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Post by gilbert on May 17, 2016 22:57:01 GMT -5
I've got some of my potato towers going, but have not had the time to do as many types or do the ones I have a well as I could wish. There is always next year. I will report on the results of what I do have.
My sweet potato slips are coming, I will try to do that experiment thoroughly.
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Post by oldmobie on Aug 20, 2016 20:59:50 GMT -5
Planted two of last year's mini-tuber plants in cat litter buckets to experiment with towering. One was planted unaltered, the other with two cuts in it's stem, wedged open with toothpicks below the soil level. Hopefully these cuts will encourage rooting and stolon formation. Basically it's air- layering, but underground. Dirt-layering? With the others I'll probably experiment with cutting back, and with starting new plants from the cuttings. I hope to also try the pull-start idea. Since all of that falls outside the scope of your thread, I'll track those experiments elsewhere. The two "tower" plants I put out earlier didn't make it. I cut off the bottoms of the buckets and set them in the garden, but I think they died from lack of water before they could root into the ground. I currently have a tomato plant in each, but may turn them over in the fall to see if anything's left. Conclusion? Potatoes in a tower don't thrive under extreme neglect.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 30, 2016 18:25:12 GMT -5
Keen, If you try any of the electrical stuff, let me know how it goes, I'm very interested in that sort of thing. Hello gilbert , in closing you mentioned briefly about copper tubing and electrical currents to help plant growth. There is a patent i blogged about on my blog awhile back that has a similar and interesting application like what you mentioned. I actually was thinking of building a small one to tinker with this next summer too. keen101.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/do-plants-really-need-sunlight/ keen101.wordpress.com/2016/10/01/gardening-with-conductive-helical-coils-2016/Well, gilbert , here you go. I did indeed build the helical coil for supplemental energy experiment to see if plant growth could be improved. The downside is 1.i built it rather late in the season and 2.i did not actually have a control experiment. I placed it on three smallest tomato plant clusters in the very late planted tomato patch. Interestingly enough, the three plants it happens to be on might be the only three blue tomato genetic varieties that survived my haphazard tomato disasters this year. Since placing the coils on these plants i have noticed an improvement in them and they have since catched up to the growth of the other tomato plants in that spot. Although at the same time i did also make a furrow and started watering them more. But even so i'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that the coils did help them go from "runt" status to catching up to the others. I may yet get a few tomatoes from the larger two before winter hits. 0 My next project i think i'm going to build a "Food Computer", a small climate controlled aeroponic grow box so i can learn more about how these new aeroponic and vertical gardening techniques work. I'm not so much worried about getting the climate control stuff working at first, mainly just a small aeroponic grow box that i can use to grow and experiment during the winter. I think i've already got 80% of the items needed for that, i just need an appropriate LED light with enough wattage and correct spectrum, some insulation for my box, and a small cheap ultrasonic humidifier and i think i'm good to go. Mostly i just want a little box that i can experiment with pea, bean, and tomato breeding in a pest-free environment and/or in the winter. More on that in a future dedicated thread. revi might be interested in that topic. ( alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/6698/plant-growth-enclosed-chamber)
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Post by oldmobie on Oct 9, 2016 21:37:39 GMT -5
Planted two of last year's mini-tuber plants in cat litter buckets to experiment with towering. One was planted unaltered, the other with two cuts in it's stem, wedged open with toothpicks below the soil level. Hopefully these cuts will encourage rooting and stolon formation. Basically it's air- layering, but underground. Dirt-layering? The two "tower" plants I put out earlier didn't make it. Conclusion? Potatoes in a tower don't thrive under extreme neglect. Found something coming up in one of the buckets a few days ago. I think it's a potato! Is it the original mini-tuber I planted in spring, awake now and pushed up through all that soil? I have a hunch it grew a few new mini-tubers before it died, and one of them has grown back up. I guess I'll knock it over and have a look when it frost kills.
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Post by oldmobie on Nov 23, 2016 3:10:47 GMT -5
Found something coming up in one of the buckets a few days ago. I think it's a potato! Is it the original mini-tuber I planted in spring, awake now and pushed up through all that soil? I have a hunch it grew a few new mini-tubers before it died, and one of them has grown back up. I guess my hunch was right, no part of the plant reached the bottom of the bucket. There was no sign of the original mini tuber. Check out how much soil it pushed through to reach sunlight... it's like the little tater that could! The yield leaves a little something to be desired.
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Post by gilbert on Nov 25, 2016 20:16:07 GMT -5
Well, I was busier then I expected this summer, and so the experiments largely were ignored. I think I tried too much too quickly. This upcoming year I will focus on just one or two setups and really work to get them right.
I also now have a florescent grow light, so I can start more TPS.
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Post by gilbert on Dec 21, 2016 12:34:27 GMT -5
I think I will focus on plants with tall vines that keep growing till frost. As some of you have pointed out, energy collection is everything. Even if plants manage to set tubers at every level of a tower, it won't matter if there is not enough energy for them. I'm thinking about trellising or caging up the tall vines to get the maximum of sun, or on the other hand letting them all trail down on the sunny side of the tower, well spread out. Or maybe doing both to get the maximum amount of solar capture.
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Post by gilbert on Apr 5, 2017 10:44:02 GMT -5
After thinking about this project overwinter, I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot of experimenting to do before any breeding work, if any. So I'm focusing my TPS experiments this year elsewhere, and will simply experiment with potato towers, using standard tuber varieties.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 6, 2017 2:12:46 GMT -5
gilbert, how did your experiment turn out?
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Post by gilbert on Dec 6, 2017 11:34:04 GMT -5
Not well. I just didn't really have time to focus on it. Even my standard potatoes did miserably last year, perhaps due to the weather.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 6, 2017 12:29:15 GMT -5
oh man. sorry to hear that. better luck next time. failure is the constant companion of those who garden. lol.
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