Open Source Plant Breeding Forum

Many people familiar with the HG forum are already familiar with this project so rather than start all over I thought I would just give a run down of how it stands now. My eventual goal is to release and sell true seed producing sweet potatoes as breeding material under the OSSI pledge. I just need to produce sufficient quantities, develop a good naming convention for the different lines and find out, in the event I want to release some as clones, what legal hoops I'll need to jump through to send them through the mail.

Anyway, five years after discovering my first true sweet potato seed  I have a total of 8 of my own seed grown clones that meet my criteria of short season production (100 days or less) of both food quality roots and seeds. I recently became aware that there is also more interest in lines developed more for greens over roots than I realized. That might greatly increase those I keep as clones. Up till now I have been mostly discarding those that only produce foliage, even if they did make seeds.

As it stands now along with those 8 seedy clones and a few other, non-rooting ones and after finding a pack I had forgotten about I have approximately 2500 seeds. Half or more of those are buried deep in the ground in well sealed stainless steel canisters.

I'm interested also in developing lines that are easy to grow and tolerant of poor conditions or neglect so I take no special actions to insure germination. I start them in cool conditions on a drafty window sill on a cheap heat and without any artificial lighting. Germination in successive generations under these conditions has increased from about 5% within a week to about 20%. Germination in an outside cold frame of just a few seeds in that time was 2%. Germination by folks I'v shared seeds with using much more controlled conditions was reported much higher, in the neighborhood of 90%.

My friend Richard in New Zealand had germination of 20% or higher, I think using a technique similar to mine and some of his plants are currently blooming. The climate there is not especially friendly to sweet potatoes so I'm watching his reports closely and keeping fingers crossed he gets good roots and seeds.

I hope in 2019 to get reports from New York and Germany. Other locations where they have been trialed include;

Sweden - no real report on germination or success

North Carolina - poor germination using techniques similar to mine, good root production on those that did grow, no seeds. No seeds was due to poor observation and repeated destruction of the vines by rabbits and deer. (*interesting, you can still get a harvest even if vines are seriously damaged)

Minnesota - no report, I think he may not have planted them yet.

Texas - excellent germination direct seeding in mid May, excellent root production, few seeds. I don't know a reason for the poor seed production there.

California - excellent germination, excellent seed production but most with poor stringy roots. I imagine by selection, crossing to new varieties and mutation the stringy root problem can soon be solved. 

Utah, Ah, Ha, this is the most exciting. This farmer and you know who you are Joseph Lofthouse did cheat some by tightly controlling germination conditions and got very good results. Still in a high desert with cold nights and a frost free season of less than 100 days managing to harvest food sized roots AND seeds FROM seed is pretty exciting.

I'm thinking for this year I will focus on continuing to push the extreme of germination under poor conditions (for sweet potatoes) even farther and plant about 500 seeds in the unheated cold frame. Select from them the first 20 or so that sprout and discard the rest. I'll also maybe keep some of the later sprouting volunteers which I expect because of my poor seed collection practice last year. I may not start any inside this year.

I'm also going to grow more individual plants of my saved clones instead of just one or two to increase the number of harvested roots from them. Those 8 all make good roots and seeds so I hope to cross them with several new commercial clones I'll get from Sandhill Preservation and elsewhere.

I want to up my seed production to 5000 this year. It's an ambitious goal not because it will be that hard to get the plants to do it, just have to have enough of them. It's ambitious because they are not exactly what you could call determinate. They just keep making seeds, you can't just harvest them all at once like you might with dry beans, there are only at most 4 in each capsule instead of hundreds like in a tomato. You have to spend an hour or more every single day looking for and collecting the seeds and there is a narrow window before they shatter. O'well, somebody's gotta do it I reckon.

How many seedlings do you figure it took growing out to get to the 8 clones you have that produce well for you?  I'm curious about percentages of seedlings that germinated.

Quote from: nathanp on 2019-01-13, 10:10:59 AM
How many seedlings do you figure it took growing out to get to the 8 clones you have that produce well for you?  I'm curious about percentages of seedlings that germinated.

My poor record keeping is biting me in the rear again but I'd guess very roughly, it took 150 germinated seeds to find the eight clones I'm keeping. That's over the life of the project but the % of good ones is increasing. I think I had just one of my own seed grown clones in 2016, two in 2017 and then it jumped to eight this past year. The first one has been dropped because the next two were both better. I still have those two and six new ones from 2018.

The six from 2018 came from about 40 germinated seeds. So I guess about 15%, that's way up from prior years.

To release seeds for sale and or pledge I want to be confident that a minimum of 10% of seeds will produce a good plant, I think I'm already there but I need to be able to document and describe them more accurately, so better record keeping from now on, is definitely called for.

Past seasons I'v grown my sweet potatoes in a combination of large tubs, smaller pots, and in the ground. This year I am transitioning  to growing exclusively in small 3 - 5 gallon pots. This will keep initial growth high enough off the ground to be safe from the rabbits that always seem to break into the garden at lest once in awhile. Growing in the small pots allows me to easily harvest just by dumping them out and also very importantly to easily select for the "clump root" trait that I like. Clump Root varieties make all their big storage roots in a nice clump directly under the main plant stem which again makes harvest much easier even if grown directly in the ground.

I'v found that they grow and produce very well in pots much smaller than I used think they would as long as all the drain holes of the pot are buried in the ground to prevent drying out from the bottom. It's important not to disturb the pots once planted so the long feeder  roots can exit the holes and travel as they will in the ground beneath. Some plants I'v seen will develop storage roots off of those feeder roots in the ground.  Plants that do that as well as plants that don't make storage roots at all will be easily identified and eliminated as clones.

I can also identify root size and shape properties this way. Shorter, fatter storage roots form perfectly in the pots where as long thinner ones hit the bottom of the pot and end up crooked. Giant "clunker" roots can push themselves up out of the pot.  I'm looking for plants that make a nice clump of roots the size of large baking potatoes and since I already have some that meet that description I think by saving only them as clones and recrossing them for seed each season I can increase that trait. 

I don't want at his point to discard very much genetic diversity so I'll still keep seeds from any plant that produces them well. As far as diversity goes however I think it might take a long time to actually genetically depress a variety, they are just too diverse to start with with many phenyotypes that don't resemble any of the original parents showing up in successive generations and in all sorts of combinations.

I'm also going to trellis the vines this year and even trim bushy plants to just a few stems. This will help in three ways I think. One to add still more protection from rabbits, two, to prevent vines from flopping on and rooting to the ground, which I think can cause small storage roots to form, taking away form the main ones under the main stem. Last and most important to make it easier for me to do my seed inspections. if I don't have to stoop over so much or dig around in thick bushy foliage it will help a lot to prevent losing seeds to shattering because I didn't find them in time.

Growing in pots would mean warmer soil = better growth, only that the need to stop them from drying out. This maybe a good way for me to grow in my changeable climate (62F today, near 100F next week), so wouls i be right in that the bottom of the pot needs to be just below ground? would have to go too deep.

I don't think the pots have be buried very deep, just as long as the side drain holes are covered good. I have some pots that only have bottom drain, I like them better.

That's all ive got in the large pots are bottom draining, I'll play around next summer with them

I don't think the pots have to be very large. I just use ones I collect up from the curb where people set them out for garbage. like I said, 3 to 5 gallon range. I'm not going to use my big cattle feed or half barrel tubs this year. There is no need to give the plant what it needs nutrient or water wise inside the pot, they get that from the feeder roots in the ground.

This year I'm gonna make mounds about 12 meters long, similar to If I was gonna plant in the ground but instead I'll set the in the pots making sure the drains are well buried and heavily mulch around and between. Then a trellis of fence wire across the top. They don't really climb like a bean but it is easy to stick the vines through and then back through the other side as the grow. Seed collection should be much easier than how I'v done it in the past.

The pots that I have are about that size.

Was just short of 70 F here yesterday after a few days with lows below 0 F. Houseplant sweet potatoes got to spend the afternoon outside in the full sun. Gave them a nice drink of pond water with a little bird poo from under the feeder and washed the indoor dust off their leaves with a spray bottle. They were looking a little poorly from the cold windowsill and lack of light but starting to get new shoots now that days are getting longer so I clipped off a lot of old leaves. They seemed to enjoy their outing and spa treatment and looked very happy this morning. I'm in hopes the rough conditions on the window sill, going back and forth from the heat of afternoon sun + nearby wood stove to cold drafts at night might spark some mutation.

Also took a peek at the roots being saved for slips, all look great save one that is pretty badly withered up. So bad at one end I couldn't read what I had written on it. First though to go ahead and try to sprout it but decided if it has tendency for spoiling before spring I don't want it anyway so I pitched it in the compost. 

A question, I'm sure I understand this right but if a flower has failed to be pollinated the flower and base drops off straight away? most of mine are still on a week later is a good sigh??

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2019-02-04, 12:34:35 PM
A question, I'm sure I understand this right but if a flower has failed to be pollinated the flower and base drops off straight away? most of mine are still on a week later is a good sigh??

Yep, that's about right, they drop off pretty much immediately if not pollinated. Sometimes the individual stem is still there, sometimes it drops off too. But if the base of the flower is still there then a seed capsule is developing. I never tracked it for sure but seems like it takes em a good bit to mature, a couple weeks or more.

I'm undecided on how to go on with mine. I want to trial a lot of seed in the cold frame outside to select for those that easily sprout like that but I also want to get some new commercial clones and try to up the genetic diversity. I can make more than enough to plant a large patch from my saved roots and clones and most all of them are good seeders so I'm thinking now I might just use them with some new purchased ones for the new diversity and save the cold frame trials for the next year. 

That's great, that means ive got seed developing on two plants.

I think I'v decided on my sweet potato plans for this year. I'm seeing lots of new kinds coming from apparent genetic segregation and even some mutation but still all of mine are descended from those same original parents and I already have a good backup supply of those genes in my stored seeds.  I also have my saved roots and clones that grew from them in the last couple seasons. I kind of hate the idea of not starting any from seed this year but I don't think I will, or at least not many if I do.

Instead I'm gonna get as many new kinds as I can and grow them together with my cloned seedy varieties and see if I can get new genes into my mix. I'll grow several each of my own, especially my favorite seedy, clump root types and at the same time maybe produce enough of their roots to possibly share some as OSSI clones. That however is an issue I'll have to look into as I don't even know what is needed or how much it would cost to legally be able to ship sweet potatoes or slips, one of those bridges to be crossed when I get there I reckon.

I'll do mass poly-cross this year and keep track of seeds by who the mother was just like the university breeders do. I'll do that for any seeds from new varieties and I should probably also give more official and permanent names to my own varieties so I can track them the same way.

I'll be set back a year on finding new seed sprouted varieties that meet my favored phenotypes but that's OK as I already have several that are petty darned good for growth habit, production, flavor and seediness. I'm gonna go all out, well as far out as I can, on buying new ones and I want it to be the last time I shell out money to buy slips, it's just way too expensive. Insane for folks who always grow sweet potatoes to buy them every year but to each his own I suppose.

I'v got about ten, new to me, varieties picked out and if I get seed from half of them I will be happy. I should be able to get lots from my own too along the way, I'm shooting for a number in the thousands from them. All in all sweet potatoes is probably take a big chunk of my gardening effort this year.

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2019-03-16, 10:50:35 PM
Reed, getting back to edible ornamentals--

What about breeding some sweet potatoes selected for both beauty and flavor of foliage? Maybe it would be happy houseplants in winter that you could snack upon. Then it gets used to make starts that are set out in spring and grown for greens.

In tropical areas sweet potatoes are a favorite crop to interplant with corn. I suspect they wouldnt get enough sun interplanted with corn in temperate areas. But maybe they would. or maybe they would if they were mostly producing leaves rather than roots. Might be worthwhile deliberately selecting under shady conditions. Lots of urbanites have gardens than are mostly shaded because of other houses and trees.

I have some pretty close to that growing on the window sill right now. Can't do much snacking on them cause conditions in my house are pretty poor for sweet potatoes or any tropical houseplant. Just keeping them alive has been the goal but I do notice some stay happier looking through the cold dark days of winter than others. They are all perking up now that it is warmer and have been outside on days over 60, even those that looked bad are growing nicely now. It works out pretty good cause you end up with bare stem with new growth on the tips which allows allows for rooting new plants that have not been in contact with soil. A couple have tried to bloom intermittently, in a warmer brighter house they might bloom all winter.

I'm not sure but sweet potatoes may like it in some shade. Especially those with dark purple leaves often wilt pretty dramatically in hot afternoon sun. I finally figured out that just cause they like it hot doesn't necessarily mean they like full sun. It probably depends on where you live. In a cooler place full sun, in a hotter place some afternoon shade might be better.  In my experience so far I haven't seen it make a dramatic difference in production or in blooming. I'm moving mine this year to the end of the garden where it goes in shade about 4 PM or so.

I'm finding that other than being slightly less cold tolerant than tomatoes, sweet potatoes are very adaptable and sturdy plants. I have a lot of them and I've had to discard a lot that might have been great ones to go on with for ornamental or eatable leaves cause I just don't have room to keep them all so I have mostly focused on my primary goal of a line that reliably produces good food from seed. 

It happened a little by accident but I do kinda now have two basic kinds. Seed production ability is still the most important so when I originally kept those that did that but that did not make big roots the only way to do it was as houseplants. So now I have the rooters + seeders saved  mostly just as roots and the non-rooters saved as plants.

Some of those sprouted from seed more than a year ago and have been cloned since, so some of last year's new ones for example were descended from them. I'm adding new purchased clones into the mix this year and am going to try to focus on getting their genes into my grex so won't be starting as many seeds this year.

So this year:
I want to mix in as much new material as possible from several new commercial clones.
Produce as many seeds as possible from my old lines, hopefully in the thousands.
Establish better naming conventions and keep better records.

In future I want to divide the lines into the root group. Defined as reliably producing big roots (from seed).
And the ornamental / eatable group, defined as having beautiful eatable foliage and lots of flowers.

The two lines will eventually have to be maintained separately because some of the ornamental / eatable group while having what I call the super bloomer trait, make very few seeds and no large roots. I can't assume that because they don't make seeds that they don't make pollen so they will have to be kept separate so as not to degrade the big root quality of the other group.

I want any particular seed from the root group to have a 50% or higher chance of making big roots. I'm estimating that chance now from any of my seeds, at 10% but think that's low. Another thing I want to keep better track of moving forward. Actually I can do that this year with what seeds I do start. I'll accurately record % germ under my conditions and the % of those that make big roots. Of course both numbers might be different if more controlled germination practices were used but I want lines that don't need tight germination conditions. 

I changed the name of this thread to better reflect my ultimate goal. Sweet potatoes that reliably produce food and seeds, from seed, in 100 days or less.

Achieving that will meet my needs of a staple food crop that requires no special storage requirements, that can provide food from harvest easily until the following planting time. It may even be possible to store food quality roots all the way till the next harvest, I intend to test that limit this year.

Reliable seed production insures the next years crop in the event all stored roots are eaten or lost. Innate longevity of sweet potato seeds adds an additional layer to food security. Sweet potatoes are or have potential to be a nearly perfect small scale, sustainable, staple food crop. Breeding for short maturity time moves this potential into regions not ordinarily know for sweet potato production and more importantly in my case, increases chances of a successful harvest in the event of adverse weather or other detrimental events.

So, I'm getting exited about starting this years crop. I think this makes the 6th season since I discovered my first sweet potato seeds and it has been really fun finding all the new kinds that have showed up from the original crosses. All of my houseplant clones are looking great and all of my saved roots have kept nicely. In about a month I'll be sprouting slips.

I have I think eight new ones this year, a couple from the grocery store, a couple local ones gifted from other gardeners and some I ordered which should arrive in May. I'll be planting them all in 3 - 5 gallon pots to test for my preferred "clump root" trait. They will all be trellised this year to help protect from rabbits and make seed collection easier.

I'm gonna grow a few of each kind and dig some, starting maybe as early as July so I can compare root size and storage ability at different stages. I discovered that large roots can be removed and the plant replanted without significant reduction in seeds. Also gonna do more experimenting with eating the greens.

Still struggling with my decision, due to space constraints to not start any new seeds. I'm not sure I can stand to do that and since I also want them to not be picky about germination conditions I will probably sow at least a hundred or so in the cold frame like I do tomatoes. Any that sprout quick in those conditions will be kept even if I have to scale back on some other project to make room. 

This is a great goal !

Please keep us updated

This project has me very excited! Can't wait until this project evolves enough that I feel comfortable requesting seed samples to try. But I love the goal! I think it is totally possible with a little work. I love the True seed projects for all the cloned crops.

This is a very interesting project alright, I'm really getting a kick out of being involved. I suppose the goal would be 90+% of seed sown producing an acceptable crop yield, tubers close to stem, taste while still been a good seed producer. Be interesting to see what happens over the coming year with the colours, will they merge or still throw the variables like at present   

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2019-03-25, 12:49:04 PM
This is a very interesting project alright, I'm really getting a kick out of being involved. I suppose the goal would be 90+% of seed sown producing an acceptable crop yield, tubers close to stem, taste while still been a good seed producer.

