Post by gilbert on Jul 1, 2017 16:46:32 GMT -5
Sweet potatoes are a marginal crop here in Denver. The nights are cool, and the season is short. Worst of all, there is a long period in both the spring and the fall that is erratic; usually warm enough, but with the occasional cool night, and, in the spring, cool soil. I'm trying to select for sweet potatoes that can tolerate occasionally cold weather. This will start by evaluating available varieties and then proceed on to producing TSPS.
If I put a bunch of slips in little pots, waited a week or so to get them established, and then put them in a warm-ish refrigerator for a given number of hours, would this be a good controllable test? I could put in four of each variety, and pull one out every hour. Anything below 50 degrees is supposed to damage sweet potatoes. I'd put them all in a warm place and see which recovered and grew most quickly.
Does anyone have a better idea?
I'm hoping to get lots of varieties this fall by asking for vine clippings as people dig their potatoes. There should be lots of different types being tried out by hobby gardeners in back yards in the metro area, if I could find them! Though sweet potatoes are not a common crop here, backyard gardeners can be successful with lots of black plastic and tunnels or frames. I can also store bought tubers to experiment with.
I'd like to stack the deck for my breeding project by finding the most cold tolerant varieties first, before focusing on seed production, which I will do in the winter under grow lights; I have more time then, and can control the number of hours of light and the crosses better.
If I put a bunch of slips in little pots, waited a week or so to get them established, and then put them in a warm-ish refrigerator for a given number of hours, would this be a good controllable test? I could put in four of each variety, and pull one out every hour. Anything below 50 degrees is supposed to damage sweet potatoes. I'd put them all in a warm place and see which recovered and grew most quickly.
Does anyone have a better idea?
I'm hoping to get lots of varieties this fall by asking for vine clippings as people dig their potatoes. There should be lots of different types being tried out by hobby gardeners in back yards in the metro area, if I could find them! Though sweet potatoes are not a common crop here, backyard gardeners can be successful with lots of black plastic and tunnels or frames. I can also store bought tubers to experiment with.
I'd like to stack the deck for my breeding project by finding the most cold tolerant varieties first, before focusing on seed production, which I will do in the winter under grow lights; I have more time then, and can control the number of hours of light and the crosses better.