Ipomoea batatas - breeding of Sweet Potato - Camote - New Zealand

[reed]

I was wondering how yours were doing. Cool, wet certainly isn't the best but maybe if a few make it they will get more adapted.

[Richard Watson]

Wet strong La Niņa summers like we are in at the moment are rare, so its not a summer like this one that we need them to adapt too, its the likes of next summer where earth should go through a El Niņo pattern which are the more common, they are the warm dry summers which will be we will be looking to, just gota hang in there this summer and I'll take cuttings again to winter over. Dont even think Chris will do that well up north considering La Niņa affect them even more than here, but you never know.

[Richard Watson]

I now have two more seedlings, in total up to five, shame the weather is so poor, great for potatoes though

[Richard Watson]

Keeps getting better, up to seven seedlings now

[reed]

Great! now hopefully if nothing else they will grow well enough to keep them alive for a head start next year.

[Richard Watson]

The latest batch of seedlings doing well, one though has taken it time to get going, shame the weather is cool which they dont like, at least the potatoes are loving it, never seen so many flowers before.

[Chris Morrison]

First EFR x G1 seedling - planted mid Aug, sprouted 5 days later, now with brown 8"x 2"swollen root, and 12 odd seed, almost all near dried down. Precocious much. Nursery is growing in 5gal fabric pots. Cold Dec, plants struggling a tad in general.

[Chris Morrison]

No idea why these pic present sideways, anyhoo, here is another pic of same plant

[Richard Watson]

Well Ive got some interesting news, one of my latest seedlings which is only about 4cm tall has flowers buds forming

[Richard Watson]

and 12 odd seed, almost all near dried down.

Seed pods???

[Chris Morrison]

Yep, seed pods,  if you zoom in, you will see the seed pods, bronze/brown, very early for this to happen here.
Mike has a heap of seed pods also, up North, but none as advanced as these. This may be a real candidate for short rotation SP. Maybe

[Richard Watson]

Good work. Mine are not flowering at all.

[Chris Morrison]

Plucked my 1st 20 seeds for 2021, they are all from the ultra precocious EFR-X20.
We are due heavy rain, so grabbed them, the other plants are well behind.

[reed]

Those look real good! What does EFR-X20 mean?

[Chris Morrison]

Hi Mark.
EFR is what we called the flowering mutation of the Native Owairaka Red, that I discovered here in 2019.
We coded it Early Flowering Red.
We crossed EFR with your (via RW) G1 and BB in 2020
Hence EFR-X20, of course there are many other crosses, but this guy stood out as sprouting from see in 5 days (Aug), and flowering and seeding well ahead of others. Just hope its a good firm type, like the native parent. The edible roots are setting right under the crown, and are a brownish skin color. The plant is a running type, and has no purple pigment, so has not X'd with BB I assume?
The original EFR is a firm type, larger, and earlier than the parent Owairaka Red, so of itself, a ripper in the making, maybe.