Belarus is a traditional Land of potatoes

[Tom Wagner]

Only organizations have a chance to send such items to USA with the confirmed permit from USDA and all needed certification.

Andrey,

I will be in contact with the Plant Inroduction Station in Wisconsin and the APHIS Plant Germplasm Quarantine Program about which Belrus potato varieties could be requested. This may take years, however, to actually get a plantlet of any of your newer potatoes.

Meanwhile in my limited research of potatoes from Belarus, I am impressed with the variety "TEMP". I planted less than 2 oz. of this clone but it yielded over 35 lbs.!

In my field test, Temp tubers were quite flat and round. The description I have read about it didn't say anything about being so flat. It was late as they said and high yielding. The cooking quality was good, very high in soliids, which is not surprising for potatoes from your area of the world. I wonder why is is grown on so many acres there. In the former S. Union area under potato cultivationm the "Temp" was on 400,000 ha. A hectare is a unit of area equal to 2.471 acres.

Potatoes in my area have to have better appearance than what Temp has to be accepted by mass marketing. I may put in out with organic growers next year to assess their impressions.

When I ate a sample of the Temp variety I was thinking.. Cobbler or Russet Burbank in its texture. I thought that Temp was like a white version of Early Rose. If you follow pedigree info like I do, you will read that Cobblers and Burbanks are derived from Early Rose. Sure enough, when I did a pedigree search on Temp, it derived from Early Rose on a direct maternal descent.


TEMP from OLEV from VIRULANE from GOLDEN WONDER from a MAINCROP mutant from an EARLY ROSE seedling. This explains why it doesn't set its own berries and the pollen fertility must be poor. I did use Temp as a female in crosses this year.

Tom Wagner