiple eyes on each set, I could have planted a row twice that long.)

[happyskunk]

While weeding today I noticed a few small potato plants that appear to have sprouted from seed. I dug one of the plants up and put it in a pot and left a couple other amongst my onions and carrots. These plants were found near were a grew Leksands Vit potatoes last year. They produced loads of fruit. No other potatoes produced fruit for me last year.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

May 12, 2011 1:36:55 GMT -5 happyskunk said:

While weeding today I noticed a few small potato plants that appear to have sprouted from seed. I dug one of the plants up and put it in a pot and left a couple other amongst my onions and carrots. These plants were found near were a grew Leksands Vit potatoes last year. They produced loads of fruit. No other potatoes produced fruit for me last year.

Potato weeds would be really clever to me.... I've got some of the descendants of those fruits growing in the greenhouse. Looking forward to seeing how they do in my garden. I grew a few tubers from them overwinter, but they haven't sprouted yet.

Looking forward to hearing how the volunteers do for you.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Boo. Hoo.

All spring I have slowly been killing off 600 potato seedlings by drying them out too much. So last night I put the remaining 3 dozen or so in the truck to take them out to plant into the field. On the way a 55 gallon barrel full of water crushed them flat.

Alas, only 5 plants survived. 3 of the 5 are a variety which was collected in Chile.

Boo. Hoo.

A few weeks ago I planted hundreds of TPS seeds directly into the field. Perhaps some of those will survive and produce tubers. It looks like some may have germinated already. There is some Karma associated with this because earlier today I posted a comment in another forum about how I would like to grow more direct seeded potatoes and fewer transplants.

I also have tubers that I grew over-winter to plant out still.

The 2nd year tubers from last year's TPS are doing great. There is gobs of variety in leaf shape, plant size, and color. They are very pleasing to me. Here's what some of them looked like today.



I've been gimped up for a few days due to a severe muscle cramp in my calf last week. (I felt good enough today to work, just slowly, and I went home early [after 10 hours]) Otherwise I would have weeded before posting to a public forum... Hehehe.

[12540dumont]

While leaning on my shovel, I noted that my potatoes were loaded with TPS. Wait...look at this cluster. There's only 2. Anyone hazard a guess as to what happened to the others? 5 are missing at the Abscission joint.
Did I wait too long to pick them?

Are there TPS with jointless pedicels?

Attachments:

[tatermater]

I have TPS seedlings in the greenhouse waiting week after week for me to transplant them to the field...and there are always a few cubes that dry out causing the plant to reach premature senescence before they get watered again. I am not at the greenhouse every day so I don't have the luxury to water the way I would want.

As far as potatoes with jointless pedicels....I will have to keep a look out for them. But the berries either make or they don't. Sometimes the berry falls off because no seed developed, or the flower desiccated before the ovules developed properly, etc. It is a rare potato variety that sets every bud, in fact, it is a rare potato that even sets a single berry.

The vine with the two berries is grass green...no way mature enough to have berries ready to pick....the vine must be near dead and mature with yellowing leaves at least. Remember the bloom date...you need 6 to 8 weeks before picking...and they will fall off about that time often to remind you that.

The site below has some good photos of the pedicels of potato flowers....
happyfarming.com/2010/07/30/potato-fruits/
The yellow arrows point out the jointed pedicels...


The picture below shows what the early set of flowers should look like if they are to hold the berries....however, they can still fall off.



The fact that only one berry set is indicative of a poor berry setter. It may be a variety with poor pollen/sterile pollen, or just isn't selected for tenacious berry setting due to all kinds of factors...plant physiology, heat, cold, wind, moisture extremes, on and on.

The website with all the pictures is from Thomas of Denmark. Thanks in advance, Thomas.


Apparently the variety is La Ratte also known as (Asparagus / Almond) and I am not surprised that only a berry or two sets...par for the course.

[12540dumont]

Thanks for that. This field is loaded with blossoms and has been for about 3 weeks now.

These are a variety that I have saved for the last 2 years and replanted.

Is there a certain number of seed pods that need to be harvested to protect genetic diversity?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

When I speak of an "abundantly fruitful" potato, this is what I mean:

[mnjrutherford]

WOW Joseph! That is amazing! What potato is that?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I call it Ella's potato: Something I grew from a seed last year. I have 4 clones of it growing, and 4 clones of a different plant that is almost as prolifically fruiting, and a few tubers that are producing a berry here or there.

[1066]

Did you have any luck with the lovely "purple skin and white flesh" potato that you posted a photo of? Those looked fabulous !