Now don't be gettin too far ahead of things, right now I'm shooting for 50% in short term at least. I already have some that are pretty close to the other criteria but need to grow them in isolation with themselves to find out self compatibility and the like, lots more along those lines to do, not sure there even is an end to that tunnel, let alone a light at it.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2019-03-25, 12:49:04 PMBe interesting to see what happens over the coming year with the colours, will they merge or still throw the variables like at present   

I hope they keep the color variability and think they will for at least a good long time. Just too many things not in the original parents have sown up to think they will easily settle into something fixed. Or maybe I'll find various ones reasonably stable for a particular color combination / flavor, that would be sweet. 

I'm really talking the loonng term goal, a lot to be done before then I know, Ive gota get bloody seed yet.

Of course the higher that percentage the better but since a lot of them make a lot of seeds it still provides the insurance needed to restart your crop in the event all clones are lost even if it is as low as 10%. And all along the way a gardener can keep accumulating good ones as clones.

What I hope, is that by growing those good ones together and gradually culling the  poorer ones is that each years new seeds just keep getting better and better.  I call it genetic distillation, that's what I'v done so far and seems to be working pretty good. It will mostly be put on hold this year I guess in favor of trying to introduce new genes in the mix.

But then there is another problem that a lot of those very good at making seeds are not so good at making roots, although they might be fine for eating the greens. But without sizable roots to store they have to be kept over winter as plants which is another problem.

And still another problem I've encountered is some that have what I'm calling the "super bloom" trait make very few or even no seeds at all. Why not? I have no clue. Is this female sterility inheritable? Should I completely eliminate them as soon as I see they are not setting capsules? Should I discard seeds form other plants  that formed or were in process of forming prior to those being culled? This trait reveals itself early enough that it would be possible to do that and still get more seed from the others so as pretty as those are I may start doing that.  (I think these might be the selfed offspring of other good bloomers)

On the other hand I think it is possible that some are only compatible some particular other one which might explain tons of flowers but no seeds then all of a sudden seeds start to form when a much later flowering plant started blooming.

I don't have near enough experience or documentation to say for sure but there seems to be a relationship between those that make fewer seeds having the best roots and the most interesting color combinations in the roots. They also seem to make although fewer seeds, the best seeds. They are bigger, there is usually a full four per capsule and they seem to sprout the fastest.  They have just two to maybe four flowers per peduncle instead of a dozen but they have them at nearly every leaf joint and they very rarely abort after pollination. They are much longer vines with much longer internodes. Most of those that have volunteered from lost seeds were like this.

Lots of questions but lots of fun trying to figure it all out.

I'm chomping at the bit to get some sweet potatoes going but guess I'll hold off a little bit longer, still some danger of frost and I don't want a bunch of plants to keep inside or covered. On the other hand I came across some more information, it answers some questions I had especially about maturity plus other useful information.

SandHill website has a great information page on growing them. [url = https://www.sandhillpreservation.com/sweet-potato-growing-information]https://www.sandhillpreservation.com/sweet-potato-growing-information (https://www.sandhillpreservation.com/sweet-potato-growing-information)[/url] it describes maturity as

QuoteEarly - at 90 days here in Iowa these have reached full size.
Early/Midseason- at 90 days  the majority of roots are full sized and mature.
Mid-season - at 90 days here in Iowa these still have roots that need a few more weeks to bulk up.
Late - at 90 days here in Iowa these only have about 25% of the roots mature.
Very Late - really nothing much at 90 days.  These need around 140 days.

All of my original varieties, or at least those that did well, except for the ornamental one came from their early group. Now to meet my goal of mature roots in 100 days or less from seed I may need to do some selection, but I think it is possible.

Their info on to talk about some very interesting stuff concerning GDD and storability related to root size. 

QuoteThis is the most important thing when it comes to sweet potatoes.  It is the heat units that determines success, not the number of days nor plant zone, but heat units.  I have been an avid weather observer for over 40 years and have files of weather data to go with files of planting data.  A few years ago , thanks to the help of one of our workers, I was able to put the two sets of data together and arrive at some conclusions that I had already suspected, but had never had the time to confirm.  It takes about 1200 heat units for our early varieties to reach a decent crop of usable size roots.  I use the term usable size as I think for many a sweet potato the size of a nice fat bratwurst is about the best size for keeping and for baking.  Bigger than that is okay, but they do not sprout as well nor keep as well because they suffer from bruising much easier.   

All very very interesting stuff, can't believe I missed it before on their web site, anyway glad I came across it. Concerning the heat units and this also relates to climate change I did some research a couple years ago at the time concerned with corn and made a chart of heat units for my location. Looks like I easily have the required 1200 in any two month period, enough maybe I can do two (seed to seed) cycles in one year. Again, even though I have a fairly long season, I breed and select for short season maturity. Learning to avoid excessive GDD by planting earlier or growing in shade may actually become more important that season length.

Hi Reed,

It is true there is a ton of useful information on Sandhill Preservation,  especially about Sweet potatoes.  I find their sweet potato variety list a bit daunting to deal with though, since it is just a big list. It can be quite difficult and time consuming to wade through. 

I am looking for your advice as to proper timing for starting these true Sweet Potato seeds?  Now that I have some I am eager to get them started but I don't want to jump the gun either.  When is the right time to start them?

Quote from: Oxbow Farm on 2019-04-08, 05:28:20 AM
Hi Reed,

It is true there is a ton of useful information on Sandhill Preservation,  especially about Sweet potatoes.  I find their sweet potato variety list a bit daunting to deal with though, since it is just a big list. It can be quite difficult and time consuming to wade through. 

I am looking for your advice as to proper timing for starting these true Sweet Potato seeds?  Now that I have some I am eager to get them started but I don't want to jump the gun either.  When is the right time to start them?

All of the seeds I sent you came form varieties that meet the Sandhill definition of early, well except for the one ornamental ancestor which starts blooming when very small. It didn't make much as far as roots but some of it's crossed descendants do. 

How you start your seeds is important. They like it hot but I don't artificially provide that, my germination rate in first week or so is very low, maybe 15% tops but all your seeds came from ones started like that. I think Joseph and Mike had much much higher germ rates using controlled and much warmer germination practice. I'm selecting for less picky ones and I have lots of seeds so I don't mind losing 85% of them .

I think in a shorter season climate and with limited number of seeds I would sprout em like they did to get the maximum and fastest germination. Just figure out the period when you'll have night time lows above 50 and time to accumulate 1200 GDD  and start about three to four weeks (they grow slow at first) in front of that.

I normally start mine about mid April to plant mid to late May but I'm not starting many seeds this year. Those I do I'm doing in an unheated cold frame instead of inside and probably not till first of May. I want to keep pushing for easy sprouting and if possible tolerance to cooler temps along with fast maturity.

Well I couldn't stand the thought of not stating any new seeds at all this year so I put some out in the cold frame. With all the slips from ones I'v saved and all the new ones I have ordered calling for more space than I easily have for grow outs, I almost hoped they wouldn't come up or at least not while it was still cool. If they laid there till June or so I would have considered them too heat loving and wouldn't have minded just forgetting them but 3 out of about 50 popped up in a couple days so now I'm obligated at least for those three.

It's gonna take a 1/4 of my total garden space but I guess that's OK. I hauled over a bunch of partially composted wood chips last fall and spread it around in one corner of the garden about a foot deep. Week or so ago I tilled it all up good to mix it with soil so now I have plenty of easy to get material to fill the pots and I have plenty of pots collected. I'll use that same area to set the pots and mulch heavy around and between with more of the rotting chips. Old fence and posts are on hand for the trellising and I'm gonna try to space them a little better this year so I can tell them apart. All in all I think it should be easier this year observe differences between plants and most important easier to stay on top of seed collection. I even have good intentions of recording and saving individually from each mother plant rather than dumping them all together, will see how that goes. I definitely will save earliest seeds separately as I'v done before and I may even dig and examine roots of those plants at the point of first mature seed. 

Most of the slips and overwintered house plant starts I'm using are from my "good seeder & good root" plants with emphasis on the "clump root" trait that I like.  I considered dropping the "super bloomers" because they make crappy roots but decided it is too early in the project to do that. I think a lot of them are self compatible and may have ability to unlock seeding in others, especially those that are thought of as female sterile which a couple of the new ones I'v ordered are. I don't believe they really are, they just haven't met the right father yet, I'll find out.

So, I'll see how it goes this year. I hope to get thousands of seeds and especially hope to add in new genetics from the new varieties. If I'm successful in that I'll consider the first phase of this project more or less complete and move on to  continuing selection for easy sprouting, short maturity, clump root and so on ending ultimately with seed grown annual sweet potatoes; making the storage of roots of this important food crop an option rather than a necessity.

It would be pretty cool to have them like what Joseph is working on in his tomatoes, compatible between plants but not within a single individual, but I don't have a clue on how to go about doing that.

ALL of my sweet potatoes, roots producing slips, houseplant clones and this years sprouts are out in the cold frame and looking pretty good. Last couple days it turned cold, not freezing but well under the 50 F threshold of happiness for sweet potatoes. Last night mid 30 s was predicted and I contemplated bringing them in or at least putting blankets or something over the frames but I decided heck with it. They were not going to freeze and worst that might happen is they would be slowed down a little. And I'm selecting for quick maturity, even if they are delayed I bet they would produce just fine if not planted till July, plus they like heat and tolerate drought. It actually only got to 44 F this morning and that's warmer than the last two.

I also realized a primary goal of this project, that of having a nice archive of seeds, is already achieved.  As long as ya got a nice stash of seeds, loss of even all the plants would just be a set back not a total disaster. 

My new ones I ordered won't even ship till late this month so it should all still work out fine. Looking forward to getting the new genetics mixed in and from then on never buying another one.

Thats why I have to be every care with my plant having no seed back up, though spreading them around the country helps give the project more security, ive sent most of the batch of cuttings up to the North Island and they are doing fine, a second lot sent south took three weeks to make the 400km trip, %$#* NZ Post, they were completely buggered on arrival.

I'm a little later than last year getting my clones ready but that's OK as the new ones I ordered won't be shipped for at least another week. Any way below is a picture that shows how I do that with the houseplant clones. Slips are similar of course but you just pluck them off the root. 

I don't think it is good to just replant a plant you've kept over winter as it will be root bound. Sandhill advises against potting a slip and letting it get roots before planting and I think that is real good advise. They just won't produce good if you do that. Just a couple small roots or even no roots at all assuming it is warm and you keep them very wet for a couple days is best.

You can see the root bound mess this plant is in, so I just clip of some tips and reroot them in sand and water. The sand is just to hold them in place a little and make the cup bottom heavy. These new clones should be ready to plant in just two to three days.

This particular plant was a volunteer last year and spent most of it's life buried under some tomato vines, it didn't make any roots to speak of but it bloomed nice. I think no roots was due more to that only a few of it's leaves found any sunlight till I ripped out the tomatoes rather than the fact it came up late.  I was pleasantly surprised to see it made a cute little root in it's pot over winter. Only the good rooters do that

Sorry about the poor image quality and the ugly writing over it.

Quote from: reed on 2019-05-19, 08:29:14 AM


I don't think it is good to just replant a plant you've kept over winter as it will be root bound. Sandhill advises against potting a slip and letting it get roots before planting and I think that is real good advise. They just won't produce good if you do that. Just a couple small roots or even no roots at all assuming it is warm and you keep them very wet for a couple days is best.

This has been something Ive done for the past three years with my wintered over Kumara plants, mind you I use large pots though, maybe this helps as I still get reasonable roots from them. I will still do what you are doing come spring but have two separate beds, one for tuber growing and the other for the plants that I'm wintering aimed for getting seed, a large well established plant by the time the summer heat kicks in should give me the best chance I feel.

O yea, didn't think of that. Probably fine or even better for seeds to plant larger ones with old roots intact. A couple of mine had already started blooming not long after going out to the cold frame. It's been plenty warm here, hot actually in my opinion and they've been in full sun. 

What will be large plants come spring were cuttings 6 weeks ago, they will just chug away through winter slowly growing, so 6 months in a pot.

Well, I am officially overwhelmed by sweet potatoes. I intended to grow five of each of my own but trimmed that down to three, then two and now just one of some. Only have a couple I'm still growing five of. Still it OVER fills the intended area where I'm putting them and the new orders, about 50 total haven't even shipped yet.

I suppose if it comes to it, I'll discard some of mine or just stick them out somewhere to take their chances with the deer and rabbits. Priority this year is still getting new genetics mixed into the grex even it means some that might have been worth propagating indefinitely as clones end up going extinct. Just not possible for me to keep every one that comes along nor does that further the goal of turning them into a seed grown annual. 

It's kind of heart breaking when that happens, I can relate to it very much. Same thing happened to me with the potatos, the cultivar collection has gotten too big to plant large amounts of each one. When I was done planting and had so much leftovers waiting to be planted, I just could not compost them and put a table at the roadside instead. For the neighbours to pick up all they might want. Everything gone in three days! It had a sign saying 'Free seedpotatoes, enjoy!' But I still find money in my letterbox or on the porch with thank you notes :) country life at its best.

That's so nice to see Doro in a world of full of 'takers'

It is really nice and I feel lucky that our small village still has a strong community feeling.

Well shucks! Freakish weather resulting I can only conclude, from ongoing climate change is delaying delivery of my new varieties. The grower reports a long period of cool, wet, sunless conditions has delayed sprouting of slips. It has warmed up some now with sunshine so if that holds they should start slipping, I will just get them perhaps in July instead of June. That's OK, I can work with it, barring any freakish early cool spells that is still time to flower and produce roots before frost in October. Or maybe it will be like two years ago and stay in the 90s till mid November.

My slips were somewhat delayed for the same reason but when we hit the low 90s F with hot sun they all took off. They are already planted but I didn't discard my slip roots and they continue to make more. Also have a few seed sprouted plants. If worse came to worse on the new ones I still have more than plenty to fill up my space, just wouldn't get any new genes mixed in. Heck even if they didn't come till August I bet I could still pull it off or if noting else save them as house plants till next year.

This is a pretty exciting project. Sounds like the result would be *much* easier than growing them the traditional way to me (if it isn't already). At the very least, you could just start the seeds extra early (where needed), right?

Quote from: naiku on 2019-05-30, 03:19:39 AM
This is a pretty exciting project. Sounds like the result would be *much* easier than growing them the traditional way to me (if it isn't already). At the very least, you could just start the seeds extra early (where needed), right?

I'm most interested I think in the security that growing from seed provides. Of course you can always save good ones as clones but the back up seed archive makes it possible to star over in the event all the clones are lost or eaten. That's what I'v been doing so far, cloning the best ones and building the seed archive and since the best ones have also been crossing and back-crossing the % of good ones in new groups of sprouts just keeps going up. After this year I hope to keep doing that and also keep pushing the boundaries of tolerance to cold, poor growing conditions and fast maturity.

I was weeding off a neglected  area last night and came across a couple sweet potato volunteers. I know I lost a lot of seed last year but the main growing spot was tilled this spring and planted with regular potatoes and mulched so haven't seen any volunteers there.

I had forgotten a volunteer had grown in this other spot last year so these must have came from it. Guess then that they are second generation sweet potato weeds, not sure if I will move them over with the others or just leave them be where they are.

The bigger one looks to be probably over a week old but the other just a couple days. They look very different but pretty sure the came from the same mother plant.

I don't think this is as rare as might be commonly believed. I know of at least one other person who has found volunteer sweet potatoes in his garden. I suspect it happens now and then but folks just don't notice or mistake them for morning glories or something and rip them out.

If I get good seed production this year it would be pretty fun to just throw about a thousand of them on the ground next spring and see what happens. Eliminate heat mats, cold frames, transplanting, the whole process, and go straight to selecting for direct seeded sweet potatoes. 

Sowing them like you are sowing carrots ya reckon.

The later generator has that bushy bloomer look to it.

Yep, I reckon so, just toss them on the ground and rake em in. The little one does look like bushy bloomer but the most likely mother plant looked more like the bigger one. Will be fun to see how they turn out.
I'v only got a few other seed sprouted plants this year, going for mixing new varieties with my old standby bloomers instead.
Looking forward to next year when I go back to starting lots of seeds, it's more fun that way,  not knowing what your gonna end up with.

I'm curious how much variation there is with the sweetness or sugar content of sweet potatoes in the seed grown populations you are all working with.

I haven't delved into much with sweet potatoes, partly because I do not care for the highly sweet tasting varieties I normally run into in grocery stores.  I have only grown very minimal amounts of one type of sweet potato.

Some are not very sweet at all. I was disappointed about that at first cause all I knew ever about sweet potatoes before is that they are supposed to be sweet and orange.  I still like those too but I'm getting adjusted to the others as well.

I thought at first they had to be orange to be sweet but that isn't the case either, some are and some not. Also white ones may or may not be. I think I still like the sweet ones best but we are learning to use the others too, almost like a regular potato in stews and such. Last year I fried some white ones with onions and they were very good, texture was a little odd, kind of dry and crumbly.

One reason I don't normally like sweet potatoes is that they are TOO sweet. So I was happy to try one last year that wasn't. Just fried it like hash browns, and it was great.

I hadn't thought of the problem with thinking a sweet potato seedling is bindweed. I hope I'll be able to tell the difference. We've erradicated bindweed in our yard, but I still get seeds blowing in from the neighbors.

I think there are lots of non-sweet ones especially among seed grown. Probably less than 1/2 are sweet. That might not be true if two sweet ones crossed.

