Lateral branching, long stolons etc in potatoes-Pictures

This year I had some cultivars which had very long Stolones and a lot of lateral branches too. I'm sure I will find some pictures on my computer if you are interested to see them..

[wmontanez]

That would be fantastic Aletheia! Thanks for sharing~
I've seen your many post at tatermater.pro-boards I post there as well.

[Doug9345]

Let me ask a question. If I understand this right a potato that exhibits this trait will grow out side ways forming potatoes along the way. Does such a plant send out stolons, send up shoots and grow potatoes and keep repeating until frost kills it? It would seem to be a great trait for grewing large quanities of potatoes from a limited number of seed tubers.

[NathanP]

Does such a plant send out stolons, send up shoots and grow potatoes and keep repeating until frost kills it

Yes, yes and yes. The potential is there, but so far, potatoes have not really been bred selectively for these traits. Commercial varieties select against these traits. They want potatoes to be at uniform depth, stay put instead of crawling, and all set tubers at the same time (like a determinate tomato). The traits are present in 'wilder' type potatoes, older breeding lines, and in some people's crosses, such as those Tom Wagner has bred. Traits to identify appear to be long season, spreading and tubers forming on stolons and buried stems.

What I have seen is there are some that form potatoes on the stems, stolons and spread quite far from the planting location, but yields from these tend to be low and mostly small potatoes (marble size or smaller).

There could be some out there that just have not been allowed to grow like this, or have not been tested in a potato bin/bag situation that may thrive and produce more.

There's a challenge in there for those who want to take this up, whether as a hobby gardener or breeder. Developing varieties that yield well in small places or vertical situations could develop into a niche.

[Durgan]

Not one photo has ever been produced of vertical growing potatoes. Lots of babble but no photos.

https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q...potato+growing


They don't exist.

Breeding potatoes with long stolones and lateral branches is one of my major goals too. I am also expecting high yields and another reason is the ability to regenerate once the major branch is damaged in case of a hailstorm or what ever. I also gained the experience that this cultivars are usually very late ones but some of them grew quite big tubers.

Here is one phureja type. A dark purple one with deep yellow flesh and some purple spots in it. Tubers are fingerling shape with deep eyes. I grew them in a 5l (1,3 gallon) container and there was not really enough place to hill the plants. So nearly all leteral branches appear above the soil and also some tubers saw daylight The plant was 1,6m (5,25foot) high when I harvested it at the End of November. Next year this cultivar will get a place in my test field to see its full potential.

My second cultivar is one of my best this year. Its mother was "Blaue Elise" It had a very thick major branch and lots of lateral branches. At the end it reaches about 1,4m (4,6feet) and I had to attach it to some wooden sticks to prevent the plant from falling down. This single plant produced 2800g (98,8oz)of potatoes with a very juicy and deeply purple colored flesh. Very good you can see that the tubers grew very long distance apart from the plant and you also can see the stolones which crawl very close to the surface and produce tubers in huge amounts.












Now I have to go to bed. I will show you some more of my cultivars in the next days.

[wmontanez]

Very nice Aletheia! Thanks so much for introducing me to that variety. Nearly black inside.

[wmontanez]

If I understand this right a potato that exhibits this trait will grow out side ways forming potatoes along the way. Does such a plant send out stolons, send up shoots and grow potatoes and keep repeating until frost kills it? It would seem to be a great trait for grewing large quanities of potatoes from a limited number of seed tubers.

Hi Doug
As Nathan also said, there is POTENTIAL for this, so far those that have the traits to send out stolons, and grow somewhat along the main stems are long variety potatoes(180days ) and also has direct tie to peruvian origin.

The commercial bred potatoes are bred for machine harvest so they are most likely behave like Yukon gold. Uniform size tubes, close to the base etc. Easier to harvest.
Therefore those wild ones that sprawl etc and set tubers at different times (not at once) are not considered good for mass production but as a backyard gardener, we can benefit from it.

[NathanP]

My opinion on this is that Durgan is correct that there are now no commercial varieties that will grow well and produce the 99 or 100 pounds in towers or bins as purported on the internet. Durgan is probably correct that the 99 or 100 pounds is entirely unrealistic.

Nevertheless, there are potato lines that do grow tubers off buried stems and stolons, as depicted in the images above from multiple people.

I hope to better documentation of this this next year by growing several potato lines in bins and providing pictures along the way.

