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Post by castanea on Feb 21, 2011 23:40:39 GMT -5
I have been looking for these for years. No luck. I have specifically grown varieties that are known to flower, but have had no flowers.
Where can you find true sweet potato seeds?
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Post by garnetmoth on Feb 22, 2011 0:45:13 GMT -5
There is at least one listing in the SSE Yearbook that lists that it seeds often. Id never heard of that before! Ill dig up the variety name tomorrow, maybe that'll help a little
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Post by DarJones on Feb 22, 2011 0:47:24 GMT -5
sweetpotato takes up to 18 months to grow, produce flowers, set seed, and mature them. Most take about half that time which is still way to long to get mature seed in most of the U.S.
DarJones
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Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 22, 2011 3:58:28 GMT -5
18 months? That's a long time. Sweet potatoes are related to morning glories aren't they? I'm wondering if they could be done in a green house or maybe they could be over wintered, if not indoors perhaps somewhere sheltered like in a forest margin? You'd have to plant in January to get seed by the second June... ? Curious...
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Post by ottawagardener on Feb 22, 2011 12:59:21 GMT -5
You can overwinter the cuttings but I don't know how sucessful that would be in terms of setting seed. They flower late in the year. I'm going to hazard a guess that this is to do with daylight hours but I haven't looked it up.
That said, it would be pretty neat to get hold of the seeds.
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Post by garnetmoth on Feb 22, 2011 16:17:32 GMT -5
Charleston Scarlet is the variety listed as a seedy one in SSE Yearbook.
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Post by castanea on Feb 22, 2011 21:00:45 GMT -5
sweetpotato takes up to 18 months to grow, produce flowers, set seed, and mature them. Most take about half that time which is still way to long to get mature seed in most of the U.S. DarJones Thanks. I grew most of mine for about 12 months before pulling them up. |
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Post by castanea on Feb 22, 2011 21:01:52 GMT -5
Someone must be growing the seed for breeding experiments. Who does it?
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Post by orflo on Feb 23, 2011 13:47:04 GMT -5
sweetpotato takes up to 18 months to grow, produce flowers, set seed, and mature them. Most take about half that time which is still way to long to get mature seed in most of the U.S. DarJones I've had sweetpotatoes flowering within four months, sadly enough I can't tell the name of the varieties, it were shop-bought sweet-potatos without name, two varieties flowered over here, but they didn't produce much (or even nothing), so I didn't keep them. The few varieties that do produce potatoes over here don't flower.. I believe Ken Allen did grow out some seeds in Canada, but I must check his book again to be sure  |
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Post by orflo on Feb 23, 2011 13:49:50 GMT -5
This picture system I used with picasaweb doesn't seem to be working anymore...  |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 23, 2011 15:39:43 GMT -5
You know, as I think about it, I think that my sweet potatoes were flowering last year as well. There is no way to be certain at this point of course, but I'll watch more closely next year. What makes it extra difficult is that we are inundated with wild morning glories around here. It's a MAJOR weed. It's not a big deal in the begining of the season while I'm able to get out and pull the babies, but as the season progresses and the babies escape notice, after a while it's impossible to tell the difference between the two vines.
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Post by mjc on Feb 23, 2011 16:13:30 GMT -5
You shouldn't have a problem with crossing, if that's what you are worried about, Jo.
The sweet potato and the wild morning glories (probably a bindweed...especially if they are a white flowered, vining plant) are not even in the same genus, within the morning glory family (not even the same 'tribe'). So chances of a chance cross are very slim...even a forced cross under laboratory conditions would in all likelihood be difficult. And that is leaving out factors like chromosome counts and ploidy, to see if a cross is even possible, in the first place.
Now, garden morning glories and some other cultivated plants are in the same genus, but still are different species. Moonflowers, cardinal climbers and a few others belong in this group. Crosses with sweet potatoes, while conceivably possible would probably be very difficult and chance crosses unlikely.
It's not like Queen Anne's lace and carrots (QAL IS the wild parent of the domestic carrot)...they are same species and carrots, basically, are considered varieties or cultivars of QAL.
Another thing about sweet potatoes, they originated in tropical America (Central/South) and are most likely day length sensitive...so they probably rarely bloom in areas with more than 12 hrs of daylight.
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Post by castanea on Feb 24, 2011 1:56:49 GMT -5
And does anyone know what happened to mericlone labs, which used to be a great place for buying sweet potatoes?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Feb 24, 2011 9:10:56 GMT -5
Na, I wasn't worried about crossing. Heck, I know so little about that aspect that it didn't even cross my mind! What I DO remember is observing the flowers themselves. There is a very small amount of bindweed about, but most of it is true morning glories (I think) in shades of blue, purple, and pink.
It seemed to me that there were flowers on both vines and I tried to follow the differing appearances. I'll try to be more observant this year.
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Post by waltseed on Apr 25, 2011 17:42:19 GMT -5
Years ago I read about a germplasm release of sweet potaot seed in HortScience I think, and I think it was from a breeder in Georgia. Inluded in the article was the information that to start the population he had to graft some of the origional varieties onto a related species which bloomed readily. Other varieties had bloomed readily under short days in the greenhouse.
The breeder had done a few generations of recurrant selection for yield, quality, easy bloom, and such. That is all I remember just now.
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