Sweet Potato Breeding Project

[jocelyn]

I'm hoping someone will gorw the Radiance and the grocery store will carry it as local produce. That leaves me looking for product of NS this year, and of PEI next year. If they are not sprout nipped, I could hold one over winter for slips in the spring.
I have a plant in the new raised bed, each night being a blessing when there is no frost. It's still green today...........tomorrow, who knows.
Since I have started a few tubers from the grocery store and set them out well grown already, and only sometimes gotten tubers back to eat, I can't comment on Reed's question

[richardw]

Ive taken the top few cm's of soil/un-germinated seeds from each of the small pots and spread that out over the top of five large pots fulled with soil, these are outside now but i'll keep an eye on them as its still about a month till the end of frost season, hopefully something might pop up during summer maybe.

[reed]

Here are some more examples of the trait where the roots are nicely located shallowly and immediately under the plant stem. I'v decided I really want to encourage this trait, makes harvest so much easier. 



The small one in the middle I think is cause it was so over crowded by others and some bean vines that invaded the patch. I especially like it cause of how the bottom of the roots terminate in that bulbous shape rather than continuing out like the others. The one I posted earlier was like that too and I have changed my mind on that one and retrieved it from box of ones to be eaten. 

Not enough experience yet to say for sure but I'm thinking when you can harvest the whole plant in tact like this thus saving the stem at the top of the root it makes starting slips the next year easier. They seem to really put them out off the stem end.  I have enough to run that experiment both ways from the same plants, will see how it works out. Also I just thought, you wouldn't even have that option on those that grow their roots deeper or farther away. Both ends of the storage root would just be more root. 

[philagardener]

Those look really nice - you are making great progress, reed !

(This year my sweet potatoes invaded my bean patch and almost choked them out! I guess they liked all the extra water we got this year  )

[richardw]

Agree, good progress reed.

philagardener - how far away do you think you will be from digging up your seasons crop?

[philagardener]

Oct 8, 2018 0:00:12 GMT -5 richardw said:

Agree, good progress reed.

philagardener - how far away do you think you will be from digging up your seasons crop?

I started digging them yesterday (our daily high temperatures are still breaking 80F) but so far have disappointing yields.  My roots this year seem very elongated, but the bed I lifted predominantly contained purple varieties which typically don't bulk up well for me.  I'll try to get to the orange varieties later this week.

In years when I get luxuriant top growth I often find very little tuber formation (some plants with nothing!).  This year my vines took off, choked the plants in surrounding beds, and then started growing through my perimeter fencing (where they were promptly trimmed by wildlife).  At the moment, the massive precipitation we got this year seems suspect.  I don't use any chemical fertilizers and only limited application of compost so it isn't nitrogen excess.  I do pick up a fair bit of illumination from neaby streetlights, which recently were changed over to very bright LEDs, and I am wondering if that excessive "daylength" is having an influence.  The long vines were putting down roots at each node and looked like they were just starting to initiate tubers but there isn't enough season left here for them to do more. 

[reed]

It's still very warm here too, I guess I could have left mine longer and got more seeds but I wanted them to have time to properly cure (I'm still learning how to do that) and I guess I was just anxious to see the roots. I do have two volunteers still in the ground and still making seed. It's supposed to go into the 30s at night pretty soon so I guess I'll dig them up in next day or two.

The question of what maturity really means still lingers, at least to me.

Interesting that a lot of top growth results in smaller roots, I don't have enough experience yet to confirm that but I did have one especially huge vine this year that made no storage roots at all. Unless they were very deep or away from the stem, I consider that the same as not making any.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Oct 8, 2018 6:46:35 GMT -5 reed said:

The question of what maturity really means still lingers, at least to me.

Ha! I direct sowed sweet potato tubers this spring. Some of them just continued growing from where they left off last year. So they would have a big bulge of new growth on the side of last year's tuber.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I agree you are making great progress reed.

