potato plants from seed discussion

[Fusion_power]

I have about 200 potato seed from Tom Wagner. These are true seed, similar in many ways to tomato seed. If planted and cared for, they will produce tubers the first year which can be grown out from sets in future plantings. The advantage of potatoes grown from seed is that they are pretty much disease free. The disadvantage is that potatoes grown from seed are variable in production. They will produce their best crop in the second year when grown from sets.

Many of you know that I sell tomato and pepper plants from my website. I intend to offer potato plants as well this year and need to update my website with information specific to growing potatoes. Presuming you were growing potatoes from seed, what questions would you ask and like to see answers for?

Some I could think of are:
Advice you would like to have to successfully grow potatoes from seed.
Information about storing potatoes over winter after you grown them.

DarJones

[ireilly]

Varietal difference regarding size, taste, color, storage longevity, DTM.

Disease indications and remediation.

Growth requirements regarding light, micro/macronutrients, water, tillage, weed control, soils.

Harvesting and storage.

The last two just reprise your own suggestions.

Walter

[barkeater]

Wow, I never thought about buying potato plants. I guess the question I would I would ask is what advantage is there over certified seed potatoes? Could it be varieties you can't find any other way?

Then again, most of my life I always thought the only way to grow onions were from sets until I started my own from seeds!

[David Marek]

Darrel, have you grown out TPS before? This was my first year. Regarding DTM, I had a very wide range of seedling vigor, but now that I think about it, mainly between different varieties. It had a dramatic effect on the plants after I put them in the ground. My plants were more brittle than tomatoes, but I may have given them less than ideal conditions.

Not sure if I fully understood your post, but:

Selecting clones to replant. (or which ones to toss, whichever way you look at it)

Number of years your favorite tuber stock can be held over.

Why don't more people grow potatoes from seed?

[Fusion_power]

To answer a few of the questions, yes, I have grown potatoes from seed and have a little experience in producing plants and then planting them to grow spuds. They are dramatically different to growing tomatoes. As for reasons to grow potatoes from seed rather than from sets, a picture should tell that story.



DarJones

[wmontanez]

DarJones,

First of all, let me congratulate you! I think what you are doing to further promote TPS growing in USA and help some of Tom Wagner's reach people will be very valuable to secure biodiversity. Best of luck in your endeavor.

I intend to offer potato plants as well this year and need to update my website with information specific to growing potatoes. Presuming you were growing potatoes from seed, what questions would you ask and like to see answers for?

I relate to this since last year I grew potatoes from TPS seed. Some of questions I had was when and how to plant them, depth, care, what to expect etc.

Found good info from Tom's writing scattered around, there is a video where he explains how to plant them making a furrow where the plant is protected from the wind. I tried to recreate it.

I could suggest a guideline of how to grow TPS sucessfully that maybe includes a diagram that shows the growing steps would be helpfull.

I did get a small crop nothing compared to your Azul Toro picture above, more on the size of new potatoes. So maybe a section with tricks of the trade on how to ensure a bigger crop the first year.

The information to interest new people need to have the fact that potatoes grown from TPS are disease free. And the potential of a new exciting variety alltogether. Since most people are only familiar with potato growing from a clone tuber, they expect to know exactly what is the potato they are growing. You can include the description of what disease resilience that cross has, flavor profiles that might have etc.

Some I could think of are:
Advice you would like to have to successfully grow potatoes from seed.
Information about storing potatoes over winter after you grown them.

DarJones

Storage info is a plus.