Tom Wagner's True Potato Seeds

[danwigz]

Hey Tom,

This is probably the wrong time of year to be asking this, but is this offer still open?

I'm getting interested in growing potatoes for next year, and I've been hearing people have been getting good results from the TPS. I know its the wrong time of year to be thinking about this already... but the idea of seeds for potatoes that can be stored more easily and (probably) for longer, intrigues me.

Danwigz

[Tom Wagner]

No, it is not the wrong time of year to start potatoes from true seed. Between now and the last week of August is a good time to grow mini plants in small pots and allow them to tuberize. Even if the potato tubers are as small as milo seed or the size of eggs, these keep well over the winter to plant whole next spring. I will be starting lots of seedlings myself soon. Tubers harvested in November will keep well enough for the few months before planting.

Tom Wagner

[flutterby]

Tom,

I am definitely interested in getting some TPS from you. Should I start some now, or wait until spring?

Evelyn

[Tom Wagner]

Evelyn,

If you are up in the mountains of El Dorado County, California....I taught as a substitute teacher at the Grizzly Pines Elementary School years ago....I know the area fairly well. It was a 45 mile drive..one way out of Folsom, therefore I did not make it a habit, but what a beautiful trek!

My guess is that at this date...just a bit late for seedling potatoes to do well with the low levels of light coming up...I would wait til Spring. Of course, if you have a well lit area or a greenhouse, now is an OK time. Might as well try for both seasons.

I have potato berries ready for me to pick and it will keep me busy all Fall and Winter to extract the seed. Any variety or new experimental line has to be sampled for a tuber or two in order to describe the seed envelopes with flavor components. Yesterday I sampled about 9 selections of hybrids of Skagit Valley Gold to some other diploids, and my visitor guest liked the flavors too!

Tom Wagner

[flutterby]

Hello, Tom!

I will ask my husband if he knows you as he was the GF postmaster for 30 years, now retired.

I would like to get some seed potatoes from you. What is the website where I go to purchase them? Thanks,

Evelyn

[flutterby]

Hello, Tom!

We live below GF in Somerset at about 3500' in elevation where it does snow, but not as heavily as Grizzly Flats, though hot all summer. Fall is around the corner and we are experiencing some cool-downs now.

I am looking forward to receiving the seed potatoes. Please give me any hints on the best way of germinating them as I did get some many years ago, I believe, from Gurney's Seed, though nothing came of them.

Thanks,

Evelyn

[flutterby]

Oh, I have one more question....will I be able to get potato berries on these plants, well, maybe not now, but next summer? I did not get any berries on any of my potatoes that I raised this year, though some had flowers.

Evelyn

[Tom Wagner]

Evelyn,

If you had potatoes in the past that bloomed but did not set potato berries, I am not surprised. Most varieties in the world are poor berry makers, therefore I have sought out good berry makers for years and crossed them together to get multiple generations of lines that are almost foolproof berry makers. The same with my TPS, true potato seed, that have a high likelihood of setting fruits.

This late in the season, I would suggest you hold off getting either tubers or true seed until February As for a website for requesting potatoes of all kinds, I hope to get the site going by November. Keep in touch.

I doubt if your husband would know me since I was in your area for a limited time back in 2003/2004. I had just finished my student teaching in Rancho Cordova and Folsom, subsequently sub teaching in five or six school districts to see if I could land a job as a teacher. Then I moved to Washington. I am still signed up as a sub teacher here in the Mulkiteo School District of Washington. But with a huge sub pool of young would be teachers, competition is heavy even to get day by day jobs.

As I dig my potatoes this Fall, I will make sure that berry making clones are front and center for sending out next year.

[flutterby]

Tom,

Thanks a bunch! I look forward to placing my order with you in February. Please LMK the website, OK?

Evelyn

[flutterby]

Oh, Tom....I have another question...will the ones that you are offering...will they be the actual seeds or will they be the tubers? I am interested in the seeds. Thanks!

Should I send you money now to reserve them? (I guess you can only imagine my enthusiasm...)


Evelyn

[Idahowoman]

Tom,
I would also like to try your TPS next spring. My husband grew up helping his Father and Grandfather on their potato farm . I think it would be fun to try some different potatoes.

[Tom Wagner]

Since I am such a clumsy muttering paltriness-ridden novice when it comes to web sites and development.....my local friend is going to work to help me format my website that allows me to enter descriptions for TPS (true potato seed).....therefore maybe, just maybe, I will have something together before December.

