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Will these seeds grow true to the descriptions or do they segregate out?
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TPS, true potato seed, is truly a lot of fun simply because no two seeds are exactly alike. The reshuffling the deck so to speak.
Potatoes are to most people a single variety...always the same...year after year...but that is because they are clonal reproductions. The overwhelming majority of potato varieties are a result of controlled crosses between different varieties or breeding lines. Potatoes are almost impossible to find that have been produced by self pollination for more than one generation. I have potato varieties that are a result of controlled self pollination for upwards of 7 generations and the progeny is quite uniform. But the lack of hybrid vigor and too many homozygous pairing of genes makes for a potato that is full of....well...bad genes.
Some very good varieties are out there that are a result of repeated back-crosses.
CANSO is a result of crossing a Solanum demissum accession with Earlaine and then crossing to Katahdin five times.
(dms x EARLAINE) x KATAHDIN x KATAHDIN x KATAHDIN x KATAHDIN x KATAHDIN,
But since Katahdin is a hybrid of Busola, Rural New Yorker No. 2, White Rose and Sutton's Flourball...crossing back to Katahdin is still going to be crossing back to a hybrid...thus recombining those four grandparents.
Monona is one of my favorites for producing good white potatoes. If I save the seed (TPS) of it...I get 100% white tubers in the progeny. They will vary a bit for yield, specific gravity, shapes, eye depth, and maturity.
Monona is a cross between a selfed Katahdin and a selfed Chippewa. And Chippewa is a full sister although reciprocally, (mothers and fathers switched). But Monona is still a result of a hybrid of selfed sisters.
Breeding work with the wild cultivated species is fun because the diploid species such as S. phureja has only 24 chromosomes. Our potatoes that we buy in the store are almost always tetraploids..48 chromosomes....are like fraternal twins living in the same body. Diploids have to be outcrossed to a neighboring diploid of a different clone. Tetraploids can be crossed back to themselves (selfed) but they still retain some of the ingrained necessity of outcrossing to prevent inbreeding.
The majority of the potato seeds-TPS that I am offering in my website at
http://newworldcrops.com/wp/shop/potato-seeds/ are the result of selfing or potential outcrossing.
For example Skagit Beets...it is a red skinned, red fleshed clone that usually selfs itself. The overwhelming majority of the seedlings from TPS will be red, red to pink fleshed with a few other variations. Even if some of the seed within my packets are hybridized, the red flesh comes through quite often. Therefore one can expect to find red flesh as the primary thing to look for.
Yungay is one of those I supply TPS as a way to resurrect seedling potato hills that are a recombination of the commercial type with Peruvian ancestry. The flavors, colors, etc., will be reshuffled obviously and some clones will fit your particular climate and soils.
If you want more of the Peruvian types than what Yungay can provide, I have Huagalina, a grandparent of Yungay. The recombinations should be totaly Peruvian in the progeny and those seedlings will represent parental backgrounds that may have been lost otherwise.
La Pan is a curious sort. It is a cross between La Ratte...a yellow fingerling...and Gold Pan...a cross of my Black Hills Gold and a Neo-tuberosum breeding line. The TPS will segregate for fingerlings and more conventional rounds/ovals. The template may be a narrow selection factor if you are looking for only one kind of potato..say a yellow fingerling with enhanced flavor and a floury texture. That type would be a one out of 64 chance of getting that. But if you like a variety of shapes, colors and flavors...then it is a win-win. Another factor that I cannot predict well is how many of the La Pan berries received pollen from a neighboring potato variety...therefore you may get reds, blues, bicolors, russets, etc., showing up also.
So much of the limited commercial trade in TPS is to foster very uniform kinds of potatoes; namely...boring white potatoes. What I am trying to do is just the opposite...help create even more diversity.
My listing this Winter of TPS is with those that I have a fair amount of seed. If I listed all of my hybrid seed it would number into the thousands plus. My hybrid seed is of smaller counts and I did not think that my catalog should be promoting seed packets of 8 seed whereas the OP lines can be mailed out with 50 seeds +-.
Just got off the phone with a potato breeder in the upper Midwest who is going to look into his inventory and send me some experimental lines that are berry makers. I will look at these for further crossing and perhaps for bulk TPS for next year.
So back to the question...
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Will these seeds grow true to the descriptions or do they segregate out?
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Yes and Yes!
Tom Wagner