Potato Seeds

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Peanut

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Tonight I ran across an interesting post on another social media platform. It was about Potato Seed… Not Seed Potatoes. (is it potatoes or potatos, where is Dan Quayle when you need him). :rolleyes:

Anyway, the post is interesting. Below is the post followed by 2 websites that discuss potato seed.

The second website is very in depth, a wealth of detailed information on this subject.

Creating New Varieties of Potatoes

If you are a potato grower, have you ever noticed the little green fruits that develop from their flowers?They look like little tomatoes.

If you allow those fruits to ripen until they turn a yellowish green and become soft, you can cut the fruit in half and squeeze out the juice along with the approximately 100 seeds that hide within. Wash the seeds and dry them on a glass plate or coffee filter. Each of those seeds represent a brand new variety of potato.

I have been told that Russell Burbank did that once upon a time, and one of his seeds became our famous and productive Russet variety.

This is a really interesting process. I have done it twice now, and out of 100’s of seedlings, I have found three varieties I really like.

Years ago, when I was teaching seminars, I would ask people to save their potato seeds. I had three individuals who took me seriously. They gave me a nice mix of seed from red, white, and purple potato varieties. The next season I grew out a mix of around 150 seedlings.

You should care for them just like you would a tomato seedling. I plant them out on my beds after the danger of frost has past. I put them on a grid of about 15”x15”. Just amend and water them just like any other potatoes you are growing.

Now, the great thing about this experiment is that you get to eat what you decide not to save, which will be the majority. Each time, though, I have had a new variety pop up that was special to me.

The first time, I had three distinct purple varieties. One was light lavender. Another a light purple. The third variety, the one I chose to pursue, was extremely dark purple inside and out. Dark purple potatoes have a lot of antioxidants.

The second one I found was a medium-sized yellow skinned potato with pretty pink eyes that was very productive.

Last year, I did my second planting. Out of around 100 seedlings, I found a really remarkable variety that is pink with a russet skin and white inside. But the amazing thing was that this plant gave me around 8 lbs of potatoes! These seedlings generally don’t give big yields the first year. You are more or less looking for something interesting.

I can’t wait to plant that 8 lbs of seed and see what it does this year!


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What Is True Potato Seed: Learn About Potato Seed Growing

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/potato/true-potato-seed-growing.htm

True Potato Seeds (TPS)

https://www.cultivariable.com/instructions/potatoes/how-to-grow-true-potato-seeds-tps/
 
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I planted some Clancy potato seeds last year. They put down roots everywhere they touched the ground and produced along the whole vine. When we pulled them up we had dime sized taters up to big baking size. I think they would do well in buckets.
 
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I agree.
I never heard of Blueberry seeds or Strawberry seeds. I mean, I knew they had seeds, but not that you could grow plants from them.
However you can, so why not potatoes.
 
@Peanut

I had opened potato berries but never saved the seeds because I had heard mixed messages about new varieties of potatoes being potentially toxic due to...an a-word that escapes me at the moment.

What say you?

I would love to try out new versions of the purple viking potatoes that I have been growing since I could not find them for sale as of last year.

I grow 5 varieties of spuds.
Potiac (red)
La Ratte (fingering)
Purple Viking
Kenebec
German Butterball

I grow multiple versisions to cover the possibility a blight hitting one or more version and to control pests were one variety is prefered and acts as a sacrificial crop and the others are spared.

Experimenting with new versions would be something I would like to do.

I did try growing strawberries from seeds last year.

The seeds need to be stratified for about 6 weeks or more. I did get bunch to sprout. The plants were tiny. Maybe 1 mm tall. I may have hit them with too much light too early because I killed them all. Got busy and never got around to another try.

Ben
 
@Peanut

I had opened potato berries but never saved the seeds because I had heard mixed messages about new varieties of potatoes being potentially toxic due to...an a-word that escapes me at the moment.

What say you?

I think the toxicity is written about in one of the two links I provided.

Potatoes are in the Solanaceae, or nightshade family of plants (excluding sweet potato). This family has some extremely toxic plants as well as others we plant in our gardens... some of the toxic plants are used in herbal medicine like Datura stramonium.

Others in our garden are... the Tomato, Tomatillo, Eggplant, Pepper (includes hot and sweet varieties as well as spices like paprika, chili powder, cayenne, and Tabasco) and all the species of tobacco.
 
I think the toxicity is written about in one of the two links I provided.

Potatoes are in the Solanaceae, or nightshade family of plants (excluding sweet potato). This family has some extremely toxic plants as well as others we plant in our gardens... some of the toxic plants are used in herbal medicine like Datura stramonium.

Others in our garden are... the Tomato, Tomatillo, Eggplant, Pepper (includes hot and sweet varieties as well as spices like paprika, chili powder, cayenne, and Tabasco) and all the species of tobacco.
Is there a "poor man's" way of testing beside getting "Mikey to try it"?

Ben
 
@Neb You need to find a poor chemist for that... :rolleyes: or an over paid botanist.
Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine
Says chew a small piece of the skin and there is a burning sensation it is bad.

Quoting myself after working with people in the labs that test air filters for face masks...

"
I hope I never need to know what I learn from talking to you!"

Ben
 
theres a guy used makah fingerling and crossed it with a red streaked flesh potato or something another and got seed and grew them all out.one plant type the potatoes were extremely toxic. he did come up with a makah fingerling that solid red now though.
 
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this is where i read about the makah being crossed...anyway theres info there might be useful to some.


https://www.cultivariable.com/potato-the-story-of-rozette/
snippet

Candidate #3 looked good. I had high hopes for it. The color was great and the size was reasonable. It was a fair flowerer. Unfortunately, this potato was quite bitter, a sign of high glycoalkaloid content. That was reason enough to let it go, although I collected about a dozen berries from it, so I have some seed to try.
 
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