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Post by steev on Nov 11, 2016 8:30:29 GMT -5
Whatever you do, it seems very structured and well-thought-out; please keep on for your profit and ours.
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Post by reed on Nov 14, 2016 7:54:39 GMT -5
I want to know for sure if they can be self fertile but I gave up the idea because I don't want to grow just one kind next year or mess with isolation. I don't have enough space for things like that but a lot of the buds on the stems I have in water are going ahead and blooming.
This morning I pollinated about half of them with the others from the same stems. If no capsules form it won't really prove anything cause of so many other factors but if one does form it will. Next year I can easily cut stems with unopened flowers put them in a little tent or inside and hand pollinate. I don't have to grow whole isolated plants, just one capsule of seeds is all I need to see.
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Post by reed on Nov 22, 2016 14:50:13 GMT -5
I have also found interest in eating sweet potato leaves and stems, something I just learned about recently, I think somewhere here on the forum. I couldn't find that again but did find this www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/FSA-6135.pdf. Sweet potato vines are easy to grow, even inside on the windowsill so they could pretty easily make a year round fresh food crop. Now I got something else to think about, breeding for tasty leaves. I wonder if like other things, the purple ones are more nutritious. |
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Post by walt on Nov 23, 2016 12:39:12 GMT -5
There is a book in the Kansas State University library titled Sweet Potato. It is the proceedings of an international conference on sweet potatoes. It was in it that I learned that sweet potato leaves are a major food source in some areas. Also, that sweet potato leaves are among the most nutritious of leaves.
In a table in that book, lettuce is shown as being about worthless as food, other than taking up space so fat people don't get fatter. I was suprized and pleased that spinach wasn't high in nutrients as it is reputed to be, compared to many other available but unknown in the western world leaves. But sweet potatoes were way high in nutrients.
Since then I have eaten some sweet potato leaves every summer. I have thought of growing them in the winter, but haven't.
I find that only the young and tender leaves near the end of the vine are good.
Okra leaves and runner bean leaves are also among my favorites.
And the book Sweet Potato also mentioned that in some countries there are varieties grown only for their leaves.
My favorite ways to eat sweet potato leaves is fresh in sandwiches and in stir fries.
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Post by rangardener on Nov 23, 2016 14:56:46 GMT -5
I have also found interest in eating sweet potato leaves and stems, something I just learned about recently, I think somewhere here on the forum. I couldn't find that again but did find this www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/FSA-6135.pdf. Sweet potato vines are easy to grow, even inside on the windowsill so they could pretty easily make a year round fresh food crop. Now I got something else to think about, breeding for tasty leaves. I wonder if like other things, the purple ones are more nutritious. Nice idea! The varieties of sweet potatoes for vegetable uses that I know of seemed bred for the "bushy" phenotypes, not sure taste was considered since most sweet potato leaves are delicious already. Here is a paper in J. Sci. Food & Agriculture: (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0010(200004)80:5%3C561::AID-JSFA574%3E3.0.CO;2-%23/full) Volume 80, Issue 5 April 2000 Pages 561–566 Flavonoid content of several vegetables and their antioxidant activity. Abstract: "... The results showed that both green and purple leaves of sweet potatoes ( 185.01 and 426.82 mg kg−1 respectively) and the outer leaves of onion (264.03 mg kg−1) possessed higher amounts of flavonoids,..." (I have no access to the full text.) Purple leaves of sweet potatoes as a vegetable seems to be commonly available in Asia. (I should try some ornamental varieties next year. SP leaves are among our favorite summer vegetables.) Here is a research on the consumption and its effects on exercise-induced oxidative stress. (http://jap.physiology.org/content/109/6/1710.full). Journal of Applied Physiology 2010 Vol. 109 no. 6, 1710-1715 Effect of purple sweet potato leaves consumption on exercise-induced oxidative stress and IL-6 and HSP72 levels |
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Post by imgrimmer on Nov 23, 2016 16:45:25 GMT -5
There is a sweet potato relative Kangkong only used for its leaves. maybe there is some confusion about sweetpotato and Kangkong in literature? I am not sure about it, it is just an idea.
Kangkong was difficult to cultivate for me. Never had enough leaves for a meal. I think it is much more heat loving than sweetpotatos.
