Māori potato cultivars

[Tom Wagner]

I am intrigued with Māori potato cultivars, and I did a search for potato with a Maori translation site and found the following as Maori varieties.

· parete
· mahetau
· waiti
· pārete
taewa, rīwai
· karupoti
· pākoro
· pāpaka
· pokohinu.
· kapetana
· apetaonga
· tūtaekurī
See also urenika.
· taewa
· waeruru
· taraka
· roke kurī


and I realized that there must be a lot of varieties of potatoes grown at one time or another by the various Maori tribes of New Zealand..
Here is a picture of a Taewa..
Karuparera – a taewa cultivar






and this appears different from the Kowiniwini potato.... http://www.koanga.org.nz/shop/backor...ato-kowiniwini

one having white flesh and the other yellow.

Many of these Maori potato clones look like Peruvian land races but with the long days of NZ acting as a filter on the short day Peruvian clones....I am interested in them for breeding these heirloom varieties for the USA, especially here in the PNW/coastal Washington.

The Maori potato clones would be valuable to cross to the many (969) accessions of Solanum tuberosum subsp. andigenum that are from the Andes, mostly from Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina....

I have been using the Andean lines frequently but I think mixing up the day length adaptation would be a useful tool for maximizing the diversity for high latitudes like where I live (47-48) degrees North.

I understand that there are about 50 varieties of Maori potato according to a couple with the names Gripp and Bertrand.

This topic is started with the idea of getting TPS and/or tubers from the Maori collection into the USA. I will implore the Potato Introduction Station to join with me in a joint request for some of these potatoes to go through quarantine for eventual release as mini tubers/meristem samples.

I also am asking those who live in NZ to make contacts with folks who have these many varieties to obtain TPS...if nothing else...for distribution.

Gripp and Bertrand



Tom Wagner...somewhat obsessive with excessive/successive collectivisms