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

[reed]

I've harvested all of my sweet potatoes except for some larger volunteers. It's easier for me instead of taking a lot of pictures and writing a lot of descriptions so I made some more little videos.

First is a look at what came from the volunteer plants that I transplanted to pots.

Next one is the finishing up the rest of the harvest.

And Miss Bloom is doing well. Noticing that the plant is self-pollinating but doesn't prefer it is interesting. Actually, I already knew that because it made a couple of seeds in the house last fall.

[Cathy A]

Kelly Winterton found that potato onions (a type of shallot) have mostly lost the ability to produce seed, but will occasionally do so randomly.

When he experimented with propagating from seed and then cloning the best lines, he found that over a period of a decade or so the lines started from seed and then cloned repeatedly lost their ability to produce seed again. When seeds are planted each year from the previous year's seed, the line retained the ability to produce viable seeds.

He ultimately decided that potato onions should be grown from seed more or less every year, perhaps as a landrace.

Perhaps garlic behaves in a similar way?

[reed]

he found that over a period of a decade or so the lines started from seed and then cloned repeatedly lost their ability to produce seed again.

With my ultimate goal of turning sweet potatoes into a seed grow annual for northern climates or any climate really, I think I might be ok with that. Challenge now is to just keep boosting the percentages of any particular seed doing well in its first year, and I have plan for that.

[Richard Watson]

Enjoyed your videos Mark.

How do you treat your tubers so they store well?

[reed]

This year, I harvested earlier in order to have a longer period for them to cure in warmer weather, like is advised by lots of sources. I cured them outside in a cold frame and closed it up at night to keep the temp more regulated warm. This is the first time I did that, always before I just harvested before frost and took them on up the unheated room upstairs. I've never checked but I'm guessing it easily gets to down to 10 up there, maybe a little lower sometimes but it's usually warmer. I just wrap them in old blankets in crates on the floor.

It's not from what I understand the proper way to treat them, but it's what I have. Over the years I've had some shrivel up a bit or sprout way too early. We just eat or pitch them instead of cloning the next year.

[reed]

Haven't updated on anything for a bit. I had another video, but I lost it for a while. Cleaning up the dusty corners of my phones memory I found it again, so thought I'd post it.

[Richard Watson]

Amazing you got a white and red tuber from the one plant.

[reed]

I thought it was pretty cool. I called it purple, but I guess it is more red or maybe pink. Other times I saw such things it was when different color roots grew from slips off the same parent root. This, with them still growing as a single plant was a new thing.

This year the authorities granted permission for them to live in the warmer, south facing kitchen window instead of the cold upstairs east window. Both of the plants, Ms. Bloom and Likes to Climb are doing well, and so far, very few spider mites.

[Richard Watson]

What special favors did you carry out to enable the authorities to grant such permission

[reed]

Not saying but I might have to do them again. The kitchen window sweet potatoes are looking a bit scraggly, and I have heard a comment about that, but they are doing MUCH better than they did upstairs last year. More, warmer light and lots less of the little bugs. Ladybugs keep crawling out of the attic on warm days and I catch them and put them on the plants. Much to my surprise it is working because last year they lady bugs came out like that too, but they didn't eat the bugs like they are in the warmer window downstairs. I wonder if like the sweet potatoes, it's just too cold up there for the ladybugs.

My experiment of harvesting the roots earlier and curing them in a sealed up cold frame in the sun worked too. Almost too good because I just don't have room to grow all of them next year, and it is going to be hard deciding which ones to let go extinct. Only one stands out as not making the cut. 

[reed]

Our weather has been a bit more winterish than the last several years so I'm behind on getting my ground and pots ready for this year's sweet potatoes. It's only February so still more than enough time, I'm just used to having everything ready well in advance.

My two favorite ornamental plants, Miss Bloom and Likes to Climb have done a lot better in the sunnier window downstairs than they did last year. Miss Bloom has even bloomed off and on over winter and Likes to Climb hasn't stopped trying to climb. I've been clipping Likes to Climb back to make it a little mor bushy and to make more stems that can be cut off to clone. Miss Bloom has set seed capsules from self-pollinated flowers, but they have dropped off before maturing, it is healthier in the warmer spot but apparently not enough so to mature seeds. The days are getting little longer and nighttime temps a little higher and they are both responding to that.

A third ornamental plant made a bit larger root last year which I saved, and it appears to be keeping well but I didn't keep that one as a house plant. This plant is a lot like one I kept for a while a few years ago that I called bushy bloomer and like bushy bloomer it makes tremendous amounts of seed. I think it came up in 2023 as did Likes to Climb, Miss Bloom came up in 2022. I only have the one root so no taste testing, but I'll grow it in better conditions this year and see if might need to be moved to the culinary production group. If it still just makes smaller roots, I'll leave it with the ornamentals.

I think I can trim the culinary group down to just three, based on storage and flavor assessments this winter. One of those is a bit less seedy and a bit larger vine than I really like but it is too good flavor wise to cull.

It's not bushy but it's not giant either and very easy to trellis the vines up. The less seed is because it has a single flower at each leaf joint instead of a cluster of them. This trait makes less seeds overall but a higher percentage of really nice seeds. I think that might be because the plant doesn't have to work as hard maturing the smaller number of seeds and the single capsule gets better air flow than the big clusters so doesn't have as much issue with wet and cloudy weather. Cool wet and cloudy can cause mold on the capsules that damages the seed, warm wet weather can cause them to sprout in the capsule, long before they are even dried down.

I hope to eventually find a happy medium with the number of flowers, like maybe two or three per stem instead of just one, or the other extreme of ten or even more. I'm not going to strictly select for that though, it would just be a bit of icing on the cake if it showed up.

