Toms TPS

[Medbury Gardens]

salix-Moie moie normally produces about 3kg,that 7kg one was just a fluke plant



azgirl-i have no idea how potatoes would handle those kinds of temps,but you may find its better to wait till things start to cool,if the frosts you do get aren't overly heavy and considering you don't get many,it may be an idea to invest in frost cloth which will protect plants down to -2C.

[wmontanez]

Richard, the plant pics are gone from your post. I came back to re-read all the posts, in case I missed anything the first time around

[Medbury Gardens]

Had a bit clean out of my photobucket albums,i was getting near the max before i had to up to professional level storage.
I'll be growing most of those again come spring so i'll post new pics then.

If there's is one you really are keen to see i can reload it again if you want,just let me know.

[wmontanez]

I'll wait for next season since you are attempting to get berries from Moie-Moie that is yet another reason to look forward to this post.

[wmontanez]

How's potato season in New Zealand these days? I wonder if Moie-moie is setting berries yet or how Lo Owl Skycap is going to do in the taste test

[Medbury Gardens]

Hi Wendy,the season is really going well down here,its been very dry so far so the the well water has been used a lot,my poor old pump been going for three months now non stop.

I'l give an update plus photos on how everything growing after this weekend because i'm away for a seed saving seminar soon.

[Medbury Gardens]

Well here's an update on some of this years planting so far,poked around under the top mulch to see how they are fulling out and it looks to be a good season coming up
In the frist photo its the front half that this years plantings,the rest is last seasons volunteers that we are using at the moment.

Wendy, Moie-moie doesnt set berries and never has,i did have ideas of trying to see if i could encourage it to set fruit but never found the time to do so.



Cocoon Khuchi Khuchi - Didnt have a great strike from this second season TPS with 20 planted but only 5 good plants at present,oh well,we see how it turns out.



Lo Owl Skycap - This one on the other hand is doing really well.

[David Marek]

Ooo pictures. Visual reinforcement for why I wanted to grow TPS. I dug mine in haste, so no pictures from me yet. Off the top of my head the ones that did well for sure were Red Donna x Northern Can Do F1, Pokhip x Skagit Valley Gold F2, Zolushka F1 (not Tom's but it is TPS). The SVG cross had tomato-like leaves.

No berries set this year. I dissected a few flowers (my attempt at pollination- think ape/coconut, baseball bat/mailbox, etc) but none seemed to take. We did have a hot summer, though. On the bright side, I did not notice any insect pests at my TPS site.

[wmontanez]

That is looking phenomenal, so many flowers of so many colors.

When you say Cocoon Khuchi Khuchi is not doing so well I assume that from the 20 TPS seedlings tubers (F1), 5 plants (F2 to be) are doing good in your area Or are you growing TPS seedlings again? For the 1st case maybe you are weeding out the types not suited for you climate.

I remember you had tubers last season from the beautiful red skin Lo Owl Skycap. Looks like you will get a good harvest this time also.


Are you growing mystery seedling tubers also?

[Medbury Gardens]

Lo Owl Skycap, Cocoon Khuchi Khuchi along with Cara (from Nevi) and Blue Diamond are all second season grow outs from last seasons TPS,
Blue Diamond's tag is somewhere under all the foliage and Cara ive poked my hand and pulled out some beauty's,so both going to be a big croppers.
And yes Mystery is there doing its thing and with lots of berries coming on.

[Medbury Gardens]

The first frosts of the winter are near so i had a bit of a poke around today to see how the crop has done,Blue Diamond has done well as has Lo Owl Skycap,but i ended up pulling three plants of Cocoon Khuchi Khuchid and a dug around also thinking maybe they had grown deeper but only two tiny little potatoes the size of your thumbnail,any idea why this has happened Tom

[Tom Wagner]

Your Cocoon Khuchi vines appear to be long maturing types in your picture...like 150 day type that need shorter days to tuberize. Perhaps if your frosts were not so imminent ....the vines may have completed their natural cycle of thinking they were in the short day Andes. The recombinant pairing of genes may also be shifting to the non-tuber bearing past.

One factor I had not thought much about til now is that the pollen parents back here in Washington may have included some of the wild species that I had in my test plots back in '06 and '07. Some of those 24 chromosome species can cross to the stenotomun type Cocoon Khuchi clones. My guess is that some of those wild species are more likely to be the causal culprit of those poor tuber bearing hills in NZ.

If those hills had berries.....you may have to screen the seedlings by growing them out in tiny pots and select only those that tuberize early...those that are homozygous for being very late...long maturing....or shy tuber producers will not make tubers in one inch cells of soil media.

Another thing I fear about having these kinds of potato vines is that they are so disease resistant that nothing stresses them to die down and produce tubers. So many of our commercial type potato varieties are used to being under a benign stress that forces the potato to think..."OK..I better set some tubers...time is running out."

[Medbury Gardens]

Thanks Tom,that makes a lot of sense as in "long maturing types".
Because i live in a inland valley thats prone to out of season frosts i think that Cocoon Khuchi just will not suit growing here full stop,shame as it was such a interesting looking potato and i had lots of gardening friends keen on seeing how it turned out this season.

[Tom Wagner]

Reminds me to cross my Cocoon Khuchi seedling plants as male parents to some tetraploids and use some early maturing phureja types as male parents to the Cocoon Khuchi. Either way I should be able to build up good tuberization and still hold onto the vigor and beauty of Cocoon Khuchi.

My conditions here in the PNW probably give me a few extra weeks of short day Fall weather to finish the bulking of tubers than what you have in NZ.

Commercial potato growers have little or no interest around here in my late maturing potatoes....they think in terms of 100 day potatoes and I work with potatoes in the range of 45 day, 60 day, 75 day, 90 day, 120 day, 150 day on up to 180 day maturities. These day maturities mean that starting with the day of planting to the day of cutting back the foliage, spraying the foliage with a desiccate, or any other way of destroying the vines.

One of the ways I determine 45 day potatoes had been to go into a growers field where there is a skip in a row as when the planter was out of tubers and/or stopped up. If the field was planted around April first and I plant on the 15th of June ........this field will be knocked down around Aug 1.....45 days later. By planting a diverse array of potato clones...only those that set a decent size potato will be available for salvage. When I analyze the pedigree of those that 'make' in 45 days....I find interesting very early distant progenitors such as Gloria and Thyra. When those show up with a bit of inbreeding....I want to use those lines or descendants to cross to late varieties such as Cocoon Khuchi to format a bit more earliness

One clone I have from Europe has Thyra as a g. grandparent. This clone is a cross of a late to an early and is medium maturing. To reconstruct Thyra I have to self the European variety to get about one quarter of the progeny that is early, but since there are other factors in the genetics...I probably will only get 1 % or so that is 45 day.


One of my cooperators lives in San Luis Obispo, CA. I plan on sending her some of the European variety along with some Cal White even though it is past optimum potato planting time. Both should be fairly good bulkers even with the late planting. I will also send her some late varieties. Her performance data will help me triangulate maturities. I need to pass along maturity expectations as I send more and more specialized clones out to people.

[Medbury Gardens]

So interesting reading about your breeding work

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

My conditions here in the PNW probably give me a few extra weeks of short day Fall weather to finish the bulking of tubers than what you have in NZ.

I could have given Cocoon Khuchi to a friend who's out by the coast where its 99% frost free year round,would have done well there