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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 14, 2015 15:24:01 GMT -5
Tom: That's some mighty fine work. Thanks for taking the time to share your methods.
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Post by steev on Dec 14, 2015 21:01:13 GMT -5
Impressive, indeed!
Regarding strains that don't at least produce up to commercial strains; I favor my own personal taste and will make allowance for the particularly pleasurable on any measure: taste; texture; or appearance. Man does not live by calories alone, nor by what can be produced to convert to money.
As I'm planting tubers (I never cut spuds up, regardless of size, as I plant whatever comes to hand and expect any that do well will provide plenty for re-planting, which is where the inch-and-unders come in, thereafter), I always mulch for insulation when it's cold and moisture-retention otherwise; humidity-promoted disease is almost something I'd appreciate a need to combat.
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Post by RpR on Dec 15, 2015 0:02:15 GMT -5
Very interesting.
My parts of Minnesota had a better than average year for potatoes, as I do water but only did it once and that was for the corn, not the potatoes.
I planted very deep and do use an initial heavy coverage of leaves as mulch.
I have never found wet ground to be a problem, actually just he opposite.
Potatoes should have consistent water volume, as possible, as water stress, too little, makes them susceptible to diseases.
Inconsistent water cause knobs, splits and hollow hearts in potatoes.
My potato beetle problem, even though I had more than enough, did not hamper yield which I was glad for and a bit amazed as I have had them reduce yield to a bunch of golf balls in the past.
I used no pesticide this year and the damage was no worse than years I did use it, although variety of potatoes makes a big difference as some types were untouched.
I consider golf ball size and smaller as marbles and this year I had a fraction of the marbles I have had in the past.
I did put yards of sheep manure in my garden last fall and that probably influenced my yield heavily but in the past I have used fertilizer in a method similar to yours some years and did not get the boost I did this year and the garden just seemed to fizzle over time, even though the soil where my original garden is has a better then average ph for potatoes.
If I were you just to see if there is a difference, I would cover two rows with mulch, heavy leaves or straw, to see how that works compared to your standard method.
Rather than 10-10-10 you may do better with a 5-10-10 as its composition is better suited for potatoes.
A heavy dose of animal manure every x number of years not only gives a better natural fertilizer boost, it keeps the texture of the soil at a better level if you have soil that compacts, although despite what they say about potatoes doing better in loose soil, the ph of the soil has been of greater importance in my two gardens as the heavy clay low ph garden usually does better.
I have tried repeatedly over the years varying planting from laying the potatoes on the ground and covering with mulch to planting very deep, 10 inches or more, as I did this year and found deep planting gives better yield than shallow or surface planting.
I have never thought of weighing each individual hill but that is worth considering.
Keep us informed, your info is very useful.
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Post by steev on Dec 15, 2015 0:26:05 GMT -5
Given my understanding that spuds are actually modified stems, which would seem confirmed by the practice of hilling, I think you must be right about deep planting.
Regrettably, I've not yet gotten the stripped, over-grazed, mineralized soil on my farm worked up to more than ~4"; something to work towards, deep planting.
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Post by RpR on Dec 15, 2015 12:25:28 GMT -5
I will some times takes odd-ball left overs of very small marble size, that have strong sprouts, and plant them in my odd-ball left over patch.
If you have left over fingerling potatoes they will all be small.
Results vary but this year they all gave very good yield and size.
Also as far a CPBs, this year the one time I spent some time picking or squashing them, I found many Lady Bugs in my potato patch.
I think that helped control them.
For slugs I use slug bait which did keep them out of my squash but you have to use a lot, often .
Of my gardens, the best one is in the Hutchinson area and the other in the Sauk Rapids area.
Lily Miller has a 5-10-10 and there is a 3-6-6 out there.
10-10-10 is ok but for potatoes the last two numbers are a bit more important, ALTHOUGH, if you speak to three different potato experts, you will get three different recommendations.
I imagine that is because they use what works best in there soil chemistry.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 15, 2015 14:04:40 GMT -5
wow. great work. I don't currently work with potatoes much, but i hope to in the future. I'm very interested in following peoples progress with TPS. I dont know if you mentioned it or not, but i also would be interested in someone collecting data on TPS yields (as in yields for new TPS seed pods). It would be interesting to see which varieties produce more seeds the first year, which ones more the second year, etc.
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Post by steev on Dec 15, 2015 20:52:05 GMT -5
Impressive, indeed! Are you saying in your second paragraph that you use the inch-and-unders for next season's seed? I guess I always figured they were cast-offs, must be making some incorrect assumptions regarding their usefulness. I do love those little ones whole in a fresh fall vegetable soup... I take bags of "mark-down" spuds from my gourmet produce market, commonly varieties not sold in local supermarkets (sprouty, blems, or dried-to-wrinkly), typically 80% off, and plant them whole; any that produce a decent return/size are in danger of being eaten; those that produce few/small are replanted for a second chance, do-or-die; the marbles of any are mostly "seed" to me, as I think I don't need a large tuber for a decent plant, having a fairly long growing season. I note that the scooped-out seed potatoes commonly retailed aren't much larger than the marbles, anyway, so I figure I'm avoiding potential rot on cut surfaces. Further, I leave those marbles where they are to grow, thinking them very prone to drying out, hence the protective mulch against cold; in-ground storage does expose them to gophers, but there are uses for "ground-squab". |
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Post by philagardener on Dec 15, 2015 22:12:33 GMT -5
I've avoided replanting "marbles" out of concern that I might be selecting for smaller tubers; glad to hear they seem to be working for folks!
