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

[Richard Watson]

Fantastic.

Not seeing any pods here in the South Island yet, lots of flowers though.
The local bumble bees give me giggle or two, watching one this morning who couldn't get into a half open flower, after falling off once in its frantic attempt to get in tried to bite its way in at the base of the flower, so I smacked it, " dont you be so lazy ya liitle bugger and do it properly"

[Richard Watson]

Chris - your ruler confuses me, especially considering its made in Germany?

[Chris Morrison]

Haha, yes no idea where the tape came from, (except Germany, somehow, originally) , it is a dress makers tape, I think, and I decided to use the inches side, as this is an 'imperial' site ;-)

[Richard Watson]

I wouldn't even be able to get my hands on imperial ruler. ' imperial site'? Its only because one country hasn't kept up with the rest of the world

[reed]

I don't know, those brown ones look pretty well formed. Black is certainly most common in my plants and I take it a sign of quality seed but I don't know that is necessarily critical. I imaging they can vary some for unknown reasons and I have had brown ones sprout just fine. I've read that they range from black to brown to mottled but I've never seen a mottled one.
Shape and size I think might be most important. Do those seed have two flat sides, rounded on the other with a little dent on one end?

[Chris Morrison]

The EFR seed are quite flat, as you can perhaps see in the 'profile' pic? I put this down to there being 2 in the pod? One has a little 'crater' in the end, the other has 2 wee craters, quite cute lol, like dimples. 2nd Pic is all seeds harvested and peeled so far (metric side of tape for RW haha).

[Richard Watson]

Thanks for turning the tape over Chris 

[Chris Morrison]

Few pics from today.
1. Nursery garden
2. BB 'nest' with 3 pods
3. G1 'nest' with 15 pods

[Richard Watson]

Looking like they will be heaps of seeds to take this project forward, so pleased I shared cutting around.

[reed]

Looking good, what does the G1 designation mean? 

[Richard Watson]

Is pollination temperature related? Does it need to be over a certain temp day or nighttime?. In Jan parts of NZ had a heatwave, Chris had mid 30'sC where here was low 30's, but I only had my one flowering plant with flowers, Chris had heaps of flowers which is now the seed pods in his photos. I have had heaps of flowers for a month now but no seed set and where temps have been mid/late 20's, been some cold nights too, got down to 3deg. The clue will be if Chris gets pods from February flowering.

[reed]

Is pollination temperature related?

I really don't know. In my garden it seems not. I'v have very young plants set seed in late spring and old mature plants keep it up in cooler fall. They do do it more in summer proper but I think that is just cause that's when they are growing most actively.

In may be something else is involved. This paper "Self- and cross-incompatibilities in sweetpotato and their implications on breeding Fekadu Gurmu1,2,*, Shimelis Hussein1 and Mark Laing1" might offer some insights.
http://www.cropj.com/gurmu_7_13_2013_2074_2078.pdf

Does Chris have any varieties that you don't have?

They are extremely diverse and unpredictable and I'm more and more convinced that evidence and findings in one study or another only apply to that study and the plants involved in it. Can't assume it applies the whole species or various subsets, let alone in various conditions.

The more I find out the more I realize how little I know but that's so for about everything.

[Richard Watson]

Does Chris have any varieties that you don't have?

Yep we have pretty much the same but he doesnt have my non flowering Clone. His 'native' as he called it is only just now starting to form flower buds. We both have the same plants, we both have plenty of bees, so it must be weather related.

[Chris Morrison]

Unless, Richard, the 2 green clone cuttings you sent me, (which I call G1 and G2), are a type that died out for you over winter? My G2 died. But G1 is a really prolific seed producer, and perhaps an aggressive inducer? It may be identifiable, imho, as it is not strongly running, nor is it really bushy like BB. Kind of a mid range - you can look down and see the pods from a birds eye view, I guess what I am saying is that it is much more vine, stem and flower/pod than leaf? Will try to get a birdeyes view up soon, maybe Mark can ID it?
Pic below G1 pods harvested today. Mark - all have dry brown seed pods, but some ( 3 on left) still a tad yellow on stems. No evidence of any 'seed spitting', so guess better to leave on plant til all brown, like the 7 on the right? (Unless serious rain coming of course). G1 has about 100 pods atm.
TIA

[Richard Watson]

I took cuttings in the spring Chris, so that was after the winter die offs.