How a Potato Plant Grows

[wingnut]

Tomorrow I will be planting out over 1000 TPS (some in 2-3 seedling clumps), afew hundred "pull starts", and about 200# of assorted seed tubers (walnut to golfball sized with a few smaller, and a few a bit bigger).

[Durgan]

Originally Posted by wingnut

Tomorrow I will be planting out over 1000 TPS (some in 2-3 seedling clumps), afew hundred "pull starts", and about 200# of assorted seed tubers (walnut to golfball sized with a few smaller, and a few a bit bigger).

To what purpose? Can we expect a new improved potato, whatever that means?

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by Durgan

To what purpose? Can we expect a new improved potato, whatever that means?

Wingnut curates a large collection of potato varieties including a number of landrace types. He offers them breeders and growers interested in more diversity than is found in commercial varieties.

The picture below are the varieties he sent me last week, a number of them are Tom Wagner's lines that I was interested in such as Black Irish and Azul Toro, there are several numbered accessions from the USDA collection and some of the landrace/diploid types that have been mentioned in this thread.

I can't speak to his motivation, but mine are twofold. I hope to find some boutique types that will be of interest to local chefs and provide a high value specialty crop that they simply can't get elsewhere. I also want to do some educational work regarding the diversity in the potato family, few people are aware of the thousands of varieties actually out there. Having actual examples that they can see, touch and even taste will help to make it more interesting.

[wmontanez]

@Marktutt
I am interested in Black Irish...will keep an eye on your results! lovely assortment

@Durgan

"what purpose? Can we expect a new improved potato, whatever that means?"

New or improved both can be achieved. To explaining True potato seeds is complex but the simplest way to talk about it is saying that TPS are the real seeds of a potato..not the tuber you plant...that tuber is just a storage tissue that sprouts and you get a clone. So like a hybrid tomato seed.... TPS is what has diversity in it so ultimately that is how new varieties are discovered. In Peru there are over 4000 named varieties (Andes region is where the potato originates from).

Over the time by selecting and narrowing down the diversity, we by various reasons have reduced the options out there. Some people like big potatoes near the stem then other like russets...in USA that is the case....so what a typical person find in the store is so limited.

My motivation is to eat better tasting potatoes, grow potatoes that nobody else has grown and to learn and share the knowledge and passion about growing a very important crop.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Risking thread jacking, I think I read somewhere that you were trying Negate this year Wendy? I've been amazed at how vigorous the seedlings are, this one is fairly representative of mine from TPS:



They're considerably larger than any of the other TPS lines I have started and are already sending up new stems while still in the 2 ½ inch pots. High hopes for a nice blue/black out of these... Most of the others I have from TPS are looking for red flesh. I'd love to find a good orange flesh line as well, but Tom doesn't have anything available and Charles Brown didn't respond when I tried contacting him.

This kind of experiementation is how the crops were originally developed from their wild ancestors. The commonly grown varieties are a tiny sliver of the genetic pool out there and for some growers it's fun to connect with history this way. And who knows, you might just come up with something great!

[wmontanez]

Wow, yes nice TPS plants. I have few tubers of Negate not TPS. That TPS plants is showing secondary stems from the leave axils (need transplant soon I think)
Start a new thread....then write more about your TPS plants this year. I have few red flesh also looking forward to this season.

[NathanP]

Lots of reasons for doing this other than those mentioned above.

I'm doing this partly for the fun of experimentation, and partly to develop better acclimatized lines that are late blight resistant. I won't use chemical pesticides or herbicides or petroleum based fertilizers, and late blight has been a major problem over the past few years for my tomato and potato lines. So that really limits my options in what I grow and how I do it. I'm a home gardener, not a farmer, so nothing I do is very large scale. Nearly everything I am growing this year has genetic resistance to late blight. Not through shortcuts like gmo is trying to do, but real resistance that has been bred into the potato or tomato lines.

There are few sources to turn to to get that, other than those working with very genetically diverse breeding bases. And that is not commercial growers. Growing potatoes from TPS is one way to keep shuffling the genes to try to stay ahead of the arms race with pests and diseases. Growing only from clones is a losing battle, as those crop lines are so stabilized they are stuck. That's a dead end, that eventually all of those lines will likely eventually lose out in the evolutionary sense. It is the resources of genetic diversity that offers the best chance for crops to respond and overcome the challenges they are faced with.

With the genetic bottleneck in potatoes since the 1800's, the common sense answer seems to be to go back to the source ... either traditional landraces or wild potato types to try to correct the lack of diversity. I am not a geneticist, but from what I have been able to read, nearly all commercial potatoes in North American and much of Europe descend from one single potato line. That's not a good thing if you're a long term thinker.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by wmontanez

Wow, yes nice TPS plants. I have few tubers of Negate not TPS. That TPS plants is showing secondary stems from the leave axils (need transplant soon I think)
Start a new thread....then write more about your TPS plants this year. I have few red flesh also looking forward to this season.

Yes, we had another frost on Sunday, I'm hoping it was the last so I'm going to take my chances and plant them tonight. Weird weather this year screwing up my timing. I'll start another thread, I've mostly been posting pictures on Facebook and got out of the habit here.

[wingnut]

The truth is I bought a home built with solidarity in mind, and wanted to grow most if not all of our own food. Potatoes are a great base to a healthy diet. I ran into some pictures on the net of some REALLY CRAZY looking potatoes (just google native peruvian potatoes)and said to myself 'I want potatoes like those!'. Well to get potatoes like those you must risk smuggling them from Peru.......or grow them from TPS sourced thru other breeders like Tom Wagner, or government gene banks. Basically now I have potatoes that taste better, are better for you, and last but not least my childish nature must shout 'TO HAVE COOLER POTATOES THAN THE STUPID ONES YOU GROW'. How is that for an answer?

[wingnut]

Guess not a good enough one for a response from DURGAN......

[Durgan]

New year. Maybe time to resurrect this old thread.

[lakelady]

interesting read. I'm giving them a go again lol. I will plant them in wire frames with salt hay liners, then filled with compost and hill them moderately within the structure. Wish me luck lol!

[wmontanez]

This year again growing a mix of non-commercial clones and True potato seed seedlings

[Durgan]

This is what is required. Or something similar.

[oakley]

Really enjoy the 'potato project' a few of you are sharing. Great stuff. So many varieties.
Seeing many more offered these days by suppliers.

I've not grown them in a few years. Tempting.

So much misunderstood information out there on growing methods.