Berry production.....

[wingnut]

These are pics of some Open pollinations, as most of my hand pollinations I strip the unpollinated flowers from the cluster. The first pic is 97H32-6, a Japanese variety with very primitive foliage. next is Skagit Valley GoldAnd

[wmontanez]

Very impressive. Today I bagged some berries with a name tag as I am going away and don't want them falling around.
But some were soft/ripe and my mom was visiting so I took the opportunity to show her how to collect and clean TPS and she wanted to bring back home some TPS anyway. Only 5 berries from Fripapa that were ready for harvesting.

[renny1]

How do you know when they are ready for harvesting?

[Tom Wagner]

Potato berries are not like tomatoes...they don't turn a color that most people would recognize right off. The maturity of the berry is about 6 weeks minimum from blooming and better at 8 weeks. I usually pick the berries when they are still rather green...they do eventually turn lighter green..a bit yellowish as they turn soft. The berries keep inside longer if they are picked when still green and firm. I usually let them 'sit' for a few weeks to harden up the seed coats.

As the plant becomes somewhat senescent...no further growth...leaves yellow and die...that is a sure time to pick the berries off the ground. The fruits often break on the cluster at their abscission zone of the pedicel. I have found if a few are dropping off the vine naturally...that is usually a good time to pick them. I don't like the berries to rot on the ground...too much trouble to take care of.

As the berries rot ....the gel around the seed breaks down....but I much rather extract the seed before the berries rot. I use TSP cleaner to dissolve the gel since the gel acts as an inhibitor for sprouting even years later if it is not removed. I use a chlorine rinse to make sure pathogens are controlled. I try to use 121 F. hot water treatment to condition the seed further.

[Tom Wagner]

Wingnut,

97H32-6 is a diploid...one of the most rare of diploids since it is 100% self compatible as opposed to almost all diploids, including the Skagit Valley Gold. You have picture the many berries that are most likely selfed. That accounts for such good berry set. 97H32-6 is a strange looking dude but using it as a male parent will transfer the Sli gene...a dominant gene that will make any diploid hybrid fertile to its own pollen. Once that is accomplished...one can self the heck out it....making valuable alleles homozygous.


Thus, highly homozygous and seed-propagated diploid potatoes could be obtained by repeated selfing using the Sli gene

I know for a fact that Wingnut like the novelty of the vine in the first place...and that he was going to use it as a male....I encouraged it from the first sight of the plant a few weeks ago. I hope it is blooming for me when I visit Wingnut this Friday.

I have fought with the heterogeneous nature of diploids for most of my life. I am a selfer. Diploids cannot be selfed, and this clone may allow me some tools to breed diploids that will approximate a true breeding potato from true potato seed...TPS....

The way I understand it from genetics....a given diploid is !00% or near that in heterozygous alleles. If I can self a line down five times to the F-5 generation...I will have mathematically stabilized a near true breeding line with about 92% stable genes. This is about what tomatoes go through...by the F-5...92 percent of the characteristics are stable. As long as the major reasons for being are stable...we can live with the other dichotomy.

97H32-6 has short dormancy and I will have to cross it to diploid clones like stemontomum to get long tuber dormancy. 97H32-6 is day-length neutral and that will really help getting diploids adapted to long day needs as I have in Washington.

Eventually I suppose if I had the right self fertile diploid that was breeding true such as for orange flesh...I could plant Skagit Valley Gold in one row and an inbred 97h32-6/Gold in the next row. All of the seed from the SVG would be hybrid and more uniform for the deep yellow/orange flesh. The hybrids could be planted out for mass TPS production along with tuber production with lots of hybrid vigor.

[wingnut]

Good to hear you will be down Friday, the weather has been perfect for berry production. I am sure the 97h32-6 will be blooming, as it has been fairly constant in it's flower production. A few things are petering out, but most plants are blooming/growing with gusto!

[wingnut]

Some purposeful crosses

[Indyartist]

Fantastic reading, I'm learning a great deal, not enough perhaps but I'm certainly on a TPS, potato learning curve.

[owiebrain]

Same here, Indy. I feel like I jumped into the deep end of the pool without a floatie but am trying my best to learn emergency dog paddling before I go completely under. This year is all about learning for me and getting comfortable with potato growing in general. I have to keep reminding myself of that so I'm not too hard on myself when I compare my potato patch to others'.

Wingnut, what kind of tags are those and where did you find them? I assume they're some sort of weather-resistant plastic and you use Sharpies to write on them? There are a million things I can cut for my use but those look pretty handy.

[wingnut]

Tom brought/left the tags, they are paper so the ink soaks in. I am not certain where Tom gets them, but I'm sure he will post up soon.

[ireilly]

I'm sure the original source is somewhere else, but I've seen something similar to these used by local telco techs on phone punchdown blocks to label wires since they are completely non-conductive.

Walter

[Elizabeth]

You can get tags like that at your local office supply store - when I got mine a couple of years ago they came in 100 packs and 250 packs.