TPS potato selection criteria

[wmontanez]

Loeb

You had asked me about the selection criteria or ranking that I use etc in the hilling thread. I select based on what is important to me. My scale is 0 to 5.

1. Flavor
The potato has to be good. It has to be better than any store bought potato. That is of course subjective depending on the person. I cook each potato and evaluate its flavor. I take 2 potatoes and halve then, then boil, french fry or hashbrown, roast and mash each piece. I taste them just as is and decide if they are good. It has to be great in at least one of those tests. Just boiling do not do justice to some potatoes that shine when fried or mashed.

2. Storageability
Because of my weather I need long storage >6 months in the basement gets 5 points. If it sprouts in storage within one month gets 0 points, 3 months gets 2 points and so on.

3. Disease Resistance
I am still working on this one, but if has no signs on disease till the end when dies down then gets a 5 points.

4. Yield
My average up to day is 1.5 pounds per tuber planted. Ideally I would like high yields per tuber planted. If I get 3 pounds or more gets 5 points, if it does 1/2 pound gets 0 points, 2 pounds gets 3 points.

5. Berry production
I don't want sterile plants that cannot self-reproduce as TPS. Anything plant that gives no berries gets 0 points, 1 berry gets 1 point, 5 berries 2 points....20 berries gets 5 points. I got up to now one plant that gave me 12 berries. Very fertile!

Last year I grew more than 25 TPS plants from probably near 100 starts. I have a lot more information in the tatermater.p r o boards.com on the outcome on the thread TPS growing 2011 (for some reason I can't put the link here).

Since I ended up with over 30 potato varieties between the TPS tubers and other clones I have and all that I planted in May. I need some help deciding what to keep and what to part with, I have a hard time deciding so I made that scale to help me evaluate what to keep this year.

I tasted a lot of the TPS seedling tubers last year and based on flavor, some got pre-selected and some are now in the bottom. If I can select the seedling tuber for more than flavor like yield potential and storageability (>5months) or desired characteristics (round, russeting) then I am getting ahead. For example I grew one TPS called Amey X and from the 4 segregating Amey X I only saved the russets, the flavor were good in all of them.



I got one "Suytu Vilquina" segregation that was so bitter after been cooked that was incredible, but it was beautiful, the color was bright red and yellow inside. So it went into the trash .

This 1st year grow out is to determine yield, disease resistance and flowering/berry set. The table below shows the points for some clones and at the end I will sort by highest to lowest and do the ranking. Those with lower than 10 points probably gets let go.