I think pretty much all Impomoea species look almost exactly alike when they first sprout. Sweet potatoes don't climb though or even stand up very tall before branching or falling over so by time they have two or three sets of leaves they are pretty distinct.

Quote from: reed on 2019-06-01, 05:38:32 AM
Eliminate heat mats, cold frames, transplanting, the whole process, and go straight to selecting for direct seeded sweet potatoes.

That would be great. I try to go to direct seeding with every vegetable I breed.
How cold does it get in your area? Do you have snow cover in winter?
Snow might help the volunteers.

We don't ordinarily get a lot of snow but it can get pretty cold, -10 F, I guess that is about -20 C. Volunteer sweet potatoes don't show up until at least late May, they can keep popping up all summer but of course those from August or later don't have much chance of maturing.  They like it hot. 

Some of my new varieties arrived and are planted. They were lost in the mail for awhile and had no live leaves at all but roots and stems were fine and they are already starting to sprout new growth so should be fine.

On another note, a side project not related to turning sweet potatoes into an annual seed grow crop is to see if can make a perhaps hardy perennial by crossing to i pandurata. I tried before and got two seeds that I think were pollinated by pandurata but the did not sprout.

Also last year my I pandurata seeds did not spout. I think that might be because they, unlike I batatas do need cold stratification so I put some in the freezer last fall. Got them out about a month ago and planted just in a flower pot and left it setting in the garden. They were still slow but all of a sudden they popped up.

Not sure where to put them, being a giant perennial vine I don't want them in the garden itself so need to find a spot along the edge of the yard somewhere. It will be much easier to try  crosses once they are established and I don't have to drive somewhere to collect pollen.
(//)

These all came from the same apparently self pollinated vine. I'v located seven wild plants but only this one made has made seeds. So, I'm wondering if they have similar tenancies in that regard as does batatas, mostly not self compatible but occasionally so.  If that's the case, perhaps since I have the very highly fertile types of both species I will get lucky and find crosses.

Or maybe there is another wild vine that I haven't found near the one that makes seeds, who knows?

Wow, Reed, that's fascinating. I have never even heard of i pandurata even though according to Wikipedia it is native up into southern Ontario (where I live). It is very striking so I'm sure I would have noticed it if I had ever seen it in bloom. I will be watching this with interest!

The i pandurata is an impressive plant, it grows along the roads here and at the top of the river bank but it isn't real common. It's very pretty, it don't climb like a bean but its stems stand up a couple feet before falling over so if there is a fence or bushes to lean on and get tangled in it looks like it climbed. The one that makes seeds sprawls on the ground along a ditch and has vines probably 20 feet long.  it completely dies back in winter, amazing how such giant vines can grow back each year, I guess that is due to its big roots. I'v never dug up any roots so don't know what they look or taste like. The flowers are four or five inches across and there are lots of them, would make a nice ornamental if nothing else.

I guess the flooding weather from the plains has shifted east, been cool and raining here for over a week, sweet potatoes overall will not like this. 

Still cool and wet here, not so bad as to do a lot of harm but enough so that my sweet potatoes are not growing as fast as normal. One of my new ones that came from Sow True Seeds  and was lost in the mail is perking up pretty good and YEA, the grower in Iowa report they have started shipping and expect to be done next week. Most of the new ones are coming from there and assuming mine are not in the group that are refusing to sprout slips due to cold weather, I should have them before July.

In the mean time I have planted a bunch of those I call Bushy Bloomer, BB Improved-1, and BB Improved-2 in very small pots that I can move around to facilitate pollination wherever I think it's needed.  I will probably drop the original BB after this year cause it doesn't make much in the way of usable roots. Time to weed out the non-rooters even if they do produce a lot of seeds. Any as yet unidentified traits they may have that should be kept already are kept in the seed archive.

I still haven't gotten my sweet potatoes into the ground, although we are having plenty of hot weather now. My seedlings are still sitting in their 3" pots or still in the seed flat.

The tubers I saved for slips had some setbacks too. I set them out in flats of soil, in early May, to start sprouting, but then the weather turned cold and rainy again. So I put clear plastic covers over the flats to keep them a little warmer, but then the sun came out and scorched them, before turning cold again. About half the tubers rotted, but the other half finally has slips that are ready to plant.

We also had a very cold, rainy spring so all my overwintering crops have been delayed and are still taking up space where the sweet potatoes will go. Next week I will finally pull out the cauliflower seed crop, and plant the sweet potatoes. I expect my slips from Sandhill will be arriving soon as well.

My oldest seedlings are a batch of bushy bloomer descendants. Some of them are already starting to flower in their pots. I'm a little worried about them getting root-bound and that negatively affecting their tuber quality. In the Sandhill guide to growing sweet potatoes they really highlight the importance of not having too many roots on your slips, because that can make the tubers grow twisted and mis-shapen — reducing yield. I would think the same thing would apply to pot-bound seedlings.

So do you cut off some of the roots on the slips?.

My bushy bloomer descendant is still producing flower buds yet its winter, but they fall off before they can open, too cold.

When I have one that overwintered in a pot or even a slip that I think has too many roots I cut off the top and re-root it. If you keep it very wet for a few days a cutting can be planted without any roots at all. Lots of times trimmings discarded on the ground root down and resume growing.

Rain and rain and rain some more so I got out my folder of material I'v printed about sweet potatoes and reread most of it. Glad I did cause a couple things I had forgot about are pretty important.

One is that forcing plants to flower might pass poor flowering into offspring and since I want plants to flower on their own I'm not sue I'll do much as far as forcing. I say not sure because it occurs to me the opposite of that might also be true, that forcing one to flower and crossing to one that flowers freely might result in offspring that flower just fine.

The other thing concerns female sterility. That is concerning cause I'v seen plants that bloom a lot but don't set seeds. Some are reportedly sterile in both directions but  that can't be assumed so I'm thinking from now on if you bloom but don't set seed then you need to go. And maybe it would be prudent to only keep seed collected after the bloom but no seed plants are  culled.

If a person only wanted new kinds to clone from there on, neither of those things would matter but I'm thinking for my purposes maybe should take them more seriously.

I direct-seeded my sweet potato seeds this year as seed grown annuals.

I still have clones from last year that I could plant as well.

Quote from: Joseph Lofthouse on 2019-06-18, 08:44:04 AM
I direct-seeded my sweet potato seeds this year as seed grown annuals.

I still have clones from last year that I could plant as well.

I hope to do that next year on a pretty large scale, at least 1000 seeds. This year I only started a few and have a few volunteers. Volunteers last couple years matured fully so I know direct seeding will work. For now I'll sure be glad when my new varieties arrive. 

Look forward to hearing how yours do. Do you have any sprouts?

I direct seeded about 60 sweet potato seeds in early June. We had a few nights of frost around the 19th to 21st of June. The 16 or so sweet potato seeds that had already sprouted survived. They were barely emerged, so still close to the warmth of the ground.

Two years ago, the transplants were flowering on June 21st.

Quote from: Joseph Lofthouse on 2019-06-22, 10:36:55 PM
I direct seeded about 60 sweet potato seeds in early June. We had a few nights of frost around the 19th to 21st of June. The 16 or so sweet potato seeds that had already sprouted survived. They were barely emerged, so still close to the warmth of the ground.

Two years ago, the transplants were flowering on June 21st.

Wow, surviving a frost that's pretty encouraging. A couple of my seed sprouted and one of the volunteers are blooming now but have not set any seed capsules. Only one of the slip or clone started plants (four plants but all from the same root) has bloomed but they do have capsules.

A couple recent days of more sunshine has resulted in an almost shocking explosion of growth and we are supposed to have a three or four day streak of warmer sunnier weather this coming week.

Still haven't received the rest of my new varieties. The grower reports as of 6/19 that some have only now started producing slips. My fingers are crossed that my order is or will soon be on the way. Our weather hasn't been any better than theirs but we did have some heat back in April and May and I started mine in the cold frame against the south wall of the house.

Might be prudent to pay special attention to this year's volunteers, particularly the one that is blooming, maybe it will also be a good rooter, can always hope.

Quote from: reed on 2019-06-09, 07:21:34 AM
Also last year my I pandurata seeds did not spout. I think that might be because they, unlike I batatas do need cold stratification so I put some in the freezer last fall. Got them out about a month ago and planted just in a flower pot and left it setting in the garden. They were still slow but all of a sudden they popped up.

In my experience they germinate right away after being collected, needing just adequate warmth and moisture, no stratification required. Being a northern-adapted plant it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. When I first started working with the species I assumed they needed to stratify, so I sowed a round of seeds in a flat in September, after I had collected them. Sure enough, they all germinated, and then were hit with frost a month later. Came back fine the following spring, but I thought it strange. Now I just store them dry and sow them in the spring. Most of them come up at the first go, but occasionally some of them germinate 1, or even 2 years later! Tricky...

Hi Zelfers, what else can you tell me about I pandurta? Have you tried crossing them with batatas?

Hi reed, no I've never tried crossing them with anything yet, but that is definitely on my to-do list. My strategy so far has been to grow all my Ipomoeas together is an area where natural cross-pollination can occur. Maybe I should be more serious and start collecting and storing pollen. As to what more I can tell you about pandurata, it is decently edible when young, not unlike a parsnip. They like a well-draining or even a dry soil. It is possible for them to die of root rot. Like with other Ipomoea the leaves are edible and tasty. It is a climbing vine and benefits from trellising, or having shrubs to climb on. Both pandurata and macrorhiza have very fuzzy seed margins, which makes them look almost like little insects. I have wondered at the possibility of a pandurata x macrorhiza cross, rather than the pandurata x batatas as is most commonly talked about. Macrorhiza, like pandurata, is a diploid, although I forget if the chromosome number is the same. Macrorhiza has a root structure very much like batatas, with branching, swollen tubers, and the ability to be propagated via root division and cuttings/slips (not sure if also possible with pandurata). Alternately, a macrorhiza x batatas cross seems really appealing. Macrorhiza is another species I grow and it overwinters in my zone 6b climate. USDA describes it only as hardy to zone 7, but I imagine this is due to lack of data -- macrorhizas hardiness could be even more northern than me! Most of my pandurata and macrorhiza plants are too young to be of use for breeding yet... they seem to want to take a few years to flower. Will be fun to keep working with these species into the future!

Quote from: Zach on 2019-06-24, 09:30:47 AM
Most of my pandurata and macrorhiza plants are too young to be of use for breeding yet... they seem to want to take a few years to flower. Will be fun to keep working with these species into the future!

Do you know how many seasons these species take to get a harvestable root? I have some I. pandurata seed from Reed that I still need to sow. Nice to hear that they germinate pretty easily. I probably still have time to sprout them this season.

Since these wild species are diploid, it seems like that may be a major impediment to crossing the with hexaploid I. batatas. Wouldn't you need to induce polyploidy in the wild species, or is there another way the cross might be possible?

My thinking re: harvesting pandurata is waiting until the plants are old enough to flower and produce a seed crop, but not so old that the roots get fibrous and bitter. Harvesting during the early years of flowering is when the roots are at their best and also creates a selection pressure against old fibrous roots. Obviously it can be worthwhile to keep an old-growth parent plant or two around for seed, but after a certain age the roots ceasing being palatable. I'm not sure yet how well pandurata takes to vegetative propagation/root division, so harvesting after it has seeded the new generation may be the most sustainable approach. Once seeds are collected, you have the basis of building and expanding the population.

In the case of macrorhiza, because it propagates vegetatively through division, you might be able to treat it like a 2 or 3 year rotation sweet potato, which seems pretty neat to my mind. I'll have to get back to you in a few years on that one!

Good question re: the diploid x hexaploid issue. I don't know how to get around that! Maybe by some small probability the hexaploid will accept diploid pollen? Or I wonder if it's possible to make a complex hybrid hexaploid via something like pandurata x (macrorhiza x pandurata), and then use that to cross into batatas...

I tried propagating pandurata from cuttings and failed. They just didn't sprout roots like batata cuttings do. Great to know that about them being good if harvested young although young probably means at least a couple years. I found them pretty easy to transplant, having lost only one of a dozen I put out. I think they are too crowded so will have to thin later if they all take off good.

If I can find it again I'll post a link to a paper I found that said there had been successful crosses between batatas and pandurata. I don't remember all that paper said except that it isn't impossible. I don't worry over the ploidy issue myself, just figure I'll take a cross if it happens and not be too disappointed if it doesn't. 

The flowers of both are so easy to work with as far as emasculating and pollen collection is super easy too so I'll keep trying. I actually had two seeds, neither of which sprouted that may have been a cross. I say may have been because it isn't impossible that a bee also pollinated the same flowers, from now on I'll cover those I work with to prevent that.

Crosses I'v tried is where I drive to the pandurata plant, park in the road with flashers on and run up to get some pollen. Once I have my own flowering pandurata it will be much easier and I can also try it the other way.  I think that might work better cause I have a way more diverse collection of batatas pollen to try, if one plant don't work maybe a different one will. I'm also not above trying something goofy like grafting the two together to see if I can get a little nontraditional gene transfer started, actually I could go collect some cuttings and try that this year.

Right now though it's just wait and see how long it takes to get flowers. I'm not at all familiar with macrorhiza, always fun though to have something new to study.

My attempts to get flowers on Sweet Potatoes here in Gippsland, AU have been a total failure so far.  Those clones that I have been able to get have just not flowered under the conditions that I have had this last two years.  Need to try and track down flowering clones here without getting strictly ornamental varieties. 

Going by the seed set on the I aquatica i will not have any problems with pollination if I can only get a couple of flowering clones.

One comment that I can make, is that most slips that I have seen locally are pre-potted in 4 inch square pots and despite being well established with good root systems they have not produced deformed roots to an over-whelming degree, some in what I believe to be the variety Beauregard, but not that many in relation to the straighter roots.  The white skinned purple fleshed bushy var that I purchased this year put out new roots before forming tubers, but is a late season maturer, unsuitable for this area.  Getting named varieties here is not easy, although one or two of the seed companies list a few.

Quote from: whwoz on 2019-06-26, 08:13:38 AM
Need to try and track down flowering clones here without getting strictly ornamental varieties. 

By ornamental varieties do you mean they are just pretty but do not make any usable roots?  Assuming they bloom, I think they are great to use in breeding. From what I'v seen, if they self pollinate or cross between two they tend to produce similar.

BUT if you can cross them to one that does make good roots, along with the stringy rooted offspring all kinds of great stuff also shows up in subsequent generations. Of course you still have to get flowers on the big rooted ones first.

I grew one hydroponically on a whim one time, I'm pretty sure it was Beauregard. I just dropped a slip root in the little stream part of my garden pond to keep it going in case I needed more slips. I never got around to pitching it out and it grew giant vines and flowered profusely. It was before I got interested in sweet potato breeding and did not have a mate for it so I got no seeds. I just mention it cause it might be a way to force flowering on the stubborn ones.

I ate the roots of the ornamental variety Marguerite/Margarita once. Although they were physically hard, white fleshed, they cooked up rather well and had an appealing flavor, i found. Definitely on the starchy side though. Because sweet potatoes tend to be either sweet or starchy, i would imagine that a lot of potatoes which don't make the cut, according to the breeder, may well be perfectly edible, but just too starchy for the standard consumer? Anyone else have experience eating ornamental sweet potato roots?

Quote from: reed on 2019-06-26, 12:13:54 PM
By ornamental varieties do you mean they are just pretty but do not make any usable roots?  Assuming they bloom, I think they are great to use in breeding. From what I'v seen, if they self pollinate or cross between two they tend to produce similar.

BUT if you can cross them to one that does make good roots, along with the stringy rooted offspring all kinds of great stuff also shows up in subsequent generations. Of course you still have to get flowers on the big rooted ones first.

I decided to pick a couple of ornamental sweet potatoes this year, just to add more diversity to my gene pool.

I have definitely noticed, over the years, that some of them do produce a fair amount of tubers. When I used to work in retail nurseries, I would occasionally get concerned customers show up to inquire about the mysterious tubers they the found when cleaning out their flower beds in the fall.

'Lime' and 'Spotlight Red'

Quote from: Zach on 2019-06-26, 01:19:10 PM
I ate the roots of the ornamental variety Marguerite/Margarita once. Although they were physically hard, white fleshed, they cooked up rather well and had an appealing flavor, i found. Definitely on the starchy side though. Because sweet potatoes tend to be either sweet or starchy, i would imagine that a lot of potatoes which don't make the cut, according to the breeder, may well be perfectly edible, but just too starchy for the standard consumer? Anyone else have experience eating ornamental sweet potato roots?

I think they are all edible but your probably right that the breeders are looking for those that meet a wide customer and grower preference. The only university program I know of says they start 50,000 seed per season but in recent years have only released one for commercial production other than their ornamentals. They hold patents on most of the ornamental varieties that I'm aware of except for a couple that predate their work with them. They are only patented against asexual propagation and  I'v tried breeding with some of theirs but they did not flower for me.

I always thought of them as being sweet and orange myself. I've found out there is lots of variety and I'v learned that some folks like less sweet ones better. I'm also learning to like the less sweet ones too, just cooked and used differently. My favorite is still a sweet one baked dry with the skin on but I think some of the starchy ones are good fried with onions or chunked up in stew.