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Post by steev on Dec 15, 2015 22:54:13 GMT -5
Absent evidence otherwise, I think "marbles", given that isn't all the plant produced, have the same promise as their larger siblings; clearly, a larger tuber will potentially produce a larger, more productive plant, but I reiterate my observation of the size of retail seed scoops. Again, I suppose one may need to consider one's growing season to decide whether one can afford to rely on marbles to produce.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 16, 2015 0:50:41 GMT -5
One of my selection criteria for potatoes is that if a seedling doesn't produce berries and seeds the first year, then it is used for food and not for plant breeding.
Berry production seems fairly erratic to me from year to year. Sometimes a certain clone will produce lots and lots of berries, and other years only a few. I wonder about things like temperatures, and rainfall, and where the various clones are growing in relation to each other, and about pollinators, etc...
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Post by richardw on Dec 16, 2015 2:21:06 GMT -5
I sure Joseph Lofthouse that its mostly temperature related, ive noticed a lot more berries during cooler summers. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 16, 2015 5:07:11 GMT -5
So if I understand you correctly, you are wondering what the seed berry yields and seeds per berry yields are from the plants grown from TPS that was harvested from plants grown from tubers as compared to plants grown from TPS that was harvested from plants grown from previously harvested TPS? I have reread that sentence myself a couple times and wonder if it even makes sense...I think it does... LOL I do not think that question has been answered, but I think it has been established that as the years go by and people select for heavy bloom quantity and good berry production, and cull out the poor seed berry producing strains as well as strains showing cytoplasmic male sterility, their landrace plantings will produce more, larger seed berries. I think Joseph has some pictures posted somewhere testifying to this. If I missed your point, please clarify. Sometimes I am not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree... Yeah, basically. I would think yields would also increase as the years go on as well, but it would be interesting to know which ones produce lots of berries vs any that produce few. hmm... if that's true it makes me wonder if a tuber could be artificially chilled to produce more berries. Perhaps more berries are produced in cooler weather because the plant knows there is less of a chance for the tubers to survive? I've often thought that a temperature controlled grow room that was set to be colder than normal could be used to speed up breeding of crops to have more cold and frost tolerance. You could grow a crops several years in a row to speed up adaption. Just set the temperature to monitor the outside temp swings, but to be a certain amount of degrees under. |
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Post by nathanp on Dec 17, 2015 22:00:13 GMT -5
Yes that is correct. Everything I have read shows that berry production slows above 85F for nearly all potato varieties, and is nearly nonexistent above 90 degrees. I have a white paper from the USDA-Grin that states their best berry producing time is the spring. That is not an easy time of year for those in cold climates with short seasons.
I would venture to guess that those with higher proportions of certain wild potatoes (such as S. chacoense) which have heat or drought resistance, probably will flower at higher temperatures than most S. tuberosum.
Rich Machado of Machado Farms in southern California, has done breeding work towards potatoes with much higher than normal levels of soil heat tolerance.
I have found that flowering (and berry production) is not consistent year to year, even among regularly flowering potatoes. Some lines are better than others, and most commercial varieties are poor at this, however there are several recent commercially release lines, especially the 'specialty' potatoes and colored potatoes that appear to flower and produce berries more consistently.
I have asked whether I can have permission to share the document and/or contents here, as it has some very practical information.
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Post by philagardener on Dec 18, 2015 6:51:00 GMT -5
Interesting - you can always post the link if it is publicly available.
Maybe the problem with high temp berry set is pollen viability, like in tomatoes.
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Post by RpR on Dec 18, 2015 14:44:37 GMT -5
I wish I could post more accurate information on berries, as I had a bucket full this year but I will say what little I can.
My MegaChip potato, and I only had five or six plants, produce berries heavily.
In my garden due to my hauling in dirt from other areas in a patch quilt area, cannot produce even results but they were produced in area of original black gumbo, sandy clay hauled in from the Sauk Rapids area and bags of garden soil. This took place over thirty years.
It is in an area that get the most sun, Southwest corner.
My Victoria were on the opposite edge of the garden and while they did produce some berries not even near to the amount the MegaChip produced.
I had five varieties and oddballs in that garden and some produced few to none, although I was not checking to see which ones did or did not, it was just that the MegaChip produced so many it was impossible to ignore.
My garden up by Sauk Rapids did produce some berries, except for Victoria, different varieties, but actually very few but that garden due to location is in an area that has higher temp. than normal due to location to buildings and fence that borders on one side.
Even in winter one can be fooled how cold it actually is if one goes out the door by the garden.
So is it temperature or ph, much higher ph up north, or something else.
One of the years I may get my butt in gear and do something with those berries as I have buried hundreds over the years.
I can say, the years I use no mulch, or only part of the garden, the bare area produce few berries, as once I started using leaf mulch continually is when I started running into a lot of them.
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