Breeding Sweet Potato in Australia

[reed]

Those look like nice plants and certainly plenty of flowers. Are they just not setting seed at all, or are they aborting early on?

[whwoz]

I believe that they have not set at all Reed, but I can take a photo of a cluster and post if it will help.  A warmer summer may well see a lot more pollinators about in addition to the honey bees that we have had on the block the last couple of years, which may well help also.

[whwoz]

Ok, this is what I have been seeing, the first is from SSR 1, with leaves removed, about 40 flowers on the stem.

The second is from SSR 7, about 10 flowers on the stem.

Yesterday was very cloudy to a frost here, ice on cars but not ground, but it must have been enough to tickle up the purple Sweet potatoes and it revealed number 3,  one of multiple stems  showing that I do in fact have seed forming, would say on first inspection that these are at a typical stage of development

[whwoz]

Ok, further update time.

Rats demolished the only tuber on SSR 3 that I could find, left me enough to confirm that it is purple/purple.  Shoot starting to show on remnants of root, so everything potted up and on heat. No seed pods evident.

SSR 4, Rats had not touched 2 small and one medium sized root on the two plants of this one.  Tops potted up and on heat.  No seed pods evident.  Still to work out the best way to mature roots.

SSR 6. It looks like rats may have been visiting this one as well, need to dig more to confirm.  Went to grab some more bits to pot up and put on heat when I saw seed pods, not as many as on 1 bit a good number.  Hold on is that one mature, looks like it, probably 2 seeds, let's check, yep checking one all good nice and firm, go to check number 2 and whoops, excuse me while I vent.  Of course I dropped it, dark seed on dark soil, no hope of finding it. Some potted up and on heat.

SSR 1, probably the most rat prone and certainly the most florific, with lots of buds on stems, up to 100 per stem in bunches of 10 per flower spike.  A quick guesstimate would be somewhere north of 20 seed pods across the plants, with up to 4 pods per spike, I reckon 2 seeds per pod.

Will get to SSR 7 shortly

[whwoz]

SSR 7 This one is from totally different stock to the other sweets having palmate leaves and different coloured root skin and flesh.

Took longer to flower although it flowered well once it started.  No obvious seed pods evident, although I need to have a better look through the leaves out there.

Appears to be slightly more cold tolerant than the other sweets having survived the recent cold night with loss of very few leaves unlike the other sweets which lost a fair percentage of there leaves.

More inclined to root from the leaf nodes too.

[Richard Watson]

Well done whwoz 

Hopefully those pods of yours have more than a single seed like I got.
 

[whwoz]

Well done whwoz 

Hopefully those pods of yours have more than a single seed like I got.
 

Thanks Richard, by the looks of the pods, I am anticipating that most hold two seeds, fingers crossed

[Richard Watson]

I wonder when I start getting more than one seed per pod.