Our weather has turned much warmer and drier and mine have exploded into growth and flower but I have still not received my new varieties. I went ahead and planted some more of mine in the spots I had saved but if the new ones get here I'll rip some back out.

Reed the only two clones that I have seen photos of with flowers are the following:
"Purple Raven"  from Green Harvest and
"Blackie" advertised by a Gumtree seller from the Noosa area on Queensland

Purple Raven apparently produces very few roots, not sure about Blackie.  Will wind up getting them anyway, hoping I can encourage the edible rooted varieties we have here Down Under to flower and start the seed generation process in a similar way to what you described on HG.  I intend to get as many clones as possible over the next year or two anyway to determine which variety grows and roots up the best in our climate.  One I was able to get last year was a compact bushy grower that had stems about 2 feet long when harvested, but the roots were nowhere what I would have liked thickness wise.

This is a general reply to several questions and comments.
I've grown probably 10's of thousands of ornamental sweet potatoes for my regular job. I have also dug many types out of landscapes or large containers at seasons end. Of the ornamental types , Marguerite/Margarita make the most quantity of roots, and they are certainly edible if starchy and harder. The other varieties I've tried all tend to have the harder, starchier roots. I think most of the newer, patented ornamental types have been intentionally selected for reduced to very reduced tuber production . I don't find many if any roots worth trying to cook on the newer ornamental types. This year I made a point to carefully observe the ornamentals for any flowering. The Flora Mia series seems to have been selected for some flowering, this series flowers at least a little all season long so far.  Illusion Garnet Lace also flowers a bit all season but not as well as the Flora Mia's. I planted both types out in among my edible type sweet potatoes, we will see what happens. I ordered slips from Sandhill this year, just got them this week.  Slips looked great and was sent plenty extra. I had requested varieties that flower readily and I was sent some Resisto along with a note  that said FLOWERS! . Hopefully it does flower as it sounds like a great one to use as a parent.

Yea! mine also arrived from Sandhill just today and look great, they are all planted. I also got Resisto, as a substitute I guess for one that I wanted but must have been in the group that didn't make slips cause of the bad weather. I haven't looked up the description of Resisto yet.

I had to rip out about a dozen or so of my own that I had planted, just in case, but that's OK, still got plenty more.

After setting out my new ones yesterday I realized again how out of control this project is getting. The terrible weather has played a part too in that I'm behind on almost everything in the garden. The sweet potatoes I put out earlier like I said exploded in growth as soon as a few days of sun arrived and are already starting to tangle up with each other, something I told myself I would avoid this year.

I had planned on keeping track of what mother plant a particular seed came from but with 50 plus plants, all mixed up, I would have to keep them all tagged, trimmed and staked and keep 50 plus individual packs to put the seeds in. Then I would have to take those 50 packs out each day and carefully collect seed from each plant. I know me and my dislike of recording and tracking and I know that it just isn't going to happen. And what would be the point anyway? All I want is the seeds and the diverse genetics they contain, I just don't care about the pedigree.

So, I'm just gonna keep seeds separate in special cases or where it is easy to do so. For example I'll leave the tags on all the new ones and in instances where I can tell for sure which vine a seed came from it will go in the appropriate pack, I only need six. Same with my own favorite plants like Bushy Bloomer Improved I and II and my favorite clump root plants, another eight. So about fourteen packs is all I need for seeds from individual plants or varieties and all the rest will just get mixed. And once I have a number of each individual ones collected I'll just mix them all up from then on.

Also, unless bad weather or something causes reduced seed production I'm not gonna stress over trying to collect every single seed. At least some of the lost ones volunteer the next year anyway so not really that big of a deal.

And I'm gonna be real picky this year on those I keep to clone slips from the next year. I'd like to trim mine down to just five or so and I won't be keeping any of the new commercial varieties. If they bloom and make seeds, they will be in my mix and if they don't make seeds I don't want them anyway.

So far it doesn't look promising I'll get new genetics mixed into my grex. The new varieties just are not very pron to flowering even though they were described as such. There have been a couple flowers and there is still plenty of season so hopefully that might change.

Mine are flowering and setting capsules nicely but getting into full production has been generally later than in previous years. I'm sure that is because of the weird cool, wet period the first three weeks of June. I'm particularly excited about one of the volunteers. I ended up planting them in the ground, not pots, in a spot of their own.  The one is extremely bushy, growing almost in a mound holding its branches eight inches or even a little more off the ground. It's probably not more than a foot and a half across and it is blooming like crazy.  Sure hope it makes nice roots.

I can't believe that local adaption is responsible for the difference between mine and the new ones, the few years I'v been at it just doesn't seem long enough for that. Especially since weather each year has been different.  Maybe it is just that they are seed grown and crossed up, thereby releasing more genetic potential. O'well, don't matter all that much anyway I reckon. If the new ones catch up and at least contribute some pollen I'll be happy and if they don't I'll still be.

Wouldnt mind seeing a photo of that extremely bushy plant, sounds really interesting.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2019-07-27, 05:47:59 PM
Wouldnt mind seeing a photo of that extremely bushy plant, sounds really interesting.

I'v got some in my camera but can't seem to find my usb cord to plug in the computer. It'll show up eventually I reckon.

Here is my volunteer patch. Lots more have come up since I transplanted these here. I left a couple others where they were but have just discarded the ones that sprouted more recently. The one in the middle is my favorite, sure hope it makes nice roots.
Sorry again about the ugly writing on the picture.

What a diverse collection of leaf shapes. Lots of flowers poking out from ya favourite in the middle.

Yes, lots of diversity. The traits involved seem to be:
Leaf shape, either the heart shape or the fan leaf not a lot of variation here, just one or the other
Vine type, ranges from  very long vines to very bushy and everything between.
Leaf color, some range but again mostly one or the other either purple or green.
Blooming, a lot of variation from none to lots
Number of blooms per stem, from two or three up to twenty. Those with fewer per seem to make larger, better seeds that mature better and sprout easier. (bushy and more flowers per stem seem to go together)
And of course root size and color, huge range and lots of different combinations here. They also vary in how they taste, how well they keep and how easily they sprout when placed in wet sand the next spring. 

I was happy to see that green fan leaf one cause I haven't had many of them show up but it hasn't bloomed at all so I probably won't keep it even if it has good roots.

This is the best adapted this year. Reed, like yours the mounding shape (I believe this is one of your Bushy Bloomers) but no flowers yet. It's planted in a pit, which in hindsight may have been a mistake. The point being that it's taller than it looks. If I don't get any seeds from it I'll still keep the roots for next spring. Do sweet potatoes do better the following years like potatoes do?

Quote from: Lauren on 2019-08-15, 08:59:24 AM
This is the best adapted this year. Reed, like yours the mounding shape (I believe this is one of your Bushy Bloomers) but no flowers yet. It's planted in a pit, which in hindsight may have been a mistake. The point being that it's taller than it looks.

Yes, similar growth habit to what I often see. Is it seed grown or a clone? What was the point of the pit? To help with water?

Quote from: Lauren on 2019-08-15, 08:59:24 AM
If I don't get any seeds from it I'll still keep the roots for next spring. Do sweet potatoes do better the following years like potatoes do?

If it makes good roots you can keep them and sprout new slips next spring. If it only makes stringy roots but you still want to keep it you can take cuttings and keep them as house plants.

I'm not sure about potatoes but new sweet potato plants are generally grown from freshly sprouted clones called slips,  rather than whole roots or pieces of roots. (sweet potatoes are roots, not tubers) although I don't entirely know the difference. So no I don't think successive years make any difference. Except that they can occasionally mutate as slips and supposedly this is more common in first few years after anew seed grown variety comes in existence. I wans't sure I believed it but I'v seen it happen a couple times now.

Mine are in good bloom and seed production right now after starting 3 - 4 weeks later than usual, due no doubt to the three weeks of cold rain at beginning of June, they didn't like that. Generally I have a few seeds mature before first of August, this year I just harvested the first ones a couple days ago. I select for the early seeders, among other things.

A few but just a few flowers are now showing up on some of the new varieties too but my tags faded so I don't know which, o'well.

Seed grown, and the pit was for water conservation. However, the soil closer to the surface would have been warmer so I'm not sure the pit was a good idea.

I figure even if it has bad roots I can maybe get seeds the following season. Right now my main goal is seeds.

Of course nothing grows without water but warmth is very important for sweet potatoes and they can tolerate a lot of it. They also tolerate a lot of drought. Mine often, as they do right now wilt in the intense heat of the day. It doesn't seem to slow them down much though. They also seem to do ok with some shade. Probably a happy medium or sweet spot on all those things that might maximize production but I don't care. I'm after a strain that is easy to grow from seed and tolerates what ever comes it's way. Tolerating the hot and dry seems to be built in, what they need is more tolerance of cool and wet.

Hey! I think I figured out the difference or a difference between roots and tubers. If you plant a potato (tuber) it grows new plants and tubers but the one you planted rots. If you plant a sweet potato (root), which is not recommended for disease and production but if you do it doesn't rot, it just starts growing again.   

That may be why the plants in another area aren't doing as well--they're under deep mulch in an area that gets watered every other day. Although the plants in the dry areas aren't doing any better.

These seeds were started in regular garden soil, with no bottom heat, no fertilizers, no additional lighting, no special treatment of any kind. Of those that survived to be planted, 100% survival. In comparison, the slips from commercial varieties had about a 25% survival rate. I'm hoping to get some seeds so I can get that second generation...

I'll keep roots for the best adapted of this year's seedlings, and try again next year.

I'm getting more and more taken with the volunteers this year. This picture is of a couple that I did not transplant to the patch, still in the spot where they came up. I'm terrible at records but my computer tells me it was June 1st, when I posted a picture of them as seedlings so they must have come up just a few days before that. That would have put it in the hot dry part of late May before the cold wet three weeks of early June.

So at around 80 days they are flowering, well the purple one is and the green one will be in another couple days. They are both compact and bushy and together only span a couple feet around. They have not been watered at all in the current drought, (nearly 6 weeks, no rain) and they look great. Due to their very close proximity, I'm guessing they came form the same parent and they are far enough away from the other patch that a high % of seed will be between the two, or maybe selfed.   

Those that I did transplant are looking great too, blooming and setting seed like mad. Only exception and disappointment id the green ivy leafed ones, they haven't bloomed. I also am now wishing that I had not discarded those that came up later but I figured if you don't come up till late June or into July you probably won't make anything. In future I'm not gonna make that assumption.

Could it be that the best way to select for short season, regionally adapted, seed grown, annual sweet potatoes all ya gotta do is nothing? :D It will be another 50 days or so till I know what the roots look like, sure hope they  come out nice.

That would be good. :)     

No seed on the one blooming plant yet. I was reading something about sweet potatoes being self incompatible. Is that correct? From what you said above it doesn't sound like it.

Quote from: Lauren on 2019-08-18, 10:05:31 AM
That would be good. :)     

No seed on the one blooming plant yet. I was reading something about sweet potatoes being self incompatible. Is that correct? From what you said above it doesn't sound like it.

Lots of sources say that and I suppose it is generally true but I know for sure that it sometimes isn't.

Sweet potatoes are really starting to put out seeds now but not all of them. I'm at a loss to explain it.

Mine that were planted as clones from those that came up from seed and have been saved over last few seasons are seeding. They are also wilting less in the hot dry afternoons.

New varieties that I bought as clones this year and that were described as good bloomers have bloomed maybe 10% of what mine are, wouldn't think to much of that except that, a couple of the original parent strains that I have saved as clones and that bloomed so much back in 2014, I think it was, are also not blooming. One of this year's volunteers isn't blooming but all the others are.

So all of mine except that one volunteer are blooming, seeding and wilting in the heat less than the others. All plants were slow to get started good because of the weird cool, wet of June but now mine are pretty much indistinguishable in size from any other year where all of the new ones are still rather puny, a couple of them died.

I don't see how the short time I'v been growing them is long enough for genetic adaptation significant enough to be easily observable. I have little clue of what epigenetics even is but reading about it in other threads has me wondering if it is somehow involved.

From the climate chance breeding thread:

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2018-12-01, 11:22:20 PM
I'm suspicious that some, maybe most of what we experience when we adapt varieties to our region is epigenetic rather than genetic change.

Seriously? A tropical plant that ordinarily doesn't even flower and usually doesn't make seeds even if it does can turn into something different just because of a few generations of sexual reproduction in a new climate?  I guess it might explain why the original parent clones that bloomed before but not this year. Maybe the wet cloudy period of June? Mine recovered from it in time to start growing good and they didn't? If so then I just lucked out that first year and weather happened to be hospitable to the old clone varieties but now the new ones are less picky about it?

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2018-12-01, 11:22:20 PM
However there seems to not be a single variety developed based upon an epigenetic change yet.

Hummm

I'm not sure what Carol means by "not based in epigenetic change".

Pardon a rather muddled analogy...

If we think of the genes that a plant has as a hand of cards that the plant plays, the cards that the plant will play depend on factors like climate, soil, etc. So the cards being played may change, but the hand the plant was originally dealt was the hand the plant was dealt - if it doesn't have an ace, there will be no aces in the offspring - when it gets crossed or otherwise produces offspring through sexual reproduction the cards are coming out of that hand, as well as that of one other player. I do think that your best plants among the offspring will have received the best cards (genes) for your soil and climate, so yes, epigenetics does affect what you get. But there's nothing there you wouldn't have gotten through chance anyway, because the plant can only play the cards it has. It's just that not all cards get played in every round...

... clear as mud?  :o I thought so.

I think that is a pretty good analogy, especially in regards to them making seeds. Not as sure about some of the other differences. Just don't seem logical they would even have some of the other cards that they seem to be playing, unless they have been holding them a very long time.

I sure am anxious to see what kind of roots I get from this year's volunteers, especially the later sprouting ones. I suppose I could dig some up and see and replant the tops to finish up their seeds but I'm resisting that temptation.

I honestly think that plants seldom, if ever, let go of their "cards," and I think most of the possibilities are there even if the genes have been turned off. There's no discard pile in this game. Under the right conditions, those things will come out again simply because of survival needs.

Every plant, using the game analogy, has a hand they would normally play from and also a pile of cards to draw from under unusual circumstances. Most plants might not draw from the pile except under extreme conditions, but the cards are there.

I think sweet potato is one that draws from the pile easily.

Getting good seed from the volunteers now, even the later ones. The plants are just as big and vigorous as those started from slips. I'm saving this seed separately from all the other. Since they sprouted, best I can figure, the very last of May and this being start of September it puts them in range of 90 days or a little over from seed to maturity.

Still resisting the temptation of digging them up to see what I'v got in root development but I did dig up a couple other non-flowering ones and found nice sized roots.

90 days approximate from sprouting to maturity? - seems well within reach
pulling that off by direct seeding? - also seems doable
stabilizing a population for that as well as root production while keeping diversity of color and flavor? Only time will tell I reckon but don't see why not.

What to do with all the new varieties that pop up along the way and that seem perfectly good for continuing indefinitely as clones?? I'v already discarded several over last few years because they didn't bloom. Due to garden and storage space constraints I may have to start doing that with some that do bloom. I suppose I can set a limit of say ten, and discard and replace as better ones show up.

I dug up three of my smallest seedlings. Two had tiny roots on them, the other had nothing. I discarded the one with nothing and replanted the other two in my greenhouse. The first had a straight root about as big around as my little finger, the other had a gnarled purple root the same size. Two plants are blooming so far and I harvested my first seeds this morning.

As for those that don't bloom but have nice roots--give them away. Somebody can grow them.

Glad to hear your getting seeds. I guess by fact your taking them to greenhouse your season is about done?

I tried giving some of my rejects away, they are perfectly good, same or better than those commonly grown around here from clones but nobody local seemed much interested and I'm not in position to ship live plant material.

I guess folks don't want the hassle of storing a root to sprout next year, they just always buy them. Actually I could maybe even sell some if I produced slips from them  in spring but I don't save them for that, we just eat em all. For now I even discard extra slips of those I do clone, someday maybe I'll be able to change that but not ready for it yet.

I'm hoping we have more time, but I figured it doesn't hurt to move a few into the greenhouse. I'd like the greenhouse plants to be established by the time of the first frost, and my instincts are saying early frost.

Maybe with the extra heat they'll actually thrive, which they're not doing outside. Last year the greenhouse sweet potatoes died off in December. I hope by that time they'll either have roots large enough to try again next year, or seeds. I figure the well adapted plants will have the largest roots anyway, so no point in moving them in. Two of the three well adapted plants are blooming.

@reed Today I found 2 flowers and several buds on your seedlings. only purple plants have flowers/buds all green plants don`t have buds.

Quote from: ImGrimmer on 2019-09-08, 04:10:15 PM
@reed Today I found 2 flowers and several buds on your seedlings. only purple plants have flowers/buds all green plants don`t have buds.

Great news,I was wondering how your's were doing. Just a very general observation and I'v seen exceptions but purple ones do seem to bloom a little sooner than green ones. Do you have enough season left to wait them out?

It is getting cooler now but there are at least 2 months before first frost probably more. There is a good chance for seeds.

Well, I'v got about 25 seeds so far from the new commercial varieties and looks like should double that or maybe a little more. Still don't understand why they grew so poorly. They arrived in very good condition and were planted just a few days later than mine but they just didn't take off growing very good and still haven't. Still I'm pretty happy to have gotten at least some seeds and they were closely interplanted with mine so probably got some crossing. Will be interesting to see how the less than spectacular vines did in root production.