Do those compact ones also produce good amount of seed? You definitely should plant and breed them together.

This is one of those projects that really excites me even though I'm not involved with it because someday i hope you have great success and i can plant seeds from you all.

[reed]

There were some plants this year that did not make seed but fortunately all those with the nicely situated roots made at least a few, some made a lot.

There does not appear to be a correlation between the "clump root" trait and the vine phenotype. You can see in the picture the one on the left was very bushy, the other two were more viney. There does seem to be correlation between vine type and seed. The bushy ones have more but they seem to have a lot more issues with seeds aborting or rotting or sprouting inside the capsule while it is still green or making seeds without a seed coat and at just having one or two seeds per capsule. These seeds hide in big clumps buried deep under foliage. I wonder if there would be less problems in a drier environment. I don't care though cause I think they also generally yield a higher % of stringy root plants.

The more viney ones have less flowers per stem but a much larger percentage matures with a full four seeds and they are bigger. These also seem to be the ones that sprout earlier and stronger. They tend to have bigger better roots and more orange/orange roots, which I like.

Generally, I guess as far as seediness goes, if the internodes are short they come in clusters buried under leaves, hard to find and high loss rate. If internodes are longer they come in sets of two or three, easier to find and higher successful maturity. Of course all of this needs lots more experimentation and observation to say for sure but I am leaning toward selecting in that direction.

Since my recording and tracking is poor at best I'm trying to decide how to name things. I decided when it comes to seeds I'm just not going too. I'm adopting the Kaupler definition of Grex, where nothing is tracked except the number of generations since the project started. "With each generation it gets more complex. G1 plants crossing to G4 plants crossing to G3 plants crossing to G2 plants" peaceseedslive.blogspot.com/. With sweet potatoes it gets even a little more screwy, with actual clones of previous year's best plants also in the mix. 

Still thinking on a naming convention for plants I'm keeping for cloning, it will probably just be a number designating the year it showed up and some letter combination to designate phenyotypical traits. Going in to this season I had just two of these and hoped to get one or two more but the number unexpectedly jumped to eight. I guess I shouldn't complain but it is starting to overwhelm my storage capacity and if I make slips from all these next year, plus some new seedlings and some new commercial clones I will really be crowding my other crops. Gonna have to figure a work around for that issue cause I don't want to grow nothing but sweet potatoes. 

[reed]

It had been real warm here till today, and the sweets I dug earlier had been laying out on some lawn chairs under an old sheet. I guess they are cured, I don't really know how to identify that. Anyway I took off roots I'm keeping and put the rest in the kitchen storage bin.

I took the biggest clunkers, an orange/orange and a purple/white, each about 4 lbs and sliced some up to try out. The orange/orange was delicious and I ate a good amount of it raw. The purple/white was quite bland. I sauteed some slices with onion and green pepper and came out pretty good. Decent substitute for potatoes but texture was very dry and crumbly.

Not keeping either of these nor any other roots or cuttings from these plants. Their seeds and pollen are in the mix but I don't want to overly encourage "clunkerism" in my gene pool. A 4 lb sweet potato is kinda fun to see especially if it has forks, bumps and roots sticking out it comical, slightly obscene ways (sorry no photo, use your imagination)  but I'd much rather have four 1 lb or even better eight 1/2 lb. 

[oxbowfarm]

Hi jumping into this thread again, I'd forgotten I'd even posted in this one a LONG time ago. I've just recently been given by reed a few seeds from this project and I am excited to try them. I do have several years of growing sweets here in NY under my belt, and I've got some thoughts about selection.

Mostly I've been growing Murasaki/Japanese Purple type and Georgia Jet. Neither has been especially successful for me. I've never seen a flower from the Japanese sweets, and the yield is variable from them. I've gotten huge yields from Georgia Jet, but the root quality of Georgia Jet is abysmal. It either produces huge football sized roots with MASSIVE cracks all over it and lots of black surface scurfy looking discoloration, or tons of orange stringy roots. It also seems to have the clumping root habit reed is selecting for. I think this habit is a bit problematic, at least when they get really big and push out of the ground due to my third big issue with growing sweet potatoes which is Meadow Voles. I have never had less than 50-60% of my Georgia Jet roots without some level of vole feeding damage. And there are usually craters where a previously huge root has been completely excavated by vole armies.