It's a little bit OT but I gained the same experience.
There are several discussions and documentations about potatoe towers in the net. They all claiming huge amounts of potatoes but never show the results. My opinion is that the mentioned yields are completely unrealistic.

I also gained the experience that plants which produce long stolones and lateral branches are not the best choice for potatoe towers. (before my attempts I thought the same like you) But I made the experience that this cultivars grow outside sideways the bins and also the tubers. So what you get is a huge quantity on green tubers on the outside of the bin and less tubers in the center of the tower. The next problem with bins is the pressure of the soil on the bottom of the bin. It leads to a damage on the Root system and the primary shoots and the plant starts rotting. This year I will start another tower experiment again with some adjustments. But my experience is that conventional plants also in bins produced higher amounts of tubers than this cultivars which produce long stolons do.

Btw. I got a crop of about 20 to 30 pounds each tower and this was quite good. With other cultivars like my blue wonder on the last post maybe you can rise the yield up to 50 or 60 but never 100 pounds.

So my result is that cultivars with long stolons and many secondary branches are a good choice in the field but they do not really good perform in towers. Some quite good results with such cultivars I got in wooden boxes which were more wide than deep

[wmontanez]

Aletheia, same here, those long stolons plants love my wide wood boxes.

The height of my wood boxes are only 25cm (12in) but long so each plant has the chance to sprawl. I added 5-10cm (2-4in) of wood chip mulch (fall leaves also work but decay fast, pine needles was great for preventing weeds!). I did get ~0.5lb (227g.) increase per plant than the control (w/o mulch). Your pictures of the soil seem not dry so you might not need this but I will for sure continue to do mulching after the second hilling since I "dry farm" only using rain as irrigation (not supplemental, whatever rains...I collect just 55gal (about 200L) of rain water for extreme cases) it did prevent moisture evaporation and prevent those green tubers on the surface....plus overall pretty effect on my potato patch that looked like a flower garden all manicured.

The yields you report are impressive for "Blaue Elise", if you do the potato tower would be great information. Some people like Curzio might like to get that variety for his Potato Project. http://www.curzio.com/N/PotatoProject.htm

I hope to learn from you and hopefully there is something you could learn from me as well. I evaluated 70 potatoes the year before and last year reduced it 35 varieties and only 1% of them has this trait of sending long stolons and/or potential vertical tuber set.

This is a sample of my evaluation of 2012 (attached) this year results I am still compiling....

Most of my 2014 efforts will be dedicated to TPS growing again, I did a big growout in 2011 with 100's of plants and even thou only created 6 good keepers it was so much fun!

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?BKWAI 11 September 2010 Yukon Gold Test Box Potatoes

Yukon Gold Potatoes were harvested today. A total weight of 23.5 pounds was harvested from the 4 by 4 foot test area. The quality is excellent. Another plant could probably be placed in the center of the area without crowding. The average weight per plant was 5.9 pounds. From my experience anything over 4 pounds is acceptable.

For reference.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?XWWLI 19 May 2010. Test to determine quantity by weight of four Yukon Gold potatoes.

A box 4 by 4 feet by 11 inches high was made in ideal soil and location to determine the quantity of potatoes by weight that can be produced. Each plant has about a foot on each side to insure minimum crowding of the root system. The seed potato was planted just below ground level and covered with soil about two inches on top.

Soil was placed in the corners for the first hilling. After the first hilling the growing plant will be covered adequately with bedding wood chips until the end of the season.

This test is to establish by weight the quantity, and size quality of potatoes that can be grown in a small space.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?CZJZE 26 June 2010 Yukon Gold Potato Growth in 4 by 4 foot Test Box
The potatoes were hilled once and heavily mulched. A string was tied around the vegetation to keep upright. The premise being that the more vegetation exposed to the sun feeds the new tubers. This opposed to deep hilling and hiding the vegetation.

[wmontanez]

Durgan,
Yukon gold does not show this trait, but is a great potato. I read your site and liked how you mulched them, so I did learn something there.
I am sure in Canada must exist different types of potato and perhaps one or two would have the potential for lateral growth. If you grow one as experimental feel free to post your results here. I am sure your techniques will make excellent yields, but so far those varieties you have been growing, and posting here several times, are just the commercial type behavior.

[wmontanez]

NathanP,
I will follow your posts next year. I probably grow just one box for the sprawlers but most of my time will be dedicated to new TPS potatoes. I am reducing my 35 varieties to 15 varieties, a painful task to let go some.....so I will offer them to you if you are interested! I let you know by PM in Feb. when I make the final list~