Those two volunteers that I mentioned before have exploded in size and bloom over last few weeks. They have not even been watered during the extended dry spell and look better that those that were transplanted and watered regularly.  They are in a little afternoon shade, maybe that is the difference although they are also competing with the roots of the same trees providing the shade so I don't know. If these two plants have nice roots I think they will be the parents of the majority of next years crop.

I wonder about the effects of genetic depression in sweet potatoes?? They are supposedly very genetically diverse and I'v seen that with phenotypes not resembling either parent so for now I'm going on the assumption that it isn't a problem or if so not for many generations.

The sweet potato seedlings were planted in pretty much straight sand (since that's what I have), with a heavy layer of mulch for water retention. This is one of the least adapted of the seedlings. I assume that thing at the base is the start of a root? It's not adapted, it's obviously not short season, and it didn't even get close to blooming. Maybe not enough sun? Not enough heat?

Do you see any reason to try to save this? Also, can a root this small be kept over winter to be planted in the spring?

I doubt that a root that small could be kept but it could be easily planted and kept as a house plant if you have a nice bright south window. I plant and keep cuttings in 12 ounce drinking cups. Based on the rest of your description though, I would probably just compost it.

I thought about asking this in a new thread but decided I'd just leave it here and hope for some replies. I need advice and or opinions about some of my sweet potatoes.

My two favorite volunteers are simply covered in flowers, flower buds and seed capsules in all stages of development and the bumblebees are continuing pollinating the new flowers. I mean there are a LOT of them.  The seeds I'v collected so far are nice large, dark black and fully formed, I mean really nice, the best I think I'v ever seen.

I'm confident of getting a lot more seeds even if I do nothing but the new flowers, maybe not even the most recently set capsules  are going to have time to mature before frost so I'm thinking about cutting them all off. At least maybe the buds that haven't even opened yet.

Might doing so:
speed up maturity on the others? thereby increasing the total I end up with?
increase over all quality of the others, even though I hardly see how that's possible?
be in any way detrimental to the others??? I commonly remove a lot of leaves at this time of year to make seeds easier to find and have not seen a problems but I'v never cut the new growing tips before.

I often feel comfortable thinking, "the plant knows what it is doing", but in this case you are dealing with an essentially tropical plant... that thinks it has all year to ripen seeds. So yeah, I would be inclined to trim off the flowers at this point, at least. It might give the seed pods still in process a little boost.

I am so frustrated by my sweet potatoes this year. One of the ones we bought from the supermarket a couple of years back has been blooming nicely for about a month. Normally Georgia Jet would be also blooming like crazy - but not a single blossom to be seen this year. Not one! DAAAAAAmmmmmnnn.

Thanks Ferdzy, that's what I'm thinking too. They're so pretty right now. I'll have to take a few pictures before I commence to chopping on them. I'll remove the buds that haven't opened yet and probably some of the most recently pollinated ones too.

Sorry yours are not cooperating. I guess the one that is blooming isn't setting seed by itself? I know self incompatibility is the norm but also know there are exceptions to that rule.

How much seed have you ended up with this year reed

Goodness, I don't know but I'm pretty satisfied with it this year. I'v stopped worrying over it on a daily basis except for the volunteers and new varieties.

I found a third volunteer a few weeks ago when some bean vines started dying down and it is also producing. Still have no guess why the left in place volunteers are doing better than those I transplanted. I have lots of seed from the transplants but nothing like the others.

I have plenty of seed from each cloned one and am thinking of reducing the number I clone from next year in favor of starting lots of new ones. If the volunteers turn out to have nice roots they might replace some or maybe all of the ones I'v kept for last few years. I feel a little remorseful to consider it but the original Bushy Bloomer may go extinct.

I don't know cause I'm always changing my mind and if I don't the weather or something changes it for me but I'm thinking next year to:
*Plant about 30 or so cloned plants from my best two or three root and deed produces primarily as
my food crop but also to get still more seed.
*Archive most of this years seed and direct sow all, around 1500, of my older seed and select the best from them. The vast majority I'm sure would end up not sprouting or discarded for some reason but that's OK.

The picture is of those same two volunteers. The more purple one is more bushy, that's it to top and left. Maturing seeds are mostly hidden under the leaves. I intended to chop off all those new flowers but they were so pretty and the bumblebees were having such a good time I haven't do so yet.

I like how the flowers stick out above the leafs, easy for the bumblebees to get at them. I found that on my plants last year the flowers were deeper among the leafs, the bumblebees still were flying about under the leaves though

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2019-09-22, 12:41:18 PM
I like how the flowers stick out above the leafs, easy for the bumblebees to get at them. I found that on my plants last year the flowers were deeper among the leafs, the bumblebees still were flying about under the leaves though

That particular plant does have lots of well displayed flowers but there are lots more buried in the leaves too and all the developing capsules are.

What do you think? Should I remove all of those to help with maturing the the ones that are hiding under the leaves? I haven't so far partly cause the bees love them so much. There are lots of flowers still around but they seem to visit the sweet potatoes first every day, then on other things. Or maybe they know, especially in the hot dry that the sweet potatoes will be closed up by noon, so they get em while they can.

gees I have no idea, would it make much difference removing them? ,one of those shoulder lifting moments hey.

Thats interesting that your flowers close up in the heat, so what sort of heat are you talking here as I didnt notice flowers closing on the hot days last summer.

30C plus and very, very dry but it's pretty normal anyway for the flowers to fade by afternoon at the latest whether they have been pollinated or not. Plants are actually quite variable, some open flowers  later than others and some fade later than others. No rhyme nor reason too it that I have seen. Some stay open for longer periods of time.

I think I'm gonna go ahead and chop all the new flowers in hopes it puts more energy into the currently developing capsules instead of new ones that have little chance of maturing. Might be in the 30s now but could be below zero C about any time. We don't have a gradual shift between seasons any more.

I was out looking at them just a little bit ago and had a thought. I'm perfectly happy with # of seed I'm getting from that plant but I bet less than 20% of the flowers in those bloom clusters develop capsules.

When the bees visit they tend to go from one flower to the next nearest so lots of pollen movement on the same plant unless different plants are closely planted.

I have other plants where nearly every flower develops capsules.  They are more closely growing with others but still seems unlikely that every flower is visited right after visiting a different plant.

Anyway, what just occurred to me is that maybe that is an indication of self compatibility.

The hail got mine the other day. The quail seem to be enjoying what's left. One flower looks like it set fruit, so I may have a few seeds. I'll keep tubers for the two well adapted plants and try again next year.

I went out and commenced to chopping on those in the picture. Should have done it sooner as a found a number of capsules that had already shattered and lost those seeds. O'well maybe they will volunteer next year.

Also found several clusters where blooms of the two plants were in very close proximity were all maturing seeds. I'm pretty much convinved now that these two plants are both self-noncompatible but they are compatible with each other.

I think it would be interesting to identify particular clones for self compatibility but would require growing in isolation, lots of good record keeping, in short more effort and space than I want devote to it. I also have a theory that some are compatible wit just some other particular ones and even in particular direction. For example (A) may  compatible with (B) but not with (C, D or E). Or maybe it's compatible as mother with (B) but not as father.

I'v read that some are just male or female sterile or even both. I guess I wouldn't know if one was male sterile but I'v never seen one that was female sterile, well unless you count those that don't bloom at all.

I'v started harvesting sweet potatoes starting with those that didn't flower. They include all of the volunteers that had green ivy leaf. I'm a little bummed about that cause I don't have any green ivy leaf types that flower. Also no flowers on the new commercial clones with green ivy leaves.

About 2/3 of the purple ivy leaf volunteers did flower and are still making seeds. All of both green and purple volunteers with heart shaped leaves are currently maturing seeds.

One green heart leaf plant is making a high % of seeds that seem to have very thin seed coat or even lack it entirely. If I get them wet they sprout immediately but I wonder about their storage ability.  I'm sure that if not for the very dry weather they would be sprouting or rotting in the capsule. For now I'm taking a dim view of these seeds.

One of the two isolated volunteers have larger seeds than I'm used to and they are a lighter color but the they seem fine. In past I'v considered brown seeds as inferior but these look great, just a different color.

About 1/4 of those cloned from my own saved roots have not flowered or if so only sparsely.  I don't understand that as others cloned from the same roots have done so in abundance.

I'm saving seeds in groups, from my clones, from new commercial clones, from transplanted volunteer patch and lastly from the two semi isolated not-transplanted plants.

I'm also saving each group by when they matured. I harvested no seeds in July this year and only a few by mid August, by end of August I had about 700 total. I'm blaming the cool wet of June for the delay this year.

Each day when I bring them in I dump them on a plate and discard any that are misshapen or puckered or anything else I don't like the looks of. After this screening the total saved so far I estimate is in neighborhood of 3000 or little more. I haven't bothered to actually count, guess I could count # in a teaspoon and then count the spoons full.   

Weather is still quite warm and seeds still maturing but  think I will go ahead and harvest all of them soon to insure warm conditions for curing the roots.

I actually real happy with total collection, it's big enough I feel safe to do a mass direct planting next year and still have a nice insurance supply in the archive.

I'm interested in how my seeds did in the far north but haven't got any reports. I know in past they've done pretty well in Texas, North Carolina and California. Also some success in Utah. I'm aware of sweet potatoes volunteering in Minnesota, unrelated to my work but I have no report on how my seeds did there. I'm also aware, again unrelated to my work of success in getting seeds by a grower in Canada.  I think a grower in Sweden managed to get seed or at least flowers from my seed but the seeds I got from him grew but did not flower.  Richard in New Zealand wasn't able to get seeds but he does have plants going into their second year so it might work out. In any event the overall project of adapting sweet potatoes to a seed grown,northern adapted annual is moving along pretty nicely I think.

One point of interest is that I want them to be dependable and reliable as a seed grown crop. To do that I may need to pay better attention to the issue of self incompatibility. I see a danger in by focusing too narrowly on specific growth habit, color what ever might eventually lead to a situation where even though you have a great variety that blooms good it still might not make seeds and that would defeat the whole purpose. I'll have to think on that some.

I have two that are still blooming, although one (Bushy Bloomer purple ivy leaf) hasn't set seeds at all. I see another possible three stems on the other (purple heirloom mix) that appear to have set but the stems are still green so who knows? I'll be keeping seeds (if I get any) and roots from these two for next spring.

I think there are a number of environmental problems this year. GDD (growing degree days) is down pretty much across the board. At the same time UV has been higher than normal in most areas.

Leaf types--ivy leaf and heart leaf are pretty self explanatory. What do you call those deeply indented leaves? Another variation of ivy leaf? Or do they have their own name?

Quote from: Lauren on 2019-09-27, 08:40:44 AM

I think there are a number of environmental problems this year. GDD (growing degree days) is down pretty much across the board. At the same time UV has been higher than normal in most areas.

Except for early June we have not had a deficit of GDD, quite the opposite. Many nights above 70 F and many days above 90. I have no clue if like in corn there is a temp above which is detrimental, at least for seeds. For root production along with drought I think, definitely so.

Quote from: Lauren on 2019-09-27, 08:40:44 AM
Leaf types--ivy leaf and heart leaf are pretty self explanatory. What do you call those deeply indented leaves? Another variation of ivy leaf? Or do they have their own name?

Somewhere I have drawings from some old university literature showing all the different leaf types but I don't pay much attention to it. Especially since I remember that paper and others saying pretty much all sweet potato phenyotypes are highly variable and genetically quantitative. And to complicate things a little more they are prone to spontaneous mutation especially in first few generations of cloning a new seed grown plant.

I basically just make it up and pretty sure I haven't been consistent in my descriptions. If it doesn't have any lobes at all I'v called it heart or normal but there are variations even among those. if it does have lobes I'v called it ivy or finger leafed. It's not a trait that matters except aesthetically unless it turns out to somehow be related to seed production. Right now I don't think that is the case, I just haven't happened on a green, seedy ivy leaf yet. 

We got our first frost today. I pulled the two well adapted plants and put them in the greenhouse to hopefully ripen the developing seeds. One (purple heirloom mix) has been blooming slightly but consistently for about a month and a half. I got my only seeds from this one. It had two small roots that I'll try to keep over the winter inside. The other (bushy bloomer) has been blooming for a little less than a month. No seeds yet. The feeder roots were 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch in diameter and probably 12+ inches long, but whatever roots were down there snapped off when I tried to dig the plant. They mostly went out away from the plant itself, or went deep. There were at least three roots that snapped off but I couldn't find them within a reasonable distance from the plant. I'll be trying to re-root the plant itself and try again next year with these two.

I went ahead and dug up all the transplanted volunteer patch and several of them also had what I call stringy roots. I won't be keeping them to clone. I found some bigger ones when digging a different plant that I could tell by color actually came from one a couple feet away. I consider those that make roots far from or deep down the same as those that don't make any. I don't want em.

I keep all seeds but only plants with what I call "clump root" get saved to clone. They make nice clumps of good roots directly under the central stem. I figure by growing about any seed but only cloning the best ones I'm keeping diversity high but at the same time for lack of a better word, distilling the whole population for the traits I like. In first few seasons I cloned all that made seeds but changed that a couple years ago.

The bulk of my seed this year comes from the last couple seasons best clump root seeders but pollen came from other sources too.

I'm about done with them all this year and even though it is still very hot that might change anytime so I think this week I'll dig them all, tag the best roots for cloning next year and call it done. I don't think I'll keep any as house plants this winter either, I know any can be kept that way.  It's extremely easy, all you need is a three or four inch cutting with a growing tip. It doesn't even need roots, just stick in some dirt and keep it moist for couple of days. 

Sounds like youve had a good year overall. Now its my turn again, looking a my clones today, putting out new leaves but no sign of flowers though.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2019-09-30, 08:03:20 PM
Sounds like youve had a good year overall. Now its my turn again, looking a my clones today, putting out new leaves but no sign of flowers though.

Yep, I'm pretty pleased, the most seeds I'v ever seen.  Most excited about those from the new varieties and the two volunteers. I may post again about them when I see what kind of roots they made but officially handing the 2019 sweet potato torch off to you. 

The clump roots are great if you're planting for food. I'm keeping the commercial varieties for soil modification, so I want their roots to go down deep and spread out. :) The others will be for food once I start getting seeds.

I never thought about using them for soil conditioning, the variety Beauregard might be good for that, it makes what we call clunkers. Big giant things that are hard to find and harder to dig up.

I'v been thinking more about the compatibility issue with sweet potatoes. I'm gonna have to solve or at least understand that. I'v got them that make sizable roots and seed from seed in a fairly short season, not 90 days yet as is my goal but pretty close. I'v seen increase in germination in poor conditions from 4 or 5% at first to 50% or higher but the compatibility thing keeps popping up  as an issue.

I know they are not always self-incompatible as commonly believed but I also know the offspring of a self compatible parent isn't  necessarily self compatible too. I suspect and research indicates their are cases where they are cross compatible only in specific ways. This particular one with that particular one, or this one as mother but not father.

Some of course don't bloom at all, some bloom lots but don't make seeds, they worry me the most. Do they pass that on by contributing pollen to others? Heck if I know and I cant' find out with random mass crossing like I'v been doing.

Whether I like it or not and I don't, I guess I'm gonna have to do multiple controlled grow outs in isolation with all the documenting that goes with it. I hate that kind of stuff, not sure I'm up to it. One alternative is just to always keep backup of lots of seeds knowing for sure good stuff is in there even if bad stuff might also be. 

Possibility: Once you have the other primary criteria settled (as much as possible) do a single mass planting with proven clones and take the spent blossoms off all but the plant you want to be the mother. Use clones that have proven to be your best bloomers. If no seeds by the end of the season, discard the mother.

Get rid of everything that doesn't set seed.

I'v started some experiments with grafting sweet potatoes on to I pandurata roots to see what happens. It's actually going better that I expected, I wrote about it on my pandurata thread. Now I'v got another goofy idea.

If you look up how to store sweet potatoes, specifically concerning temperature you might find something like this

QuoteRefrigeration changes the structure of the cell walls of sweet potatoes, making them harder to break down. As a result, refrigerated sweet potatoes can remain hard in the middle and take longer to cook. Instead, store your sweet potatoes at cool room temperature, preferably in a dark place away from light

Then there is this thing called epigenetics

Quotethe study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.

Other folks have mentioned this but I very little knowledge about it but maybe it can be triggered by environmental factors?

So if cold storage makes changes to cell walls, and sweet potatoes are prone to mutation anyway. I'm gonna find out what happens if a root is stored all winter in the refrigerator. Maybe it won't even sprout slips next year but if it does....

Both the pandurata grafts and this little side projects are mostly just for fun, main focus is still a reliably seed grown sweet potato.

Reading over on the TPS thread I keep being amazed by the similarities and dissimilarities between TPS and TSPS and I have wondered about some of the same issues they talk about for TPS as related to TSPS. For example Is selecting for seeds detrimental to selecting for production?

But then rereading Nathan's comment about TPS,

QuoteThe longer I have been growing out TPS, the more I find I am selecting not for production in their seedling year predominantly, but production when grown from tubers in their 2nd year.