It will be a bit easier this year, trimming the culinary down to just thee best; I'll be able to grow more of each one. I'd like to know if any of them are self-compatible but that is hard to do because the bees couldn't care less and if I isolate them any that are not, will not make any seeds. When they are blooming good, I could try taking cuttings inside and hand pollinating to find out.

I'm not going to start many new seeds this year, or if so, very few. I've wasted too many seeds over the years by not being able to track and care for all the new ones adequately. I'm sure I've missed out on some good ones because of that.

I am going to add some new commercial clones this year too, maybe. I think the university folks know what they are doing, and they can test for thigs like disease resistance, brix and so on where I can't, so that might be a good source of those genetics. Assuming their clones bloom, which I'm not sure they will. I say maybe because my permission to breed with those clones is all verbal. I think it comes under the "ok for breeding by sexual reproduction with a clone" anyway but would feel better about it with written permission. Sandhill Preservation has one too that hasn't been available for a couple of years, but it is this year so I'm definitely going to get it.

[reed]

I finally got my sweet potatoes in yesterday, almost a month later than normal. Laziness and odd weather were the culprits in the delay. Also, the new commercial varieties I ordered just arrived the day before. I decided to wait on putting mine in so that they and the new ones would have the same starting point. That didn't really work though because the new ones arrived in very poor condition and will take a couple weeks or more recover while mine are in perfect condition and will begin growth immediately. I didn't start any seeds this year, opting instead to try to produce a new super elite line of seed from just the best of the best of my clones, plus any good new genetics from the commercial ones.

The breeders of modern varieties can test and select for unseen but advantageous qualities that I can't identify. Things like disease and bug resistance, are hard for me because I have never had any such issues. I suspect that isn't because mine are magically immune to such things but instead because sweet potatoes have never been a big crop in my area overall and the extreme isolation of my location.

The modern breeders however have no interest in seeds, they use extraordinary measures to trigger flowering and sprouting, just looking for another new clone. In any case it's quite likely the new ones won't even bloom. I know some of the flower forcing techniques but will not employ them. Forcing flowers is fine if all you want is another clone but the inability to normally flower is a heritable trait that I don't what introduced into my seed grown annual sweet potatoes. If they don't bloom easily on their own, then I don't need them anyway. I figure, any bug or disease issues, even if they did exist are largely eliminated with a seed grown annual, anyway. Just another advantage of annual grown rather than cloned sweet potatoes.

I didn't start any new seeds this year but am up to seven volunteers that have been transplanted to their own spot. Since discovering that they can lay in the ground for as much as five years, the volunteers could be from older generations, so I don't what them crossing with new line of seed I'm trying to make.

My favorite ornamentals, Ms. Bloom and Likes to Climb are looking great. They are completely separated from the others so as to prevent the non-rooting trait from contaminating the culinary group. Ms. Bloom is confirmed self-pollinating, a trait that I believe is advantageous in any breeding program, but it goes hand in hand with non-rooting and once that is reintroduced the decade long process of selecting it back out would start all over again and I don't want that. It's worth in in the beginning to unlock seediness of others but once that's done the non-rooting trait has to be eliminated, a process that takes years.

Likes to Climb bloomed first so I was able to confirm that it is not self-compatible. So, any seeds that I get from Likes to Climb will be pollinated by Ms. Bloom. Most of Ms. Blooms seeds will be pollinated by Likes to Climb, because even though it is self-compatible, it prefers a partner. I think that because a Ms. Bloom plant by itself, makes a few seeds, one grown by others, makes lots of seeds.

A third ornamental that I did not keep as a house plant died. All I had of it was one small root that I stored with the others but it rotted instead of producing slips.

[Wyatt]

Hello reed. Just wanted to state that I've been interested in what you've been doing for a couple years now and I think you are doing great work. Your youtube channel has been nice so as to to see the varieties you have going. Just wanted to get out of the background to let you know that and also that you will have an eager customer if/when you do make seeds available.

My own fascination with sweet potatoes started about seven years ago with an Okinawan that I've kept going for those years. It has a lovely white skin with a mix of purple and white interior, but has never and doubtless will ever flower. It would be nice to propagate via seed than strictly slips. Have a pleasant day.

[reed]

I haven't updated much about my sweet potatoes recently, maybe I should make another video. The project continues though, with seeds developing nicely now on some of my preferred clones mostly crossing and backcrossing with each other.

I didn't start any new seeds this year but transplanted the first dozen or so volunteers into pots on the other side of the garden. I separated them a bit from the others because seeds can lay in the ground for years before sprouting so they might be from earlier generations and lack the selection of the elite clones. Most of them though do have the very compact busy growth habit that I like and most are blooming nicely, two of them are blooming and setting seed excessively. Will be another six weeks or more before I know what kind of roots they make.

A nice harvest (from seed) is a primary criterion for selection along with seediness. Those that have the genes for it make a harvest from seed, those that don't get culled, unless of course I like them as an ornamental. A harvest (from seed) is what changes them from a cloned crop to an annually grown one. 

My favorite ornamentals Ms. Bloom and Likes to Climb are on the patio away from all of the others so they can hopefully cross and reinforce the traits I like about them without reintroducing a lack of harvest roots back into the others.   

[reed]

Haven't made any updates for a while but the project continues. Also, I didn't get around to making a lot of videos, but I did finally make a new one about this year's volunteers and some ideas I'm getting from them. Not yet ready to articulate the ideas as they run in lots of directions and are influenced by a lot of variables. Basically though, I think I'm getting closer to breeding sweet potatoes to be a seed grown annual, rather than just producing more and more good clones.

Anyway, below it a little video about the volunteers, which I believe for lots of still unproven reasons may be a step closer to TRUE annual sweet potatoes.