The Katahdin Potato Variety

[Tom Wagner]

http://i.imgur.com/z3TluHK.jpg

I still am enamored with Katahdin even after 50 years of using it to breed new varieties of potatoes. The crosses I made today using pollen and flowers from Katahdin were done during the best and most perfect conditions I can imagine...62 F after a good soaking rain earlier in the week.

F. J. Stevenson, the original breeder, would be so proud. The variety has been around 80 plus years and I will always consider it a classic variety. No prettier plant exists than potatoes, in my opinion. I spend hours crossing potatoes when I have the ideal conditions.

[mensplace]

I do wish that we had such choices here. Most often potatoes here just say Idaho or russet, along with the rose, the golden and various reds. In asking the folks at a Potato institute I was told that marketing drives potato choices in the U.S. and that it would be purposeless for them to attempt to market or distribute any of the many wonderful varieties found in other countries. Of the "Idaho" we have two varieties, one with a skin that would gag a horse and another similar one with a thinner skin, but with a flavor that is more pronounced. Seems the other is strictly for baking and the flavor totally dependent upon what condiments are added and DRY. To make matters worse, there are those little plastic bags that have largely replaced the mesh bags. Down here, with our heat and humidity, they have to be removed from those bags or the moisture level virtually assures rapid sprouting followed by rotting. I can't remember ever seeing one labeled Katahdin...and I love good potatoes.

After having researched the potatoes that I had so enjoyed in England wit a chart that listed the qualities such as "waxy", I did find those that were rated as the best. That which I enjoyed in the "West Country" of England were like a totally different vegetable in their texture and flavor. Obviously, the answer would be to grow my own, but the spine, leg and sacral issues prohibit digging the up. I have seen Katahdin seed potatoes and some of those English waxy potatoes online, but is there a practical, reliable, easy to harvest method to grow them that you would recommend such as starting them at ground level and continually adding additional soil to create a potato mound.

Seems the potato institutes that drive the four main varieties they referenced as being sufficient could learn a lot from those in other areas such as how the Apple growers were forced by Japanese breeders to consider other varieties that have led them to offer more than the "Delicious" varieties that largely killed the heirlooms here. Even there, I remember my first visits to Europe and England many years ago where I first found apples with flavors I never imagined.

Even in labeling, it would be nice to know what potato variety is being sold rather than just Russet and Idaho. But, things are slowly changing in that now we at least have a new one such as the yellow and the rose varieties. Now, I'm going to make a concerted effort to find the Katahdin in the larger markets. I don't recall ever seeing a Maine potato here.

[Tom Wagner]

Thanks, Mensplace, for those comments and this one in particular...

..marketing drives potato choices in the U.S. and that it would be purposeless for them to attempt to market or distribute any of the many wonderful varieties found in other countries.

I crossed some pollen of Katahdin to a variety from Galicia, Spain called Fina de Carballos. It is registered there but is grown in a very small way. It is considered to be an outstanding flavored potato with firm cooking qualities compared to the standards. You can imagine that if it is rare even in Galicia, how rare is it here in the states?

Multa, from the Netherlands, is another case...rarely grown but it figures mightily in my crosses for the last 30 years. The female parent of Multa is Oberarnbacher Fruhe which in my youth was one of my very very favorites for flavor. Where can you buy Multas? Exactly! My collection of Multa seems to be coming down with a virus so I quickly recovered some pollen yesterday and will again today cross with it. Yesterday it was crossed to Katahdin and a couple of others.

Multa was involved as a gg grandparent of my variety 'Tom Boy' which was grown commercially for a few years in California. It was never branded as such and was sold as a generic 'Gold' potato.

My interest in many rare potatoes is not to grow them for eating but to transfer the genes into crosses and inventory the TPS from them.

[Tormato]

Tom,

Have you done any work with Green Mountain?

Gary

[Tom Wagner]

Green Mountain, a good potato to eat, does not produce enough flowers nor do they set berries without hand pollinations. I have a limited amount of TPS from it.

I have some better luck crossing to descendants of GM...Bake King, Shepody, Frontier Russet, etc.

Lately, when I have GM in the plots where late blight is always bad it succumbs early, which further reduces any chances of crosses.

As a shameless plug for the Potato Garden..Milk Ranch, etc here is a link to the potato
http://www.potatogarden.com/mm5/merc...y_Code=NSPLong

[Tormato]

No shameless plug, to me.

Green Mountain has been difficult to find. The one year I did find it (not sold out), I ordered it, only to find out it sold out after my order went through.

A substitute was sent without my agreement. As "luck" would have it, the sub was Irish Cobbler. That year, late blight hit southern New England hard. Irish Cobbler was so early, I had a good harvest and some great meals just before the blight hit. Just about any other commonly available variety likely would not have matured in time for a harvest.

Gary

[Tom Wagner]

Width Green Mountain being a med late to late variety it has two things going wrong for it...increased risk to mid to late season late blight and the fact that potatoes need 60 days of growing time where the temperatures at night do not exceed 68 F. Anything hotter and the potato has a respiration rate that tends to burn starch rather than bulk tubers. The early maturing potatoes escape those last few weeks of hot nights and turn out fine. The late potatoes tend to be watery as a result. Green Mountain potatoes grown in a warmer climate than Vermont, Maine, upstate New York often don't have the 'magic' of those locations for flavor and texture.

Add to that any moisture stress late in the season is deadly for good quality. I just checked the weather for Boston, Ma., and the nights will be favorable for potatoes for the next week or two.