.
I realized another big advantage (for me) is sweet potatoes reveal their production potential in the first year. Roots from seed grown plants are just as big as those from clones IF they have the genes for it. IF they have genes for stringy roots it's easy to just eliminate them immediately instead of waiting another year to find out. Their pollen is still in the overall "landrace" if that's what ya want to call it but I'm fine with that.

I'm thinking next season of shifting gears some on my sweet potatoes. Up till now I've selected some for traits I like but mostly have focused on seeds and not worried about good soil prep. This past year was especially bad with my pots and soil prep having a lot of poorly composted wood chips. They tended to dry out real bad in the drought and doubt they had much as far as nitrogen and the like. With this poor prep I got tons of seeds and a decent harvest of roots but suspect root production can be significantly improved with better soil conditions. Now I want to find out if better prep (1) produces more roots and (2) if it produces less seeds.

Plants will be a combination of clones from my favorites over last few years and new seedlings. I had a pretty good harvest of seed from some new Sandhill varieties and two favored volunteers, I'll probably use just or mostly just those seeds. The volunteers are I reckon, about G5, actually I suppose the new ones are too since they were inter-planted with the old ones. I use the G designation rather than F per the Kaupler definition of grex.

I got lots of ideas on experiments I could run but will probably keep it pretty simple so as not to short my other gardening efforts. Will continue the little side project of trying to cross to i pandurata though.

Quote from: reed on 2019-11-29, 06:03:43 AMI had a pretty good harvest of seed from some new Sandhill varieties

Reed, I would be curious which varieties you have found that produce good harvests of seeds, and what those sweet potatoes taste like. 

In the fall of 2018, I harvested sweet potato tubers. Didn't get them planted this spring. Just as well, since it was a super-chilly year. (Last frost was on the summer equinox). The direct seeded plants produced about 6 leaves during the growing season. So I thought that my locally-adapted sweet potato genetics were gone.

Yesterday, 15 months to the day after harvest, I found these tubers. Some of them still alive. Therefore I planted slips, and put the tubers in a window where I can keep them moist to see if any more will sprout. So there are still some local genetics after all.

September 2018
(http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/sweet-potato/sweet-potatoes-2.jpg)

December 2019
(http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/sweet-potato/sweet-potato-15-month.jpg)

Slips Potted, tubers kept moist
(http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/sweet-potato/sweet-potato-slips.jpg)

Sure are tough to be able to hang in there that long.

They are tough, in lots of ways. If it's true that they mutate easily, especially in first few "cloned" generations from a seed grown plant and if it's also true that stressful conditions can spark mutation, Joseph might end up with all kinds of interesting things.

Well I shouldn't say if, cause I'v seen mutations a couple of times already. My pink root plant came from a slip off of a purple/white root and a nice bushy clump root plant threw a slip that had long vines and made few roots at all. I barely even know what it is but who knows what surprises epigenetics might add to the mix.

Last winter I stored the sweet potatoes inside in a warm room in the dark. Some had already sprouted, but they just stopped to grow and stayed that way until spring. Tubers that I have kept moist or even planted in a pot always rot. They keep well in the warm, dry and dark environment.

From my research a warm dark place with a specific humidity is what's recommended for storage. Supposedly, and I don't really doubt it those specific conditions prevent changes that influence flavor and texture as much as anything else. I don't remember the exact specifications and don't care that much since I know I can't provide them anyway. I keep those I've selected for cloning in the unheated upstairs room, probably well outside the recommended conditions but when I get them out the next spring they generally look exactly the same as when I put them in. Those we keep to eat are in trays under a bench in the kitchen, also probably not ideal. These once in a while prematurely sprout slips, don't know why but it doesn't hurt much as far as I can tell.

Keeping them in the fridge is a big no no from what I've read. It causes changes to the sugars and starch and texture. I've thought about storing some there to see if it sparks any kind of mutations or epigenetic changes but haven't tried that yet.

I took one of the sweet potato seedlings out to the greenhouse, and accidentally left it outside overnight. The temperature outside probably got into the mid to low twenties, the water it was growing in froze straight through. When I brought it in, the leaves were still upright and it still appeared to be alive. Since I have three more starts I left it out again the next night and it didn't survive the (unexpected) snow. The roots are still alive, so I'm watching it.

This was the plant that got the most seeds on it last fall (apparently self compatible), and it survived drought better than the others.

Most of the other sweet potatoes expired as soon as the first frost hit. Any possibility I have a cold tolerant variety?

Dark purple, bushy rather than vining. The picture is another start from the same plant.

Quote from: Lauren on 2020-01-04, 09:15:11 AM
Most of the other sweet potatoes expired as soon as the first frost hit. Any possibility I have a cold tolerant variety?

Unlikely, I think, but who knows? I'v never seen one survive more than the lightest of frosts, and that was just the more protected inside leaves. Roots protected in the ground can be fine after the vines are killed but even they are finished by a hard freeze.

I have collected viable seed from capsules that were touched by light frost as they finished maturing.  Maybe it induced some kind of epigenetic change but again who knows? I could do an experiment and find out I suppose but I'm resisting the temptation to focus on these type of side issues until I get my overall grex with my preferred traits well stabilized.  Those seeds are in the overall mix anyway just not separated out for their own tests.

All the talk over on the SH sweet potato threads has me getting anxious for my next season to start. Thought I would quote a post from there with a link to a video on the topic I'd seen a while back but it interesting.

Quote from: fon42 on 2020-01-24, 02:03:35 PM
Hi all
This is a great lecture on sweet potato breeding. The nuts and bolts start at about time 28 minutes...enjoy  :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0)

I didn't watch it all again cause I'v seen it before and I'm on a metered internet connection but the part starting there and running a few minutes does cover a lot. I wanted to mention it cause it highlights one significant difference to my approach.

I don't use grafting or any other method to induce flowering. My little side project involving grafting is to try to make an inter-species hybrid. My primary goal is an annual seed grown sweet potato line. I don't try to force flowers on an uncooperative line cause I don't want that trait carried in the offspring. I think that is very different from their program because they are looking for the next great one to patent and propagate by vegetative clones from then on, they don't care if it makes seeds or not.

I do feel that fellows pain though when it comes to collecting seeds and am moving more to the trellising method myself, beats the heck out of stooping over and looking for seeds everyday for two or three months.

A lot of the other things are similar too, the mass polycross of elite lines and so on, and I like to introduce new (to me) varieties when possible but if they don't flower I don't keep them.

Still at least two months before I can get started on mine this year  :P

I like the new forum structure where I can get my sweet potato fix all in one spot. Counting the days till my next season starts.

I got my saved roots out last evening to see how they are holding up in storage. Pretty good overall it looks like, there's a couple that look a little puny but no big loss. They are mostly on the small side cause I discovered a while back that little ones keep and sprout just as good as bigger ones so we eat the big ones. That's them at the bottom of the post. I'm undecided, as usual on how to proceed this year.

Option one is to do more or less like last year which is to grow mostly clones of saved roots along with some new varieties. Sandhill has a couple I've wanted but were not available till now so I already filled out my order. This option has potential to bring some more diversity into my grex and probably the best thing to do. All these saved roots are my own originally seed grown but a couple have been cloned for two or three years. Some are newly sprouted last year. . All made nice clumps of roots and all are very seedy, some are likely self compatible but were grown all together so no idea which they might be. Most of last years new varieties provided pollen and made seeds so are now in my grex but I didn't keep them to clone.

Option two is what I really want to do but suppose I'll push it off another year. That is to cold frame plant about 500 seeds and direct sow about a 1000 and then select the top 50 - 100 fastest sprouting and most vigorous seedlings to grow out. Then out of them select just the top 5 - 10 to clone for backcrossing the next year, not saving any of the older clones. 
Criteria for those would be:
*flowering and seed set
*clump root growth
*preferred but not exclusively bushy vines
*overall production by weight
*fast maturity to useful sized roots
*flavor

I end up discarding lots of what might be worthwhile new varieties but nothing I can do about it. I just don't have space and not set up legally to sell or even give away live plant material other than to friends or family in my own area and so far there hasn't been much interest. I want a reliable seed grown variety, not new clones. Sure still have the option too, but permanently eliminate the necessity of storing roots or keeping live cuttings.  I'm not worried about losing those like Bushy Bloomer cause research I've read and my own observation shows that flowering and seed production just increases in successive generations. All I got to do is sufficiently marry it to good, short season production.

Seed to seed and food in 100 days or less!

That criteria list is exactly what I will be looking to myself as well.  And as for the bushy vine types, ive really seen the difference between the running and bushy types this summer, Bbcuzzie and a non flowering clone are bushy but Bbc doesn't do well here, better for Chris up north, the bushy non flowering clone is a vigorous grower, its growing on a mound of soil atm so it will produce a good crop, but again I wont be keeping it,

'Seed to Feed' in 100 days is a great goal.
I am now interested in color intensity also, as I was very interested in the Cornel Video, that discussed the use of SP for natural food coloring. I think that is a huge opportunity, and one where 100% of the crop can be utilized, without fussing over 'market optics'.
Mark - are the BB roots deeply purple? I guess i will know in a couple months. It is a very bushy type, I do prefer non-spreading types. My natives are going wild, even growing into the neighbours!

That's the thing like about the bushy types Chris is they are not invasive. 

Mine that I called BB are purple skin but white inside. I had solid purple ones show up a couple years ago but roots were were on the small side and they had blemishes that none of the others ever had so I didn't keep them, don't remember what the vines were like on those. 

I don't remember seeing the info on using them for coloring but pretty much the whole plant is edible but I think the leaves on some have an off putting quality. Supposed to be real good for you though, more so that spinach.

From about the 46 minute mark FYI   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0

I watched that sometime back but had forgotten about most of, need to take time and see it again. Something else I had forgot that might change what I said before is what Carol Deppe said abut corn. Some sprouts grow roots first and some shoots so you shouldn't be to aggressive on culling what appears to be smaller, slower seedlings. If that's true for corn in might be true for other things.

So when I get to my goal of starting lots of seeds I need to keep that in mind, the first and biggest above ground may not necessarily be the best.  Fortunately sweet potatoes are extremely easy to transplant and extremely tolerant of root disturbance so should be easy enough to just dump them out and see any difference in early root growth. Of course that will open more questions like, does one with fast early roots have the clump trait I like or might it be a spreader, which I don't like? O'well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it I reckon.

I also found this vid interesting. She is getting seed from Okinawan, which is one we are growing (has flowered but not set seed (yet) for us here).
They are white skinned , mottles purple flesh BUT turn solid purple when cooked.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_1BCgTwwQ8

Interesting, but starting about 3:00 in, pretty sure those aren't sweet potatoes, they are morning glories. I wonder if the sweet potatoes themselves did actually make seeds.  If they were an accidental cross like she mentioned that would be very interesting, but it's unlikely.

What can be a running type can be a clumper the next year. The clone that grew in the tunnelhouse all last summer was a runner, this year though its very compact, its the non flowering one which its tubers are lifting the soil into a mound, it had a small tuber in spring when it was planted outside.

Quote from: reed on 2020-02-20, 12:10:59 PM
Interesting, but starting about 3:00 in, pretty sure those aren't sweet potatoes, they are morning glories. I wonder if the sweet potatoes themselves did actually make seeds.  If they were an accidental cross like she mentioned that would be very interesting, but it's unlikely.

Yes they looked so different.

For your viewing enjoyment, "How to Make New Sweet Potatoes", a short film starring Betsy the bee.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c76d41_26c4b748958547d185299f3e1e7c0049/480p/mp4/file.mp4 (https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c76d41_26c4b748958547d185299f3e1e7c0049/480p/mp4/file.mp4)

The plant involved is one of the two volunteers that came up beside each other but a good distance from the other patch. They were both non-self compatible but compatible with each other.

I know that because as you can see Betsy is very methodical, she visits a flower and another one close by rather than flying around at random. Those two plants were comingled on one side but spread out so the outer edge of each was slightly isolated from the other. There was a very noticeable difference in seed set with pretty much all flowers pollinated in the part where the two comingled and fewer on the other edges. 

Lesson from that is make sure plants you want to cross are well mixed up. Otherwise the bee will visit all the flowers on one before moving to the next and pollination will be far lower. If an isolated or even semi-isolated plant makes lots of seed then it is self compatible.

And I noticed the bees know which flower they have already visited.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-02-21, 02:45:30 PM
And I noticed the bees know which flower they have already visited.

O'yea they definitely know that. Even the next bee to arrive knows. It might crawl quickly in and out of a flower or two but usually just hovers over an already visited cluster and moves on. Either the first one leaves a detectable trace or maybe it doesn't detect the presence of what it came for.

Makes sense from an energy expenditure point of view for Betsy to visit all the flowers close to each other rather than randomly visit flowers over a given patch.  Have noticed that they do the same on fruit trees

I just stumbled across this video on potato breeding which I found interesting, by Craig Yencho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0)

That is an informative video. Here is a little paper that I refer to a lot. I managed to track down some of it's references too, all good stuff. http://www.cropj.com/gurmu_7_13_2013_2074_2078.pdf (http://www.cropj.com/gurmu_7_13_2013_2074_2078.pdf)

Quote from: nathanp on 2020-02-21, 06:04:27 PM
I just stumbled across this video on potato breeding which I found interesting, by Craig Yencho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0)

A bit of winter watching, thanks, right now I have a late summer sunrise to go and greet   

Well it's time to get some slips started for this year. Actually it's probably earlier than really necessary but I just wanted to get them out and started. These are all nicely seedy ones from last year that also made good "clump" roots where they are all directly under the stem so easy to find and dig. 

I think there are lots of ways to do this, I just stick them in wet sand in a sunny window. The sand just hold them in place while they sprout some roots.

I'll hold off a little longer on starting seeds. I'm gonna do that outside in the cold frame this year and probably also try direct sowing some.

Good tips there Mark, thanks. I was wondering 'whats next' with my seeds. Still harvesting but coming to an end. Should get ~300 odd for the season, very happy with that. I had no luck with slips last year, but didn't really try that hard, concentrated on over wintered cuttings. This year will try the sandbox in sunny window! I know the highly seed prolific 'G1' has good roots directly under the plant, so is seeming like a 'Super SP'.
Then we have to figure out where and how to plant all the seed, so watching what you do carefully, as I am sure Richard is  :-)

Hi Reed, not sure if you got my message. I would love to grow some for you here in SW Louisiana; sending germination rates & other data points to you and send resulting seeds back as well. I have room left in my garden for a few rows. Willing to pay for seeds & postage. Please message me your thoughts either way. Thanks!

Chris, sounds like your off to a real good start. I had maybe 20 seeds the first year I found them and if remember right 3 sprouted.

How is this project coming along? has anyone progressed to the point they are reliably getting a good quantity of seeds and can start sharing? How long until tubers are of good eating size? Two years?

I harvested seeds in the thousands last year but I'm not ready to widely share seed as I am hopeful of making a deal with a seed company and am holding seed until I know more on that.

Some plants do not produce usable roots, they are better for ornamental or for eating the greens. Percentage of the not-rooting ones is going down because of selection. Those plants that do make usable, even very large roots, do so in the first year from seed, I suspect this at least to some degree is climate related. No need to go through multi-year process like with potatoes, a huge advantage in my opinion.

Although I'm not 100% sure of the difference between the two sweet potatoes are roots not tubers. I think that may be why they tend to mutate in cloning, they don't have the same kind of cell structure as tuber. Very interesting plants.

If it doesn't work out with the seed company I may start offering seeds for sale but probably not till next year. 

Quote from: nathanp on 2020-02-21, 06:04:27 PM
I just stumbled across this video on potato breeding which I found interesting, by Craig Yencho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzh0GTSJU0)

WOW! great video! Thanks for sharing! lots of interesting information! Some of it applicable to other crop species!

well I went and did it, planted about 300 seeds straight in the ground. Not actual direct sowing really as they are crowded in a little spot about 3' x 4' and will be transplanted later. Sweet potatoes are one of in not the easiest thing to transplant I'v ever worked with.

I'm not going to cover them or anything, just wait and see what happens. exception to that is if we get a hot spell and some sprout followed by a cold spell, I'll cover them. I'm setting a goal of enough sprouted by June 1st to make the bulk of the patch. Well, except I put another two hundred in the cold frame and tomorrow I'll put 100 on a heat mat in the window.

The June 1st date is for all of them, don't know what I'll do with the rest, toss them out I reckon as I don't have room to do otherwise. Don't know what I'll do really if more than fifty or or sprout. Thinking if that happens I might put lots in small pots  and when they start blooming dump them out and examine the roots, replanting just the best ones. That would reduce production I'm sure but that's OK as it would move along the section of preferred root types. Digging or dumping a plant out and removing the big roots does not appear to have any negative effect on continued flowering and seed set.

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?

I grow most on them in plastic nursery pots I scrounge up from people discarding them, mostly five gallon size but some even smaller. The feeder roots go out the drain holes into the ground so I don't have to water them much or be too concerned with the soil mix. If I  end up with a lot of seedlings before June 1st I may use one gallon plastic pots for my trials. You might need a larger pot if it was sitting on a surface where they couldn't do that but they would look cool that way for sure.

