SSE 27th Annual Convention Iowa

[Tom Wagner]

This may be a bit late, but I wish to invite anyone interested to attend the Seed Savers Exchange 27th Annual Convention going on this weekend (July 20-22). North of Decorah, IA.

I have not been to one of these events since 1983, but I get to be one of the featured speakers. I also will conduct three workshops on tomato and potato breeding.

I am bringing a few seeds, plants, and fruits of tomatoes, plus a large assortment to new potato varieties. I will be there for three days in answer all questions.

Here are some of the potatoes I will be displaying...

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Tom Wagner

[Andrey_BY]

Tom, I have never been to this great event, but I believe everybody of you will spent a very interesting hours (days) there.
Hope to help you with more potato/tomato seeds for your breeding experiments this autumn and later

[Tom Wagner]

Thanks, Andrey.

I will challenge the audience there with some rather unusual position papers. I am hoping the new ideas I will be launching for the first time take root. Hopefully, I'll relate the responses back at you here.

The interiors of the potatoes of the first post. Only one of the tubers shown is readily available, and then only if you are into Slow Food circles. Which one is it?

Tom Wagner




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[Rena]

Is it called Banana? I am totally new to growing potatoes but am trying again in the fall. Very beautiful pics.8)

[Tom Wagner]

Is it called Banana?

Good guess! What looks like Banana or Russian Banana Fingerling is a cross I call Baby Banana. It is the longer one at the lower left hand position.

Baby Banana is very early, sets heavy, and has a high percent of perfectly shaped small fingerling tubers.

[amideutch]

Is it the one at 6:00 between the two reds or the one that looks like a russet?

[Dukerdawg]

I think it is the one at 7:30-9:15 that looks like a banana!

Great lookin' spuds Tom! I wish I could go to the conference. It is on my 'dream list' for sure!

Duane

[Tom Wagner]

The russet is Amey Russet. It is not readily available even though it was named and released by the USDA a number of years ago. I trialled the variety for years when it had the B9922-11 number. Amey Russet has great flavors and aromas when baked.

BTW, here are but a few of the tomatoes attending the SSE Convention:
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[peispud]

Tom
What an amazing plate of spuds! Wish I could get to the event in the States to hear and see all that's happening.
Are any of these potato varieties available for purchase for home gardeners? The doggie-doo-doo shaped purple and the red-fleshed variety both interest me.

Peter

[Tom Wagner]

Peter

What an amazing plate of spuds! Wish I could get to the event in the States to hear and see all that's happening.

Now that I am getting the help I needed to understand new photography issues, I bought a memory card with 2GB to document my thousands of potato/tomato varieties. No longer will I have cameras setting around with undeveloped pictures for years.

Are any of these potato varieties available for purchase for home gardeners?

I am going to have my TaterMaterSeeds.com website going full stream soon, and I will be discussing this with the folks back at the SSE for ideas and suggestions about making these unique potatoes available. I want to avoid the PVP patenting bottlenecks and go more backyardish.

The doggie-doo-doo shaped purple and the red-fleshed variety both interest me.

Thanks for regonizing the doggie-doo-doo shaped purple look alike. This is Khuchi Akibe. I play practical jokes on people all the time and lay a tuber in their cat litter pans, under the bushes, in the corner of the living room, in their cars on wet newspapers, anything to get a rise out of people! Sometimes I get the evil eye!

The red fleshed one is Adirondacksen, one of my early pink fleshed selections. I have much redder ones I will post pictures later on about.

Tom Wagner

[peispud]

Just from growing heirloom tomato varieties and helping
with the dwarf tomato project by helping with the grow-
outs I can barely see how much work it takes to "create"
new varieties. But with potatoes you must throw away
thousands of trials to even get one that's close to what
you want. Do you breed in shape and color before you
try to improve the taste of your varieties? That Amey
Russet with the great flavors and aromas when baked
must make people remember eating at their grandmothers
house when they were younger. That's the kind of items
I want to bring to my table when I harvest from my garden.

Peter

[Tom Wagner]

But with potatoes you must throw away
thousands of trials to even get one that's close to what
you want.

Yes, I throw away more than I plant. I suppose I plant about 10% of the potatoes back by weight, and much less by variety.

Do you breed in shape and color before you
try to improve the taste of your varieties?

I select for all the the above with respect to the male parents, somewhat less with the female lines. The number of male (pollen parents) is less than 20 % of the total clones used in crossing. Many lines are naturally limited since they don't produce blooms.

Good tasting varieties tend to rise in importance in the whole agenda of my potato work. I like to eat certain varieties, I can sell them as ware or seed potatoes and they are used in breeding. Amey Russet is used as a female line almost exclusively, since too many years proved it does not have viable pollen.

[obispo45]

Sent my registration in along with my check weeks ago...been looking forward to attending since I got back from last year's convention. Unfortunately it ain't lookin' too good this time around. My wife's grandfather passed away this morning (wonderful gentleman, lived a long,interesting life and knowing him, he'd want me to attend and have fun) and lots of folks are coming here for the weekend and the services which will follow shortly. They should be arriving right around the time...11AM tomorrow that I'm having an MRI done on my left shoulder.

When it rains...it....it is what it is, or pours or something like that. I'm obviously rather bummed to say the least and now I'm pretty darn hungry after looking at those gorgeous potatoes.