My idea for an ideal sweet potato is one that produces abundant seed, abundant slips, stores well, is ORANGE flesh and sweet (although White flesh and sweet is fine), and makes attractive roots that are bratwurst sized up to about the size of an ear of corn. I don't want giant lunker roots. I also want a sweet potato that will form such roots early enough in the season that I can harvest them and cure them in early September when the weather is still warm enough to cure them in a high tunnel or greenhouse set up, and before the voles move in and start destroying the best tubers. I'd love to hear some input on how feasible this is.

As far as clumping root phenotype, I love that phenotype except I feel that it leaves the entire harvest vulnerable to vole decimation. So if its going to clump, its gotta be a fast-root-bulking-clumper.

I don't know if Georgia Jet has been included in the genetic mix of these seed reed? I will say that it always flowers for me.

Its too bad that ottawagardener has left HG, she has posted a lot of stuff on her TSPS experiments on her blog and on Facebook.

[reed]

Nov 6, 2018 10:06:59 GMT -5 oxbowfarm said:

"...I've gotten huge yields from Georgia Jet, but the root quality of Georgia Jet is abysmal. It either produces huge football sized roots with MASSIVE cracks all over it and lots of black surface scurfy looking discoloration, or tons of orange stringy roots."

 >>>You mean slips from the same roots can commonly make more than one phenotype? That is very interesting!<<<

"It also seems to have the clumping root habit reed is selecting for. I think this habit is a bit problematic, at least when they get really big and push out of the ground due to my third big issue with growing sweet potatoes which is Meadow Voles. I have never had less than 50-60% of my Georgia Jet roots without some level of vole feeding damage. And there are usually craters where a previously huge root has been completely excavated by vole armies."

<<< I'v never had problems with voles, thank goodness, but rabbits and deer both absolutely love the vines. I'v also never seen the "clump root" trait  which I like and the "clunker root" trait  which I hate, together in the same plant. I'v not seen it but have little doubt it could happen. 

"My idea for an ideal sweet potato is one that produces abundant seed, abundant slips, stores well, is ORANGE flesh and sweet (although White flesh and sweet is fine)," >>>Haven't yet seen a sweet white root but some white ones are good used like potatoes<<<

"and makes attractive roots that are bratwurst sized up to about the size of an ear of corn."  >>>I think that is easily in range of possibilities<<< 

"I don't want giant lunker roots. I also want a sweet potato that will form such roots early enough in the season that I can harvest them and cure them in early September when the weather is still warm enough to cure them in a high tunnel or greenhouse set up, and before the voles move in and start destroying the best tubers. I'd love to hear some input on how feasible this is." >>>This goes to the question of what maturity really means but I think it is also possible. I don't know for sure yet, if early flowering and seed maturity and early production of nice roots go together but I think maybe so.<<<

As far as clumping root phenotype, I love that phenotype except I feel that it leaves the entire harvest vulnerable to vole decimation. So if its going to clump, its gotta be a fast-root-bulking-clumper.

I don't know if Georgia Jet has been included in the genetic mix of these seed reed ? I will say that it always flowers for me. <<<Georgia Jet is not in my mix. I didn't like the reviews I read about it but if it flowers and seeds good I might add it. They do anything but bred true so future generations could easily yield something better.<<< 

Its too bad that ottawagardener has left HG, she has posted a lot of stuff on her TSPS experiments on her blog and on Facebook.

My idea of the of the perfect one is similar except, just to be different, I want dark purple skin and dark orange inside. I had one like that show up last year but it didn't make seeds. 

