"Patriot" spuds

[steev]

I got some Harvest (or prolly Midnight) Moon spuds for planting out this Spring; they're so pretty, I thought if I could get red flesh with that skin it would be cool. Anyone with expertise or inclination to chime in, all good.

Anyone whose banner isn't red, white, and blue: never mind.

[billw]

It's very hard to get red flesh in a bicolor and I think impossible if the skin is blue. You might be able to get a red/white bicolor with partially red flesh.

[andyb]

Would a chimera be possible? According to some googling, Gladstone and Golden Wonder are chimeric. If you smooshed a red-fleshed potato together with a blue and white skinned one, you might get lucky. It would probably take some pretty fancy smooshing, but it seems vaguely possible.

[billw]

It would be quite a challenge. The color of the tuber skin layers and flesh are related to the layers present in the meristem. Even if you managed to produce a tuber that has foreign tissue in the flesh, it isn't likely to propagate. Most chimerism in potatoes arises from mutations in l1 or l2. If it is in l1, it is obvious. If it is in l2, then it is typically only exposed when you excise the existing eyes and let new eyes form, some of which may arise from l2. More than one gene is involved in flesh color, so mutations that actually change the color, rather than the intensity or distribution, are rare.

[nathanp]

Setting the chimeras aside, with the genes available in the US, you possibly could get the skin color plus bicolor (white and same as skin) flesh, with the skin color and color in the flesh being the same, or shades of the same. Red and red, or blue and blue. But not red and blue.

There are some genetics available in South America that might be like that, but even with all the rare ones and breeders working on primitives, I have not seen the genes in the US. Even ones descended from Tom Wagner's work do not appear to have this.

One type I am hoping to locate this year with a few of the accessions I requested from the USDA this year, is white or yellow skin with color in the flesh. That is a combination I have not seen in the US. The genebank says they do not have any accessions that have this. I have located two PI numbered accessions whose mother had this, however. One diploid, one tetraploid. So the TPS may segregate for this. Or not. I hope to find out.

Regarding the blue/red genes. The blue is dominant over the red, so a potato with both is generally blue, regardless of how much red it has. It can segregate for either blue or red (or other sometimes), but usually is only blue or red. It will not show both.

[steev]

Oh, well; not my first impossible dream.