Sweet Potato Breeding Project

[reed]

Looking a little closer I found more pods than I think can be accounted for by my hand pollination. Really pleased to see that. On the down side I can't identify which variety is setting the most pods. I stupidly planted Hong Kong and Patriot, both from Sandhill right beside each other and they are too similar and co-mingled to tell apart.

[philagardener]

Maybe when you dig the tubers you can untangle those IDs as the tubers are distinct.

[reed]

That's what I was thinking. I know the general direction of how they were planted so I can have a general idea but with a high rate of error who the mother plant might have been. That is as long as I keep track of which area they came from. After the last post I went out and discovered small bumblebees happily working the flowers which explains the other pollinated pods. They were even going under the foliage to the ones not visible.

There goes any possibility of knowing who the pollen donor is but that is fine. I don't really like have to intervene to get seeds, I think it's much more in line with sustainability if nature handles that part for me. I do want to try to get some seeds from the ornamentals where I'm as confident as possible the father was one of the culinary kinds.

[reed]

This morning there were a couple dozen fresh flowers on the Hong Kong and or Patriot. Don't know which is which but one of them has slightly purple stems while the other is green, not even 100% sure it isn't just caused by varying sun exposure.

Two of the little bumblebees were there but the flowers weren't quite open enough for them to easily get in. I trimmed a Q-tip down a little and swabbed pollen between the slightly purple stemmed one and the green stemmed one. Should know in a couple days if it took. Fresh flowers on the purple ornamentals had not opened yet.

I trimmed out a lot of the light green ornamental that was so big, it hasn't made any flowers and was crowding the others. Found several more pods on the others that could only have been pollinated naturally. Yea!

On closer observation I think from morning till maybe noonish is probably when pollination needs to happen. Guess that's why they call them morning glories.

[steve1]

reed out of interest was there any yellow/golden pollen on any of your varieties? My limited efforts this year resulted in no seed pods, but all the pollen was white. I do recall seeing one flower amongst many before I looked at doing crosses with golden pollen which is why I ask.
Well done on the pollinations/pods!

[reed]

I'll look closer but don't think I have seen any yellow pollen. The pollen is odd, I don't know if it is very large or if it is small and clumps together. It isn't dust like as most pollen. I think clumping is most likely.

I followed a link on another thread that said 98% or more of crosses yield crap. I don't know that I believe that. I expect it from crosses with the ornamental ones but don't see why two eatable ones won't make more eatable ones. Suppose I'll have to wait a season or so to find out.

While it is the ultimate goal good eating quality isn't priority now. First is to get lines that reliably make seeds and that the seeds are easy to sprout. I hope as suggested in the thread concerning garlic that generations grown from seed become more adapted to being grown from seed. I'll be paying special attention to any from the two plants that were seed grown this year but so far the two varieties I got from Sandhill are producing the most flowers and pods. 

I didn't do anything extraordinary, I just planted. I'm thinking credit may be due to the extra hot humid weather this year.  

Some general conclusions are that they like it hot. Plants like it hot to grow and seeds like it hot to sprout. They grow fast, at least the shorter season ones. I was worried that seed grown ones would not mature fast enough but that is not the case, so worries about starting them early were not founded. I think I could wait till May to start seeds and do it in an outdoor cold frame and bypass the hassle of indoor sprouting and worrying if they are warm enough.  Looks now like I should have plenty of seed to try a couple different ways next year. 

[philagardener]

Nice progress!

I wouldn't be too negative about the eating quality of the "ornamentals"; some folks have said they are fine! 

[reed]

I have read some of the ornamentals are fine to eat. I hope so. The one that made seeds in 2014 grew in a small pot with lot of other flowers and it made very small roots that dried up completely over winter. These are in much larger pots and are much bigger vines so should be interesting to see what comes from them. 

I went out this morning to do my daily pollinating but didn't have to. A couple of the little bumblebees were busy so I just left it to them. Manged to catch one in the act, almost. It had just exited the flower in this shot. Must be something yummy at the base, they crawl all the way to the bottom, spent a few seconds and turn around to come back out. I thought that was interesting, I figured they would back out but they don't, I watched till they had visited every single open flower and they always turned around. I need to try to learn more about this brand of bee. There were only the two and I suspect the same two that were here other days. I know there are more around cause I always see lots of them later in the fall, they love wild asters. 

Anybody know anything about them? Where they live and nest, what else they like? Maybe I could build them some houses? 

[steve1]

Thanks reed. Seeing I attempted crosses in May/June in the Southern Hemisphere - it was neither hot and being in an arid glasshouse humid. I'll give it another run in a humid hotter environment. Perhaps there is a temperature requirement for pollen growth? I haven't tried to eat the ornamentals but have heard they are quite tasty too.
We have quite a lot of solitary native bees here, and the standard nesting 'box' is a block of wood with lots of drilled holes of different sizes. Will post a picture later.

[farmermike]

Aug 27, 2016 12:17:06 GMT -5 reed said:

I need to try to learn more about this brand of bee.

Anybody know anything about them?

Looks a lot like a carpenter bee to me. They are my best tomato pollinator!

[khoomeizhi]

looks like a bumblebee to me. carpenters don't have the fuzzy abdomen, it would be shinier and smooth.

[reed]

I'm pretty sure it is a bumblebee of some kind. What I always thought of as a bumblebee looks just like this but is much larger. This bee is only about 1/2 long. About the size of a  honey bee but much fatter. I found this interesting web site www.bumblebeewatch.org/ and submitted a picture. Hopefully they can tell me what kind this is and what it likes as far as a nesting place. 

[josh]

If it would only keep still a moment !
Regarding sweet potato seeds , I had assumed my pollination attempts had failed , having seen no pods at all until I came across those tell tale cotyledons arising from cracks between pavers and owning it like they were giant beanstalks in the street !!
So on a closer observation of the vines I noticed many TINY capsules , 5mm in diameter and mostly containing one seed each.
Those two have grown well and are vining now . The other seeds I'm planting now and hoping to recover some seedlings carrying more genetics from the pollen parent and it's palmate leaf shape.

[farmermike]

Aug 29, 2016 5:54:09 GMT -5 reed said:

I'm pretty sure it is a bumblebee of some kind. What I always thought of as a bumblebee looks just like this but is much larger. This bee is only about 1/2 long.

Interesting, when I search eastern carpenter bee everything I get looks just like your photo.

I used to use bugguide.net a lot when trying to identify insects.

[reed]

Could be I suppose, they are colored and shaped like the ones that bore holes in the shed rafters except they are a lot smaller. What we call borer bees are way way bigger, so big they would never fit inside the flowers. I sent a picture to that other web site and they are supposed to send back when they identify it. They walk you through a list of diagrams picking different traits as you go but none of their pictures matched exactly to this bee.

This morning there was a second slightly larger but similar type on the flowers. I also have now seen the little sweat bees and a tiny gold colored fly. Very happy to see they might not be dependent on a single species for pollination.