Breeding Sweet Potatoes (turning them into a seed grown annual)

[Chris Morrison]

Wow, interesting strategy. Will you use soft/fabric planter bags? Maybe 5 gallon, or larger? I am toying with a similar idea, using large terracotta pots, may be an issue dumping those, perhaps more likely a deep 'tickle'. The idea with Terracotta, is they look cool, and initial expense aside, present an ideal porch/patio growing option, where the plant offer pretty blooms aver 4 months, the runners can be snipped and eaten (they are actually really good), and of course the nice big fat roots and the main prize. I think I can 'sell' this idea to some older folk in apartments, well, anyone who craves gardening yet is space constrained, for that matter I guess? It would be a controlled 'trial'. I would only let out 1 seed type, so no seed setting occurs in the potted trials.
Any thoughts?

[Ferdzy]

Chris, I love the look of terracotta pots. But they are 1.) heavy 2.) dry out quickly and require frequent watering and 3.) easily chipped/broken. All things to consider before making much of an investment in them.

[Chris Morrison]

Thanks Fredzy, well noted. Sorry about the duplicate post, not sure how that happened!

[reed]

Wow, that was faster than expected. 3 of the 300 seeds I direct planted outside are up, so 1% in about a week. 24 of the 200 in the cold frame are up so little over 10%. I ended up only planting 50 inside and also ended up putting them in the cold frame too. 15 of them are up so 30% on them. The fifty are from some of the best and also the farthest along as far a generations from seed. The others are mixes of older generations.

And, wouldn't you know it we are supposed to be heading into a cool spell, highs just in the fifties F and a night later this week around freezing. I think I'll go ahead and bring the fifty back inside for now. The others in the cold frame I may leave there. Not sure what to do about those in the ground, just the three but those three may have the genes I'm looking for. Maybe dig them out and bring in or maybe just cover the whole spot with plastic.

A lesson learned, they will sprout just fine without much more effort than a tomato or anything else I'm used to doing in cold frames. However, might be best to wait till around mid-May to do it. Lets see, if spouted mid May, set out around first of June, that gives easily 100 days, usually more, of warm weather to mature in. 

[reed]

I'm up to 77 total sprouted now out of 550, well ahead of my June 1st goal. 42 of them were within 8 days or less from planting. The other 33 sprouted during a cool spell with two hard frost events and one hard freeze. Those three original ones directly in the ground survived. They were covered by an old bed sheet but still surprised since my early potato patch, also covered suffered significant damage and the grapes covered as well, were completely ruined.  Also surprising that an additional 11 sprouted outside during the generally cool spell, (highs barely 50F) that followed the freeze.

The slips from the saved roots are also really taking off, easily could make 50 plants from them if I had room to plant them. Numbers of the seed sprouted are actually low cause last two days it went back into the 80s F and I haven't bothered counting the new ones.

I got plenty of partially composted wood chips to mix up so if I can scrounge up more pots I may try to expand the number I end up planting. I plan on 50 minimum, would be nice but maybe not doable to up that to 100. Or maybe try to find a spot to just stick a bunch in the ground. Still no matter what, I am going to have discard a lot of them.

Any comments or suggestions for prioritizing those that definitely get planted? Those 42 that sprouted fastest OR those that sprouted while it was cold? Maybe a combination of the two?  I'm definitely keeping those three that survived the freeze. 

[whwoz]

A hard choice to make Reed.  Personally,  I think I would be inclined to keep a mix of early sprouted and those that came up in the cold.  We have had our third straight 32F start, and while the frosts with that are light, partly due to all the water still lying around here from the rain,  I am seeing differences in response to them.  Some plants,  like the Orange ones are being hit fairly hard, others seem to be laughing at the frost so far.  So if there is some  differences in frost tolerance,  then why not make the most of it. If you come up with ones that are early sprouters plus frost tolerant,  that would be a big plus and extend your growing season.

[reed]

Yea, right now that is the plan. Extending the season is important but not really for it's own sake. Fast maturity is a primary concern to me. With the weather getting so out of whack fast maturity is the only thing I can think of that might help insure a harvest of any crop. It allows for planting and if necessary replanting in hopes of achieving a harvest in the hospitable periods between extremes. For example if a crop planted in April is destroyed in June another one can be planted.

Increasingly freakish weather is also a big part of  wanting seed grown, in case all cloned material is lost for what ever reason can always start over with seeds.   

[whwoz]

Understand and agree with your comments re: season length and restarts if needed.  Agree that having seed as backup is a definite plus, I have just got to get some!  Dug all the SP from Steve today,  no roots under nearly half, most of the others only small roots. No sign of seed on the ornamental even though there was plenty of buds and spent flower stems.   Always next year.

[Richard Watson]

They certainly like to keep growing, Ive got a roots left over in the ground from harvest that are doing there best to regrow, being getting light frosts but the little buggers keep trying.

[reed]

Here are some of the direct planted seedlings. They haven't grown very much compared to those in the cold frame which are getting their true leaves already. The one on bottom right is one of those three original ones that sprouted in just a few days, the rest came up since.

300 seeds planted on April 26, I think it was. Kinda hard to see and count but roughly 15% of them are now up which is more than I really expected and still a way to go till my June 1st cut off date. Considering available space I could probably grow nothing but these this year but those in the cold frame are some of my best, seed and root production wise. These were a mix of mostly older generation seed so likely will have a higher % of non-rooters, maybe even some non-seeders.

Since they came up in little clusters like this instead of one here and one there I think there must be some sort of micro, micro environmental thing going on. The area is  just too small for it to be temperature so maybe slight variation in moisture, who knows.

[Chris Morrison]

Variation in seed planting depth a possibility?

[reed]

I think it might be more likely slightly low spots may have caught more water. I actually planted them all a little deeper this year, about and inch. In past I've had problems with some not being able to shed the seed coat and figured maybe a little longer trip to the surface might help drag it off, seems to have worked.

[Richard Watson]

And being a large seed they should be able to reach the surface from quite deep down

[whwoz]

Useful information thanks gents.  Have seen the same with Kang Kong, I. aquatica and started planting them deep, think I will go a bit deeper still next season

[reed]

Our weather has turned cool and wet again so I'm kinda shocked at how many new ones are still popping up. I found a couple odd ones that have extra lobes to the seed leaves. I've see this before but they they have been rather sickly looking and I never took time to keep track and see what became of them. This one though looks pretty good, just weird. I think I'll pot it up and tag it, see what it turns into.