I have a few very large pots that cattle feed came in and some 55 gallon barrels cut in half, sometimes feeder roots even go out the bottom of them. I had one plant that made big storage roots under one of those, I culled that thing. I ain't digging holes two feet deep looking for sweet potatoes. The smaller pots let you know if it is a easy harvest type cause only the feeder roots exit the pot, the big nice ones are in it.

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?

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.

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

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. 

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. 

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.

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.   

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.

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.

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.

Variation in seed planting depth a possibility?

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.

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

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

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.

Despite the fact of cool, cloudy weather, germination in the outdoor patch of 300 seeds is approaching 20%. The fifty seeds that spent a little time inside but mostly in the cold frame is about 50%, the 200 always in the cold frame is about 25%.

I've been wondering what to say about germination in the event I offer seeds for sale or even for trade. There aren't any federal standards like with other crops. Also I know others have had much higher rates with my seeds using better controlled conditions.

I don't have the set up and equipment to do a controlled germination test plus I don't want plants that required controlled conditions so if I did it they would all be wasted.

Plus although I don't doubt it I haven't seen a germ rate of 80 or 90% with my own eyeballs so I wouldn't want to say that. What would people think if seed was offered for sale with an expected germ rate of 20 or 30%?

I think germination tests are usually done under controlled conditions, testing if the seed has the capacity to germinate. I usually do mine in petri dishes. It is not a guarantee that the seed germinates in your soil or climatic conditions, just that nothing is wrong with the seed itself.

Gonna have to get my act together and post some pictures of my sweet potatoes this year. I'm officially calling germination rate in the outside experiment at 20%. Quite a few more now but I'm only counting the first sixty to sprout.

Five of them are blooming. Couple years ago I had a plant bloom that small, it grew into a large vine and just kept blooming and blooming. It was a beautiful plant but did not make any eating sized roots. Be interesting to see what these new ones do, I can already tell that at least three of them are of a much more bushy nature.

Also have clones of two very compact growing bushy ones form last year that did make nice storage roots and of the "clump root" habit that I like. I planted two large pots of them and plan to save those seeds separately. A compact habit strain might be the first sub strain I try to isolate out of the population.

It would be good to see your progress Reed, those two compact growers with clump roots sound interesting.   What colour skin/flesh do they have,  I assume that they are tasty and not fibrous otherwise you would not be keeping them separate.

One of those two has white skin, white flesh, the other has purple skin white flesh. Neither one is very sweet but I'm learning to like the non-sweet ones in various ways, treating them more like potatoes. Fried with garlic or onions is pretty good, texture is odd, very dry and crumbly. Quite pleasant actually, it's just getting used to the different texture from potatoes. They are also good in beef stew, just have to be careful not to cook them very long as they will just disintegrate.

I probably won't keep these two another year as clones. Actually I'm not sure I ever kept one for more than one year as a clone except maybe early on, the one I called Bushy Bloomer. When one I like shows up I clone it the next year to reinforce the desired traits in the next generation of seeds.

Those are planted close together so they can cross a lot plus crossing with all the others but I figure if I save those seeds separately the bush habit will be reinforced. Eventually I hope a nice sweet one with that habit will show up.  Like I said I am learning to like the the non-sweet but still to me a sweet potato is supposed to be sweet.

Right now all my sweet ones tend to have larger vines and I'm OK with that but a bushy sweet one, so long as it also is a good seeder and especially if it is clump root, might change my habit of not propagating long term as clones.

Still haven't got around to editing the pictures but thought I'd do a quick update on my sweet potatoes. Not sure how many I have, I'm guessing about a hundred new ones plus a couple tubs of some cloned from mine last year and three smaller tubs of some new purchased ones.

About 50 of the outside sprouted ones are in individual 3 gallon sized pots. Many of them are blooming and even got some seed pods forming already. The first one to bloom is self pollinating cause it has nearly mature capsules and nothing else was blooming when they started. I tagged that one but now they have grown and intermingled too much to mess with trying to tag anymore.

I've reported before that at end of year you can un-pot them and remove the big roots and then replant and they will finish maturing seeds. That's when I'll determine those that I want to save seed from separately and the ones I might want to clone. Up till then all the seeds will just be mixed.

Someone gave me some last year that I think might have been Covington and contrary to what I've read they bloomed and set quite a lot of seed. Those seeds have grown into large vine types which isn't my favorite but they are blooming and I'll keep them around for now.

Someone also gave some this year that were distributed at a food bank. Never seen any like them, very spherical and uniform about the size of baseballs and very delicious. May have been treated or something cause I was barely able to coax a couple slips form one. Just got those planted yesterday, hope they bloom.

They are all starting now, but appears a general rule is plants from seeds bloom sooner than plants from slips. Some seedlings bloom with just one ot two sets of true leaves.

Got some really cool "super bush" ones this year but my favorite unfortunately is one of very few not yet blooming. I pulled out a large vine "super bloomer" for the woman to put in one of her flower pots. It looks almost exactly like one I had last year that was a stunningly beautiful plant but made no usable storage roots.

Got one with pink variegated leaves this year, not sure what to do with it. It is a seedling so shouldn't be likely but I worry it could be a disease of some sort. I kept it but moved it's pot away from the others. I'v seen a pink variegated sweet potato before  used as an ornamental and even seen it described as i tricolor instead of i batatas.

Also discovered the first leaf pest I've ever seen, other than Japanese beetles. A little green fuzzy worm little under half inch long, just a couple of them, nothing serious.

I didn't have many volunteers, probably cause I dumped a big pile of wood chips on top of where they grew last year but as I've moved those chips I'm now finding some. Sweet potato seeds must be pretty tough too as I found one volunteer over by where they grew two years ago.

I think the first phase of this  experiment, establishing that that can be grown from seed and building up a diverse stock of seed is about over.  Especially if some or all of the new purchased ones bloom this year I'm gonna consider my grex diverse enough to work just within if from now on.

On the other hand now that I have what I'm calling "super bloomers" and "super seeders" it might be worthwhile to try forcing bloom from some other commercial clones. Papers I'v read discourage that to some degree because of carrying non-blooming into future generations but I think if that did happen I could overcome it easy enough.

Then too, I've see so much diversity in successive generations that I wonder if more new material is even necessary. It's almost like any two or three mixed into a grex will yield many many unique new plants. Nearly all possibilities and traits I've read about seem to already be showing up. Maybe any three or four mixed up good is the same as having them all. I started with four kinds back in 2014 and have new ones show up all the time that are completely different from any of their ancestors.

Hey Mark - why 3 gallon tubs? I was thinking more 5gallon fabric tubs, to allow full root development, and so to easily weigh/grade each plant at harvest time? Starting them inside soon, 300 odd seed to plant, the rest went to Richard, so out of 300 seed, might have 200 odd transplants? Appreciate your advice.

I use the smaller ones mostly just to have room for more of them in my limited space and so it's less work getting them filled with good growing mix.

I haven't moved on yet to selecting specifically for good root development or yield, I'm still focused mostly on developing a line that is easy to grow from seed. Still, the little tubs seem to be doing a good job in the root selection process too. A big focus there for me is what I call the clump root trait where the roots are all together directly under the primary stem. In a little tub that is easy to see cause they are all contained in the tub.

*It's critical if using small ones, even 5 gallon size that the drain holes are buried under the ground so they don't dry out from the bottom and that they not be moved at all once the plants are established. The feeder roots exit the drain holes so the plant isn't really growing just in the tub.

I've got about 100 in small tubs this year, the most I've ever had. Plus about 50 more in much bigger tubs and some I didn't a tub for still in the ground.

I can easily dump the small tubs, keeping the plant in tact, remove the storage roots and repot the plant. They have to be watered a lot but they keep maturing seed until frost. In another month or so I will sort out all the best seeders and do that. Those that have nice roots, inside the tub will be repotted and semi-isolated from the others. Seeds that they have maturing at the time and especially any that form after will be saved separately from the overall mix collected up till then.

In comparison to past growing seasons how has this one gone for weather = seed production?

Hi all,

This is my second season growing sweet potatoes from true seed. Two seasons ago I collected a very few seeds (about a dozen) from a friend's garden where she cultivates 100+ varieties. From those seeds, 4 plants made it to maturity last season. I was able to collect another handful of seeds from them. And Michael Jennings in California helped me out by sharing some of his sweet potato seeds.

This season I am cultivating 30+ seedlings, in addition to maybe 12-15 cultivars varieties. Some of my seedlings have profusely flowered and seed set has developed very well, so I hope to harvest several hundred seeds this season. Leaf shapes and color are all over the place, as you will see in the attached pictures. I reached the limit with how many pictures I can share, otherwise there would be more. I look forward to seeing what kinds of roots are revealed come digging time.

When I planted I did so with rather high density. Plants were spaced only about a foot apart. It didn't seem to hurt anything, as every plant is majorly vigorous and the vines are crawling everywhere. I have to chop some of them along the south side of the bed as they are growing into an area where I have tree grafts and don't want them there. Poor planning on my part. Luckily, if anything, sweet potatoes actually like having their foliage abused or trimmed back. On the north side of the bed I am growing taro eddoes from a Korean market. This low-oxalate cultivars overwinters in my 6b climate! And seems to be happy despite a profusion of sweet potato vines sprawling underneath the taro canopy.

My climatic zone is 6b, right on the edge of 7. Half of the seedlings were planted out about June 1st and the other half maybe a week or two later. Originally I had sown nearly all the seeds in a flat and put them in a greenhouse around April, to help them germinate earlier. But I suspect that this didn't actually make a whole lot of difference, as some of the seeds that were left in a flat outside had also germinated and put on a set or three of true leaves by about the start of June. That was my goal -- to get seedlings with true leaves ready to planting at the same time it is recommended to put slips in the ground in my climate: June 1st. Next season I plan to just sow the seeds directly into a bed and just let them germinate naturally.

Now my dilemma is how many varieties to keep, and why.

They look really good Zack, mind you, you have got some bloody good deep soil where you are.
That purple looking leaf one looks a bit like our BB line.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-08-21, 07:18:52 PM
In comparison to past growing seasons how has this one gone for weather = seed production?

Weather has been great for seeds so far. I've been been real busy and not diligent about collecting every day so will probably have lots of volunteers next year. I'm getting caught up now on other stuff some and the height of the seeds production is starting so I'll be spending more time in the patch. Gonna go out today and clip back a lot of leaves. That makes it easier to find the seeds and doesn't seem to reduce production of them or roots.

Zach, those look good. I sent Mike Jennings some seeds a few seasons ago and I'm pretty sure he managed to cross them with some others. His climate in California is about perfect I think for seeds or sweet potatoes in general. Friends in Texas and North Carolina had similar good results but they didn't follow up.

You say your at the north edge of zone six?  That pushing it just a little but I had  already been selecting for fast maturity before I sent Mike seeds. Plus I'm aware of folks in Canada who have had success in getting seeds so you are in good shape I think. One of my primary goals is short season maturity so maybe we can hook up some, especially if you see any with more cold tolerance at either end of the season.

I don't know what to tell you on which ones to keep. If all you want is new varieties to clone then you can just keep any that you like. I've discarded lots that might have been good for that but I want to turn them into a short season, seed grown annual, eliminating the requirement of keeping them alive as cuttings or roots either one season to season.  I do keep them as clones sometimes but generally just for a season or two. The one Richard calls BB cuzzie descended from the one I called Bushy Bloomer. I kept it for three or four years because it was such a seed machine but it didn't make much as far as a storage root so it is extinct now. Since then I've had some that were both bushy bloomer and made roots so they replaced it. Any extra good one is cloned for a year or two to back cross into the overall grex but I don't have storage space or anything to do with them so they all go extinct sooner or later.

This year with about 150 new seed grow plants I'm guessing about half are just as seedy as Bushy Bloomer was. Maybe 25% have only just started blooming, I prefer those that start when they are still small. Maybe 10% haven't bloomed at all so even if they do they missed the boat, too little too late for them. Some are way too vigorous in growth, I don't like giant vines and will likely not clone any of them. Some are very seedy so in event they have fantastic roots I could break that rule.

My favorite one in growth habit this year is disappointing n blooming. It only started in last couple weeks and only has a few capsules developing.  But, it is extremely bushy with a very upright habit, it's taller than it is wide and foliage is extremely dense. If it turns out to have good roots I may break the rule of discarding low blooming and clone it for a year or two, I've been keeping it's few seeds and some from other more bushy ones in a separate drying bag.

With about 150,new seedlings this is the first year I'll really be able to establish percentage on all the various traits I'm looking for. Seedy is first importance and I can see already it's in neighborhood of 75 - 80 percent. That's pretty good considering I included some older seed from generations prior to more recent selection. Bushy growth is at least 50%, I'm happy with that too. 

Easy germination is very important too so and I threw around 600 seeds into the project this year to get those 150 plants so that's 25% of my previous seed archive sprouted fast and easy and of course all of this years seeds will come form them and I'm already way past that number collected. Those that sprouted late or that would have sprouted in more heat controlled conditions were discarded. I'm yet to see the % of those that that make good roots and more important the % that make seed & roots.

I'm thinking right now that I might archive all of this years seed and next year direct sow all the rest of the older seed. That would give me a nice archive of seed descended form only easy to sprout stock. Then I can finally declare phase one of the project "Turning Sweet Potatoes into Seed Grown Annuals" complete.

Mark, the planter bags I plan to use are eco felt/fabric, so no 'drain holes', but I guess still bury em in a ways, so-as not to dry from bottom up?

I'm not familiar with the planter bags but yes still important I imagine that they don't dry from the bottom. Will the roots not be able to grow through into the ground? I don't know how that might work, probably OK if the bags are very large or if the plants have the clump root trait but if they are the more spreading root type it might not be.

When I pull up a small pot with the spreading root type they are stuck badly to the ground till the roots break. If I follow those roots I often find the storage roots deeper under and away from the pot. That's why I select for the clump root kind, so I don't have to dig big holes looking for them.

Yes I hear you Mark. My hope is that the 'non-clump' types will spiral around the bag, identifying themselves vs the sought after clumpsters.  Take a look at this guy using fabric pots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7jHdujj_BI

And this is how my 282 seeds are starting life, inside, in a conservatory, for now, first popped up today - see NZ thread.

This is my sweetpotato patch.  These are 2 year old seedlings from reed`s seeds.

all flowering plants from last year had no roots and no seeds in the end. I hope there will be flowers this year.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50266669181_ef355d8395_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2jzTPu2)

Season here will be done pretty soon. I always look forward to that cause I get to find out what kind of roots the new plants have.

Seed production is a little disappointing this year in a way. I already probably have the most seeds ever and a lot more maturing now but the most ever is likely because I have way more plants than ever.  I think seeds per plant is less than I've seen before. I attribute that to neglect of watering during the terrible dry heat of June and July. Lots of days they were badly wilted by end of day. They are very tolerant of that though and I had lots of other stuff going on so I didn't worry over it.

They are also extremely crowded, I think maybe some less vigorous ones might have been even more stunted by competition. They each have their own pot but some could have been robbed of light because of the crowding.

The one I am considering kind of special because of it's extremely compact growth and extremely fat trunk is a little disappointing in that it has only made a few seeds. Those with fat trunks and bushy habit seem often to also have the clump root trait I like and I can tell from the base of this ones trunk that it's roots will be orange. I favor that for personal preferences. I'm learning to use the others colored ones in satisfying ways but traditionally sweet and orange is what I think of when I think of sweet potatoes. Even though it hasn't been a good seeder if it has nice roots I'll probably clone this one next year.

Someone gave me some this spring that were distributed at a food bank. Very spherical shaped, orange through and through and sweet. I had never seen any like them, only one sprouted slips and they have grown well but no flowers, o'well.

I have some this year with very, very, large vines. I don't especially like that and have half halfheartedly selected against it but these have bloomed a lot. I've been keeping their seeds separate from the overall mix but I'm sure that trait has been widely distributed in this years seed crop. 

I think if I ever really, really want to focus only on the specific traits that instead of starting new seeds each year I could just clone my favorites for a season or two and start again with mostly just those seeds. I have done that already to some degree but also always started new ones. Anyway now that giant vine pollen is everywhere. Then again it came pretty much from nowhere in the first place so maybe it doesn't really matter.

I'm not complaining because in truth it actually makes it more fun but as far as reliably predicting phenotype based on that of the mother isn't working out all all. It's clear that they just flat don't care what I think about it. Still I believe that repeatedly cloning particular ones to back cross the next year has to have some effect. Maybe it just takes a little longer, few more years maybe? decades??

Another interesting little thing is as I clean up other parts of the garden getting ready for winter I'm finding little sweet potato volunteers all over the place. Seeds can apparently lay dormant in the ground for years. 

Overall I think the project "turning sweet potatoes into a seed grown annual" is pretty much done. So now on to turning them into a seed grown annual with some degree of predictability of phenotype. I'd say at this point an accuracy in that predictability is maybe 25%, so I'll shoot on improving it to 50%

Still even though specific phenotype can't be predicted the project is somewhat complete in another way too. That being that if I plant say 100 seeds I can conservatively get 50 plants and even though I can't exactly quantify that right now some number of them will produce large storage roots that will keep without any special conditions all the way till the next harvest. And a stockpile of seeds will store and stay viable for many years, probably decades if frozen.


ImGrimmer, I'm sorry you didn't get any new seeds and sorry I didn't get any more sent off to you. Will see about remedying that before next season.