I have way more questions than answers but I know for sure that, some are self compatible. And I know for sure that they really can spontaneously mutate into new phenotypes and not just slightly so. 

They are extremely variable. After the 2nd generation things start showing up that have little to resemblance to any of the original parents. 

My plans on how to proceed keeps changing every time something new and unexpected shows up. I now have 7 or 8 plants I'm keeping to clone. They all seed good and make nice roots, two of which are the sweet orange/orange.  I have them as windowsill house plants and as roots. I'll replant all the houseplants but cull any from root storage that don't keep good. So far though I haven't had any poor keepers. 

I'v read that 1 in a 1000 seed grown plants are worth keeping but I think it's more like 1 in 20 or even 1 in 10. I hope and expect you will find at least one from your seeds that meets enough of your criteria to keep for cloning the next season. From then on you can just keep growing and crossing it with others till soon you have more than you know what to so with. 

Pretty soon you'll stop thinking every one is precious and start getting picky. Throwing away great seeders cause you don't like the roots or eating the last of great roots cause they don't make seeds.  Your never really discarding anything cause the genetics for it will always be in the backup seed archive. Only exception to that would be a good seeder that was male sterile and who wants that anyway? 

I learned a new term on the other forum the other day, "quantitative traits".  I think that's what's going on in sweet potatoes and that those traits can be distilled into strains that may never be completely sable but the % of new plants that have them can be greatly increased. 

[reed]

I'v been looking for the paper I found before that talks about how sweet potatoes mutate into different phenotype sometimes. I know I saved it someplace but I have dozens of saved documents and hundreds of pages to look through. O'well I think it is pretty commonly know.

ottawagardener talks about one of hers being a mutation from Georgia Jet, which is an old variety and I remember in one paper I saw it said that it happens more frequently in the first few generations from seed. I remember it said that sometimes they completely revert to the phenotype of one of the parents. Now that I'v seen if for myself I wondering if there is a way to encourage it.

Mine did not revert back to a parent type but to completely new forms. One of them was not very different, just a little longer internode length and a little less flowers. The other one mutated into a very different root phenotype, different size and shape and most notably different color.

The root the second one came from was used for slips of course and after planting it was left in a tray of sand in the garden. It just sat there for a while, the sand dried up but the root made bunches of little stunted slips. They died from drying out and when it rained it sprouted some more. Eventually I pitched it out and put my trey up. The plant(s) I'm not sure which that took off growing turned into nicely blooming vines and I collected seeds but it was just the same as those I had planted so I didn't really intend to dig it up but for some reason I did and found the very differently colored rot. It wasn't just different then from the root it grew from but different than any others I have. So now I'm wondering if the abusive treatment it went through somehow induced that mutation and if it could be repeated on purpose.

I had another plant that I liked and although it did not make roots I wanted to keep it. When I made my clones to keep as house plants and brought them in, somehow it got missed and it froze to death. It had a very distinctive, very fat stem and I was able to find it in the pile of discarded vines. It was frozen too but I took a chunk of the base about 5 inches long with a couple of roots and brought it in. I was abut to give up but now it has lots of little sprouts very crowded up and down the whole length. They remind me of the deformed looking sprouts that started on that discarded root so now I'm wondering what they might turn into.

[whwoz]

I have not been on here for a little while for one reason or another, but this season got off to a bad start Sweet potato wise.  I had managed to get hold of some Beauregard slips in August, only to have an unexpected frost wipe them out and any sweet potato slips have been hard to comeby locally.  However all was not lost as last seasons vines were thrown into the compost heap intact and they have shot away nicely.  My compost bins are made out of old double pallets approximately 7 feet only and four feet high. these have been filled with grass clippings, eucalyptus trimmings and some Alpaca poo.  The sweet potatos have gone berserk and are growing out of the bay they are in, hanging over the sides where I let them.  Hopefully I will get some flowers and tubers from them.  Will not disturb until the end of March at this stage.