I have stockpiled potato TPS for decades. I will have to blitz the TPS thing and some of my tomato seed as well. I don't think I could ever sell all of my true potato seeds unless I have multi-acre farmer customers. I could fill 50,000 or more envelopes with TPS and still have millions of seed sequestered around.

Just my Double Cross hybrid potato seed being produced this season could be a feature....and that could take 2,000 envelopes to parcel out. I don't expect to create much of a stir about TPS, but I will try.

Another area I hope to promote is the uniqueness of 4n x 2n hybrids and recombinants.

Late blight resistant packages should and ought to be a winner!

I suppose an international listing of TPS OP's would be interesting.

I won't pack up one envelop in advance since I am am way to lazy to do that ahead of time.

I think it is high time to get TPS out to folks so that true local varieties can be created and passed on to the next generation. I get emails nearly everyday from folks wanting more diversity. I would like to think I could go beyond Luther Burbank..

I borrowed a bit from this link....http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/plant...ank_Potato.htm

This summer the "Burbank" celebrates its 135th year of commercial cultivation. On your next trip to the grocery, where you will no doubt find mounds of the familiar brown baking potato piled high, take a moment to pay homage to this most enduring vegetable.

The potato launched the plant breeding career of the nation’s most famous plant breeder, Luther Burbank. In May1872, Burbank happened upon a ripening seed ball on an "Early Rose" potato plant in his truck patch. From the berry, he grew 23 seedlings.

According to Burbank:

"Each of these plants yielded its own individual variations, its own interpretation of long-forgotten heredity and numerous natural crossings. One, a beautiful, long red potato, decayed almost as soon as dug; another was red-skinned with white eyes; another white with red eyes; two white ones and several had eyes so deep that they were unfit for use, and all varied widely."

He selected the two white-tubered plants and in 1875 sold his interest in the best white potato to James J. H. Gregory, a seedman from Marblehead, Mass., for $150 instead of the $500 Burbank was asking.

The seedman allowed Burbank to keep 10 tubers for his own use and did the honor of naming the new potato the "Burbank." Burbank used the money to finance his move to California, where he spent the rest of his life and developed his international fame.

In 1958, I read all of Luther Burbank's journals during a hospital stay due to a farm related injury. After I finished reading the books I remarked to myself, "Been there, done that!" I collected seeds and grew them out like some kids collect marbles at that time. Since Burbank was essentially my mentor at that time, small wonder that it felt like I spent most of my life as a kid looking for naturally crossed seeds and then making the crosses myself.

There has got to be a motto here somewhere.....seed it forward .....or maybe "Sowing it - Forwarding it" Perhaps a seedsman is a caretaker only long enough to the point where he has to say "Take care of it"


Tom Wagner

[wmontanez]

I am interested in your offer. Blight resistance is most appealing for my New England area but I am particularly interested in any TPS from varieties that could be grown in the Tropics/Caribbean. Keep us posted!

[ireilly]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

...

I think it is high time to get TPS out to folks so that true local varieties can be created and passed on to the next generation. I get emails nearly everyday from folks wanting more diversity. I would like to think I could go beyond Luther Burbank..

I borrowed a bit from this link....http://www.arhomeandgarden.org/plant...ank_Potato.htm

In 1958, I read all of Luther Burbank's journals during a hospital stay due to a farm related injury. After I finished reading the books I remarked to myself, "Been there, done that!" I collected seeds and grew them out like some kids collect marbles at that time. Since Burbank was essentially my mentor at that time, small wonder that it felt like I spent most of my life as a kid looking for naturally crossed seeds and then making the crosses myself.

There has got to be a motto here somewhere.....seed it forward .....or maybe "Sowing it - Forwarding it" Perhaps a seedsman is a caretaker only long enough to the point where he has to say "Take care of it"


Tom Wagner

I think you have expressed it wonderfully. I think those of us interested in plant genomics owe you and a few others here a debt of gratitude for sharing your work.

Walter

[flutterby]

Thanks, Tom for your dedication and hard work. I am proud of you for doing this as it seems as no one else is doing this work on potatoes, which can make a difference in every state and every country to use the bounty and nourishment of the potato.

Please do start packaging your top ten potato varieties so we will be able to share in your bounty, and in your mission. Don't worry about all those other packets and bins or jars of seeds...just your top ten, so we can get started, OK? Once you have that website going, you will be glad that you did. Also, please get the message into every garden publication and even see if you can get into some master garden's workshops and/or classes to present your mission.