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Post by notonari on Nov 28, 2016 15:22:30 GMT -5
I managed to get seed for the first time here in Sweden, ended up with about 100 seeds from 4 flowering varieties. Next year should be exicting! The plan for now is to upscale seed production and select for earlier flowering varieties so that the seeds actually mature on the plants, this year I had to cut the vines with the pods and dry them indoors when it was time to harvest the roots. I have an extended description of this year's sweet potato harvest on my blog (link below), if anyone's interested!
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Post by reed on Nov 28, 2016 15:57:20 GMT -5
Great blog post! My climate does not require it but I also want my seeds to mature in a shorter amount of time. I think that is important for everything now days. With critters of all descriptions, strange weather and all other considerations the less time it takes a crop to mature the better.
On my sweet potatoes, I don't have any idea what causes it but early flowers doesn't necessarily mean early seed set. Some of mine flowered early but the early flowers never set seed. I got plenty of seed from those plants but from the later flowers. I wonder if they needed particular others to flower to provide the pollen but didn't keep good enough records to say if that was the case or not.
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Post by notonari on Nov 28, 2016 16:17:08 GMT -5
That's a good point, I also noticed a lot of flowers aborting in the first few weeks that they were flowering... I figured it was bad pollination, or too low temperatures, but as you say it more probably could be that the other varieties weren't flowering profusely enough yet to actually provide the pollen.
I'm hoping quite a few of the seedlings will put out flowers next year, which should make it easier to see what's going on in this respect.
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Post by billw on Nov 28, 2016 20:41:49 GMT -5
Really great work! I'm looking forward to being able to grow sweet potatoes here someday.
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Post by zeedman on Nov 29, 2016 0:07:43 GMT -5
There is a sweet potato relative Kangkong only used for its leaves. maybe there is some confusion about sweetpotato and Kangkong in literature? I am not sure about it, it is just an idea. Kangkong was difficult to cultivate for me. Never had enough leaves for a meal. I think it is much more heat loving than sweetpotatos. Filipinos grow both kang kong (water spinach) and kamote (sweet potato) for leafy greens, and the use & culture of both is similar. There is at least one sweet potato cultivar bred specifically for its edible shoots. It develops dry white tubers, but since they can be 3' away & up to a foot down, finding them feels like mining.  Both flowered for me when I lived in San Diego, during short days; obviously not much chance of that here. |
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Post by steev on Nov 29, 2016 0:52:18 GMT -5
Might that be a good variety for a large patch specifically for greens? Is that how Filipinos use them?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 29, 2016 11:21:05 GMT -5
they can be 3' away & up to a foot down, finding them feels like mining. Hmm. Something with roots that deep would be below my frost-level most years... Winter hardy sweet potatoes could be clever. |
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Post by zeedman on Nov 29, 2016 22:35:40 GMT -5
they can be 3' away & up to a foot down, finding them feels like mining. Hmm. Something with roots that deep would be below my frost-level most years... Winter hardy sweet potatoes could be clever. I had hoped that would be true. After digging trenches to find a few, I gave up, and left the rest to fend off the winter on their own. The frost line here can get pretty deep in a normal winter, and sadly none survived. In areas where the freeze is not as intense, they might survive, and would be a good perennial green. When I lived in San Diego, I had a patch of kamote that I planted just outside my back fence, on the rim of a canyon. It gradually spread & prospered, and was still there when I moved, 5 years later. Who knows, it might still be there. Pretty much. When I grow them, I allow the first vines to get 2-3' long before starting the harvest. Those vines will root if given encouragement (read: water), and then its off to the races. They need very little care once established, and for every shoot you harvest, two or more sprouts take its place. Not as tasty as water spinach IMO (which I grow every year), but a green which produces heavily & continuously in hot weather. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 30, 2016 0:02:00 GMT -5
I'm glad to hear that some are having success. I hope you all have continued success, especially at TSPS production because if you all have success then that means that someday i will have access to your germplasm.
I didn't have any sweet potato flowers this year, and only tiny tubers. But i dug up the tiny tubers and have them in storage for presumably either replanting next season or sprouting to make more cuttings or slips or whatever they are called. Better non compacted clay soil might help too. I have a better spot in mind for spring.
i also had requested some various sweet potato slips from the potato genebank in South America at one point, but i never got anything so i guess it never went through or something. You all should look into that and see if you can request some of those interesting slips that they have.
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Both flowered for me when I lived in San Diego, during short days; obviously not much chance of that here.
