TPS- a silly question

[Tom Wagner]

I use to store my potatoes in fairly sophisticated cold storage units. A few years ago I would store each year about 100,000 lbs. of my potatoes in a 2 million dollar storage. Yes, that is 100 half bins each weighing in at 1,000 lbs. each. Threw most of the potatoes away each spring.

In California I stored my potatoes just above freezing for up to two years. I was able to discover great keeping abilities in certain clones that way. Not that one needs to keep potatoes realistically that long, but boy, did that research help me breed for that effort!

California was a fun place to plant potatoes. I had four seasons!
!. Plant in Bakersfield Feb, dig June July
2 Plant in Tehachapi May, dig Sept/Oct
3 Plant Indio (Coachella Valley) Nov, dig May
4 Plant Cuyama Valley April dig Aug
5 plant Bakersfield Aug dig Nov/Dec
6. Plant Santa Maria Mar, dig July
7. Many other sites

The nice thing about so many seasons is that I was able to get two crops per season and I was always either planting, crossing, or digging.
Although I had great cold storage, I could juggle what I planted, when and where.

Most recently, since I am just barely scraping by on my research, I use my garage, others garages, cellars, outbuildings, or in the ground.

I have first year seedling potato plants growing in 1 inch cubes and those potatoes are near harvest. I will store in the garage and plant in April. I like to have only 3-4 months post harvest for seedling tubers otherwise if my storage is not cool enough I do suffer from excessive sprouting.

Tom Wagner

[goodwin]

Tom -
I can see how this potato business might be addictive, though I can't imagine trying to stash 100,000 pounds of potatoes without my family seeking expert medical help for me. Which leads me to the question: Do you still offer that TPS Sampler??
Lee

[Tom Wagner]

Lee

I've had an ad in the LocalHarvest for the past couple of years where I feature an 8 lb box of anywhere from 5 varieties to near 20. I listed that box of seed (tuber) potatoes for $40 postpaid. The main thing about that sampler was to get folks to try varieties found no where else. I will have to update the blurb on Local Harvest. I have emails from folks last year harvesting a couple of hundred lbs of potatoes from that 8 lb sampler, and plan to replant half this year.

As far as TPS, true potato seed, I have been offering a packet of different colors of potatoes that can be started like tomato seed. ($5.00)

Tom -
I can see how this potato business might be addictive, though I can't imagine trying to stash 100,000 pounds of potatoes without my family seeking expert medical help for me.

A good part of those 100,000 lbs of potatoes in storage during those years were dug with a one row digger or dug by hand. Then the potatoes were picked up by hand and put in mostly 50 lb sacks on down to 2 lb. bags. Some of those bagged varieties were planted in its entirety, some just a sample, and other discarded for one reason or another.

You have to understand something about potato breeding. I would sow 50,000 TPS (or more)in the greenhouse, and then transplant to the field. If any of those hills produced a decent set of tubers I would bag it for the next year. Many times that single hill of potatoes cut up properly would produce a 50 lb bagfull. That 50 lb bag would produce for the next year nearly 1,000 lbs of potatoes, sometimes more. Planting back that 1,000 lbs would create easily 5 ton or so.
A single hill of potatoes such as my Skagit Valley Gold, cut up and planted in 2004, went on to plant 2 acres in 2007.

It is always easier to let someone else plant the potatos for you. For instance, a lunch bag sized group of mini tubers of one of my newer potato varieties was mailed by me to a grower Spring of 2007. He harvested over 7 acres this past fall. I will have to find out how many acres will be planted from that. I do know from a round-about way that this clonal variety is resistant to a major malady affecting all other varieties in that color and class. That will be another post.

In retrospect, I am glad I did not seek, nor offered, medical help for this mental handicap. It helps to leave family members out of day by day operations in this kind of work.

Tom Wagner

[darwinslair]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

I use to store my potatoes in fairly sophisticated cold storage units. A few years ago I would store each year about 100,000 lbs. of my potatoes in a 2 million dollar storage. Yes, that is 100 half bins each weighing in at 1,000 lbs. each. Threw most of the potatoes away each spring.


Tom Wagner

You could really ingratiate yourself to a couple dozen food shelves if you donated them.

Tom

[Tom Wagner]

The problem with my kind of selection is that I would wait too late in the season to give away potatoes, especially for food. The storage during the years 2004 through 2007 were in cold storage units that would be allowed to warm up to about 55 degrees and that would start the sprouting process. By the time I sorted through them for keeping abilities, most of the potatoes were too far gone for eating.

[darwinslair]

Well, could have sold them to hog operations then <laughing>

Tom

[Tom Wagner]

Wow lots of info here! I still though, have one more question. How do I best store the tubers from the 1st year seedling hill for replanting the next season?

Yotetrapper

Your question about storing potatoes made me think about the kind of potato germplasm best suited for you to try as TPS.

I know you are interested in mashed potato usage, good storage life and brown skin. One that I think you should try combines some of the best traits of several lines to select for that. Yema de Huevo has great flavor, but poor storage due to short dormancy. By combining a couple of generations of a long dormancy potato suited well for my area of Washington, Nooksack.....with the background of YDH you should be able to get some great russets with great flavor and long dormancy.

Another TPS line combines soft rot resistance (Pink Rot) from one of my best reds...Norther October with Hindenburg that stores well and has scab resistance. These seeds would segregate for specific gravities suited for mashed potatoes and a range of red colors in the skin. Hindenburg was one of those varieties developed nearly 100 years ago and still does well for me.

Just a couple that may work for you. BTW, are you a Coyote trapper?

Tom Wagner