Sweet Potato Breeding Project

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I think i May have some sweet potato berries forming on a vine in the pot that i planted my sweet potato slips in. I'll have to dig it up when appropriate to check if it is indeed a sweet potato, because it is possible a domestic morning glory was still growing in that pot after all these years of neglect. But I'm pretty sure it is a sweet potato. So that is exciting! I'm so ready to try using TSPS!

[oldmobie]

This is my first year having sweet potatoes bloom. (Or my first time being attentive enough to notice.) I'm only groing one variety, Beauregard. I've read on here that most sweet potatoes are usually self incompatible. I think I'm just seeing the remains of blooms that died unpollinated. I'd like a second opinion, if you guys don't mind. (If my pictures are high enough resolution.)

If I'm not gonna get seeds anyway, I'd like to harvest the greens.

Since I know now that I can get blooms, I plan to try to plant more than one variety next year.

[reed]

Growing TSPS is great fun, I'm glad I stumbled on to it. As far as stabilizing, it would take a tremendous effort to pull it off, they are just too diverse and too weird on which one is compatible with which other one and in which directions. Plus they really do mutate in first few seasons from seed. I haven't seen different colors or leaf type but slips from the same root vary for amount of flowers, and vine traits like internode length.

I just don't have the space and organisational dedication to make the dozens or better hundreds of controlled and isolated grow outs it would take to know for sure on a lot of things or to arrive at a stable variety. Also mine will never stabilize cause pants from different year's seeds and from different years clones are all growing together. It's more of a grex, if I understand the term correctly.

I'm thinking of just making a collection of nice ones that make good roots to eat and also reliably make seeds. I have two of those so far. I'll just clone them each year for my production crop and stockpile the seeds. Also each year grow some new ones from seed and add in new commercial clones as I acquire them. That way I'll have my food crop each year as well as my ongoing search for more to add to the collection. If ever something happened and we ate or critters got all the saved roots I'll just go back to the seeds and start over knowing that a high % of the new plants will likely be good replacements.

Yesterday I found a late sprouting volunteer, a puny little thing that had grown smothered by some tomato plants. I almost just ignored it but I dug it up and got a little shock. It's roots are all white, white skin, white inside. It probably isn't the world's first white sweet potato but it's the first one I'v ever seen. And it had shriveled up buds where it had tried to bloom. It's puny growth is easily explained by how it grew and I tilled that area in spring so the seed may have been buried deep which might explain it's late sprouting. Any way, space allowing I may try to keep it as a windowsill plant this winter.

They vary in lots of other ways too but on root color alone I'v seen the following variants.

   skin / inside
orange / orange
orange / white
purple / white
purple / purple
purple / white with purple star pattern
purple / orange
pink / yellow ring around orange
white / white 

The original parents of those variants were orange / orange and purple / white. 

I'v got some pics and will post when I find my little cord to download them from the camera. 

[reed]

oldmobie, yes those look like flowers that were not pollinated. Exciting though that you have blooms on Beauregard. My Beauregard have not flowered at all this year. 

[walt]

Yesterday I stopped at a plant sale to look for thyme plants.  In their landscaping they had a huge yellow-green sweet potato vine with the biggest sweet potato leaves I've seen.  15 cm wide and 15 cm from base of leaf to tip of leaf.  Heart shaped.
I saw no blooms and they weren't for sale so I didn't buy.  But I think that next time I'm in the area, I'll ask about a cutting.  At least I think I'll ask.  Might depend on whether it is closed or open.

[oldmobie]

Sept 4, 2018 5:10:27 GMT -5 reed said:

oldmobie , yes those look like flowers that were not pollinated. Exciting though that you have blooms on Beauregard. My Beauregard have not flowered at all this year. 

Take that ID with a grain of salt. They were a six pack from walmart. (I also bought a "beefsteak" tomato there that produces nice fruits about the size of a golf ball.)

[richardw]

Now have four fully open leafed seedlings. Hoping for at least 10 clones to establish my breeding nucleus which looks highly likely, anything after that is a bonus.

[reed]

Sept 7, 2018 1:06:28 GMT -5 richardw said:

Now have four fully open leafed seedlings. Hoping for at least 10 clones to establish my breeding nucleus which looks highly likely, anything after that is a bonus.

Ten isn't quite enough to insure that some will be good seeders so I'm hoping you end up with a minimum of 20 and expect you will over next few weeks. As your weather warms a lot of the slower ones should sprout.  I wouldn't give up on any for at least eight weeks. 

I of course still want to bring in new genes but the diversity in just a few is amazing. None of the original parents had long vines, none had purple roots or white roots but all those things have showed up.

I probably have another month or more till weather puts a stop to seed production but I'm getting real anxious to see what new kinds of roots I'll get this year. My favorite plant is descended from last year's "first sprout / first bloom" and it holds the same distinction for this year but it looks very different. It has light purple leaves on long trailing vines where it's mother had compact more upright vines with solid green leaves. The mother "FSFB" has big sweet, orange roots, I'm hoping the new one also has nice roots and I can add it to my collection to clone each year.  

[richardw]

I remember you saying that some seeds can take a long time to show themselves, so i'm far from giving up. We have just had a week of cold cloudy weather and so the tunnelhouse has only been getting up around 16Cdeg in the daytime while it's 8-9Cdeg outside. But starting yesterday, we are in for a run of much warmer weather so that should help, even though its a reasonable frost this morning of -3.5C the tunnelhouse stone work has warmed enough to keep it well above freezing and now the skies are clear plus the angle of the sun, it should be around the mid 20'sC this afternoon.

Ive carefully been checking on the seeds, i can see a few swelling so i'm sure there will be more than 10.

[diane]

This sounds like a fun project.

I have never grown sweet potatoes, but some dark purple (both skin & flesh) ones started growing leaves in a drawer in my kitchen,
so I've put them in big pots.

If I put them in my frost-free but unheated greenhouse, will they continue to grow in the winter?

[richardw]

Ive wintered over three plants in my 'frost-free but unheated greenhouse', so yes they should slowly grow.

[diane]

Thanks, Richard.

I'll hope for flowers in the spring.

[reed]

diane, as long as they don't freeze they won't die quickly but consistent or repeated spells much below 50 F will be pretty hard on them. No problem however as all you need is a 4 or 5 inch piece of stem with a healthy tip to start a new plant. And a new small plant is all you need for the next years crop. It's not at all necessary to keep a larger established plant, even if you did I doubt it would give much of a head start next year. 

If they get to looking bad in the unheated green house just puck off some slips and stick them in water in a warm window. 

[diane]

OK. Good to have a number. I'll put them up on the greenhouse balcony and if they look unhappy there, they can come in the house.

I'm not expecting much of an outside crop next year - I'm too near the beach - I grow only early tomatoes, and never anything that likes heat like watermelons and eggplant.
The greenhouse gets warm, never hot.

But I'd like lots of flowers to make some crosses to develop some sweet potatoes that like my conditions.

[richardw]

And they are quite good as a winter house plant too.