Regarding the discussion mid-thread about crossing I. batatas with one of the two more cold hardy diploid species:

In theory, if one of these crosses were to be successful the result would likely be (possibly) fertile tetraploids which could be further crossed and selected amongst each other, but not back to either parent species as back crossing would theoretically result in primarily sterile triploid or pentaploid progeny depending which parent was used for the back cross. 

Quote from: Johann Kuntz on 2020-09-24, 07:02:14 PM
Regarding the discussion mid-thread about crossing I. batatas with one of the two more cold hardy diploid species:

In theory, if one of these crosses were to be successful the result would likely be (possibly) fertile tetraploids which could be further crossed and selected amongst each other, but not back to either parent species as back crossing would theoretically result in primarily sterile triploid or pentaploid progeny depending which parent was used for the back cross.

Interesting, and I hope to find out. I now have 11 good looking seeds that (I hope) are crosses between batatas and pandurata. I say I hope because I can't tell by looking, they look just like regular batatas seeds. I was careful in doing the crossing, covering the crossed flower with tea bags and all but the bees are very active on sweet potato flowers. Also I'm sure the batatas plant that made most of them is self compatible. I know it is commonly thought batatas isn't self compatible but in my plants it often is. The first seeds I ever found were from a selfed plant.

In my research I found that pandurata also isn't supposed to be self compatible but most of my seeds are collected from a single isolated plant that I found along the road a few miles away. The near 100% of seed producing flowers can't be explained by pollination from another more distant plant and their flowers are very distinct. If there was another one anywhere nearby I think I would have found it. The pollen in my attempted cross came from that plant and it's offspring now growing by my mailbox.

Now if these seeds sprout and grow next year, and if they truly are crossed it should show up as phenotype differences.

Spent the last couple of days cutting back the sweet potatoes so it's easier to find the seeds. I remove all the big leaves especially if they are a little yellowed and also cut off most al of the stems that don't have capsules developing. Always find lots of seeds when I do this and also it makes it so I can tell the plants apart.

Got a new Bushy Bloomer this year, actually three or four of them. The old original Bushy Bloomer didn't make a good storage roots nor did a lot of it's immediate descendants. I think based on the look of their primary trunk that these may be better in that department.

This year after trimming and identifying individual plants I tagged those that are good seeders, about 30 or so got tags. When I dump the pots the whole plant mostly stays intact so this year when I do that I can better match those with good roots to those that are good seeders. Assuming I have a good number of them, minimum of ten, I'm thinking that next year I will mostly just grow clones of them and archive most of my seeds.
I think if I get 10 and i think I will,  that meet the criteria of nice seeds and roots and grow say five clones each next year that should help "distill" those traits into a new more elite line of seeds. Also I can start trialing for other traits like flavor and texture.

I already know culinary traits also vary widely from delightful to awful. I probed around and found some small side roots and they range from a purple skinned, orange fleshed one that is yummy, yummy even without curing to an all white one that is like chewing on a rope. Also an all purple one that tastes like nothing at all. As a rule those with orange or yellow flesh meet my personal tastes best but the purple/white ones are growing on me as a replacement for Irish potatoes. Generally I think sweet potatoes are good no matter what, those that are really bad for one reason or another represent at most 10% of the total.

A couple of my favorite Bushy Bloomers have a lot of seed developing right now. They were a little late getting going good cause they were actually almost discarded early on just because I ran out of pots but they kept going and recovering repeatedly from rabbit attack so I finally found them some. If weather turns cold I'll just clip off the stems with developing seeds and bring them inside, I've done that before and it works pretty good. Most of those flowers in the last photo have been pollinated but do not have time to mature before frost. At this stage if I brought them in they would probably abort but if they have at least another week outside then most will finish up inside.

It didn't work out this year with the seed company on a partnership to market seeds but that is still on the table so if it works out I may send 1/2 or more of my seeds to them.

It might not be to early to go ahead and start selecting for culinary quality in my sweet potatoes this year. Here are some small ones I pulled out from the edges of the pots, leaving the main plant and hopefully larger roots to finish making more seeds.

The white/purple one is very crunchy and not sweet, I think it would be good in beef stew or fried with onions or garlic. When it was first cut the white part was snowy white but by time I found the camera it had changed. Don't know how that would effect flavor, might if using it in a dish want to get it cooking immediately. I have lots that are good that way though so no need to worry over this one too much.

The orange one is Ok, probably would benefit from an actual curing period. Again noting of real note but it is a good seeder. Here is where I might start selecting. I expect that other good seeders will be at least as good for seeds but better for culinary, so this one might not make the cut.

The yellowish on on the right is yum, yum, yum even with out curing. It is only moderate for seeds, say in the neighborhood of 6 out of 10 but it is wonderful, hard to imagine I'll find one better  but can always hope. Of all those I've seen over the years if I was to select one to scale up and keep for clonal propagation this one might be it.

Wonderful, wonderful variety in sweet potatoes, that for sure!

If the yellow is yum yum yum but only produces small amounts of seed, does that matter really, does it need to grow lots of seed? as long as you get enough for the following season and some stored as backup. Then maybe one year you might get one clone from this line that shows greater seed production.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-10-01, 10:55:44 PM
If the yellow is yum yum yum but only produces small amounts of seed, does that matter really, does it need to grow lots of seed? as long as you get enough for the following season and some stored as backup. Then maybe one year you might get one clone from this line that shows greater seed production.

All makes good sense, problem is I can't seem to make up my mind about it all. I was never even all that interested in Sweet Potatoes. Back when I first discovered a few seeds I offered to give them away on the HG forum but no takers. Now they largely dominate my gardening and there are tons of different experiments and selection paths I can think of. If I devoted my whole garden to them it wouldn't be enough. Once I got hooked the whole idea was just more seeds, I never really expected it to work.

I have decided for sure that I will start very few if any new seeds next year. Instead I'm going to clone some of the best from this year and let them cross with each other. I'm going to try to limit that to the ten best but there are lots of other things I haven't paid much attention too yet. Do they keep good all winter? Do they easily sprout slips the next spring? Not all do.  Do they get something called internal cork in storage? I don't know what internal cork is but it's something the professors at University of North Carolina screen for.

So looks like I have about 30 that meet the very seedy criteria and maybe 15 more that are moderately seedy. the rest make some seeds and a few have none.  When I harvest this years roots I hope to have at least 20 that also have nice sized roots. I'd kind of like to start with just the 10 best next year so I guess I'll tag and save them all and wait till spring to make the final selection after they have stored all winter. That yellow one for sure will be in the 10, unless it fails storage for some reason or I guess if I find better ones. It might also be one I clone lots of for food rather than experimentation. I also need to learn more and pay better attention to properly curing them cause I guess it effects storage.

There are still lots of seed maturing out there and weather is turning quite chilly. I reckon I'll soon be clipping stems to bring in to finish and go ahead and harvest the roots. 

Quote from: reed on 2020-10-01, 04:55:55 PMWonderful, wonderful variety in sweet potatoes, that for sure!

Reed could the variety in sweet potato that you are finding be somewhat self-defeating in your aim to turn them into a seed grown annual?  Just musing here, but if you cannot limit the variation within a given batch of seed for a seed company to sell, how would you describe it?  Ok to say parent was light yellow with purple skin for example,  but what if the seeds give range to the sort of variety you show above?   Lots of people expect to get 10 identical plants out of 10 seeds.

On the other hand,  if you labelled as landrace rather than variety....

Love following your progress and hoping to start getting seed this year.

Quote from: whwoz on 2020-10-02, 04:43:19 AM
Reed could the variety in sweet potato that you are finding be somewhat self-defeating in your aim to turn them into a seed grown annual?  Just musing here, but if you cannot limit the variation within a given batch of seed for a seed company to sell, how would you describe it?  Ok to say parent was light yellow with purple skin for example,  but what if the seeds give range to the sort of variety you show above?   Lots of people expect to get 10 identical plants out of 10 seeds.

On the other hand,  if you labelled as landrace rather than variety....

Love following your progress and hoping to start getting seed this year.

It seems that many gardeners are not always into identical plants when buying seed. On our Sentinels website the #1 best seller for two of our growers is TPS, when it was first put up we never thought we would sell much at all and yet here we are selling more of that than say carrots, parsnips etc etc, variation in type sells well, I'm even been selling a first year grex beetroot cross, even that is a good seller.

Camote seed sprouting hack?. I was sick of waiting, so bunged a few in the hot water cupboard. Bingo, up they come. They appear not to enjoy diurnal temp fluctuations , must water each day but.Comments?

@reed this is the 2nd year for the seedlings I got from you. It seems there will be no flowers again.
Last year half of the seedlings flowered very late without setting seeds but made no tubers at all. So I lost them.
All non flowering plants made tubers. These ones I still have.

Whwoz, I don't know what to expect as far as how people might receive them but for me I'm happy with the variety. My thoughts is it's a positive but I know a lot of people do want uniformity. It's an issue with my talks with the seed company too. Not that we are arguing about it they just don't understand that they are not just another "heirloom" tomato, there isn't a romantic story of how aunt Poly smuggled them out of Poland in her petticoat.

My sales pitch might be if you buy these seeds... I recommend you use conscientious germination techniques to insure high germination, unlike the willy nilly way I do it. If (no guarantees) you are successful you should get some percent of plants (as yet unknown) producing nice sized roots in 100 days or less from germination even in areas less than perfect for sweet potatoes.  If you are successful (no guarantees) you will have options:
1 - just save any you really like as clones and make slips of you own brand new kind each year and keep your seeds (they store for 20 years or more, I'm told) to start over if you ever lose or eat all your stored roots
2 - use your seeds to continue breeding and selecting for a variety that even more meets your personal idea of a perfect variety.

So my job now is to continue breeding and selecting with the goal of increasing the chances that say, out of any 25 seeds those options would indeed come available.  And there in lies my problem. I need to know specifically what percent of  seeds will sprout, out of those, what percent will produce good roots and seeds.

I can't do that all by my self, I need a partner who can scale it up, grow hundreds instead of dozens of plants in more controlled conditions and who has the infrastructure to market the results. And who understands their investment is not greater than mine and nor should be their return. I may have found that partner but COVID nearly shut down their operations this spring and it slowed mine too. The owner also isn't much on electronic communication so except for one phone call with him my contact has been with staff and I don't want to deal with staff cause they can't make real decisions and agreements.

Chris, I'd say if you find something that works go for it. I lucked into enough seeds to afford to be sloppy and since I'm all about easy I have mostly taken that route and just accepted the high failure rate. It seems to be working though, this year I got a nice germ rate sowing directly in the ground.

ImGrimmer, too late now I reckon but you can keep those that don't make storage roots alive as houseplants but I'll be sending you some more seeds to get you back on track.

Thanks @reed ! What I wanted to say but forgot to was that maybe climate is playing a role in Ipomoea batatas flowering. If your improved flowering plants refuse to flower here. there must be other factors e.g. the climate.

Yes, I'm sure climate is a factor but I can't say exactly how other than colder temps. I'm sure it isn't day length as I have them blooming as seedlings now way before the longest day of the year and they keep it up way after.

I was planning to go ahead and harvest mine cause of the cool weather but now we are predicted to have a few days of warmer drier so I think I'll leave them to finish up some more seeds. Clipping stems and bringing them in to finish works good but I would rather just let them do it outside if possible. I did kind of accidentally on purpose pull up a few more side ones. What I mean by that is those that grew where a stem had rooted down away from the main trunk, so I'm not really 100% sure which plant these came from except the two on the right, they came from one of those with the very long vines. They are also from some that I rate at 5 or less out of 10, for seeds. Will let them cure a few days on a south windowsill and then see how they are baked. 

They and probably 2/3 of all the rest are also from the group that was started directly in the ground rather than inside or in the cold frame. I'm real excited about that as it eliminates that step each spring. No greenhouses, no heat, nothing special required. It's taken 7 years but they are getting to where they are as or even more easy to start than tomatoes.

And i had a clone flowering all winter, so its not daylight hours.


Those tubers look so nice Mark

Thanks! I'm hoping to find nice ones like this under the better blooming plants. I expect I'll find some just don't know how many. If I get just ten of the good seeders that also have good roots I'll be real, real pleased.

If that happens to be the case and if I can make arrangements with one of the seed companies I might send 2/3 of my seeds to them, keep 1/3 for my back up and grow just those best ones as clones next year.  They would get a mix of seed going back into the generations that had lots of poor rooters but they are also interested in ornamental or primarily for eating the greens. I'm interested in that too but the the seeds I'll keep have plenty of those genetics if I decide to focus on them. Right now I want to, what I call genetically distill a strain with high probability that any particular seed will produce a plant that makes nice roots and seeds in 100 days or less.  So I figure if I get those 10 just mixing them all up for a new generation of selected genes I'll be close to that goal.

All the ornamentals I'm aware of currently on the market are just for colorful foliage.  If I decide to make a side line of ornamental I'm gonna go for one that is also very floriferous. Might have to dip into older seed for that cause from what I understand the ornamental market does not what production of large storage roots.

When it's time to harvest seeds it can be a bugger. A capsule has four seeds at the most and they can shatter if left too long. And they keep making and maturing over a period of months so if you want to collect them all you have to be out there pretty much every day looking for them.

I used to think they had to be completely dry, even the stem like those on the left in this picture but now after experimenting some I'm sure it's fine to go ahead and pick those like the ones on the right.

Just need to let them finish completely drying before trying to open them. It looks like they are but the seeds in those on the right are not completely dried, nor is the capsule shell. Trying to open it at this point can damage the seeds but a couple days drying inside and they crack open just fine.

So, it just got easier to collect seeds, yea!

There is so much involved in getting a feel for the full life cycle and breeding trajectory of a single crop. Makes you wonder how many different crops a single person can meaningfully work on assuming they are at it full time. I suspect it is probably 5-10 annual/perennial crops. Tree crops go so long between generations the number would probably be higher for them (then again the pollination/seed collection/germination/establishment part of the loop is the most labor intensive part).

Quote from: S.Simonsen on 2020-10-10, 06:05:04 PM
There is so much involved in getting a feel for the full life cycle and breeding trajectory of a single crop. Makes you wonder how many different crops a single person can meaningfully work on assuming they are at it full time.

I've been giving your comment some thought. I try to grow a lot of different things and mostly apply the Lofthouse "landrace everything" model. But some things do force a little more study, effort and time. For example I want something specific from my corn so I've had to learn more about how it inherits the properties I want and those I don't. I also want a family of beans that grow on short vines instead of giant ones. I want a  hardy family of cabbage/brussels sprouts/broccoli that I can use for fresh greens, so far a near total fail on that.

Sweet potatoes are however the effort, time and study hogs. I reckon half or more of all my attentions in the last few years as been devoted to them. Now I'm an expert! Ha Ha. In 7 years I guess I've learned maybe 7% of what there is to know.

I find there is a big spike in required time/attention to get a new crop off the ground, even more so if it is a genus that people haven't worked on much so you have to figure most of it out from scratch. Getting those first crosses (especially if they are wide ones like interspecies or intergeneric) is a huge barrier to overcome. But once you make that connection things become a lot easier if you havent stumbled into a genetic dead end. This happened for me with Canna, it took me about four years to gather diversity and figure out how to get varieties with asynchronous flowering to marry up (after wasting a year trying to store pollen which turned out to be impossible). Now I have a hybrid population that I can do simple selection on, but the energy goes into scaling up production so I can plant out lots of hybrids. As the lines stabilise and average quality improves the effort required will probably decline and shift to simply processing tons of tubers by hand. And once one person does all those high risk/low reward early stages the grex lines can be shared with others which saves them from having to duplicate the difficult early stages.

I think it might be a little easier next year. I only had a hand full this year that didn't flower, I already harvested them and also most of the lesser flowering ones. Well over half of them have had nice sized roots.

I'm down to just 41 plants now still maturing seeds and still blooming. If just ten of these also have nice roots that is all I think I need but I expect half or more will. If that is so, 20 or more will also maybe let me select some for traits like flavor and how well they store and how easily they sprout slips next spring. 

I'll have to find a place to store that many but next year rather than starting more seeds I plan to grow several each of the best of them. So, if I select down to just 10 and grow 5 of each I will only have fifty. I have plenty of the large size tubs to accommodate that many. In the large tubs with 3 plants per they have room for full production capacity so I can test that and they require less watering. Also they are higher off the ground, making them safer from rabbits and  easier to collect seeds.

If it works out the 2021 seeds will be a new elite line to start another round of selection. 

Well the 2020 sweet potato harvest is done. Wouldn't call it an emergency harvest but it was hurried as a cool breeze and light sprinkles was moving in. Didn't really get to tag and sort individual plants as I intended. O' well I actually hate that aspect of plant breeding anyway.

So I ended up just pitching a single root of each seedy plant into a tub and brought them in by a small heater to keep them warm for a couple days. I don't really know the actual importance of this warm curing period and have never done it before but guess it won't hurt.   

There is about 20 or so in the picture, not all the best looking roots but all nicely seedy and some what I might call super seedy. I think root quality is likely affected by poor growing conditions so just when I thought next year might get easier now I'm thinking I should actually spend the time and effort to improve growing conditions. Time to act like I actually care if they grow or not instead of just sticking them in pots full of what ever I scrounge up. Maybe even make some effort that they are all growing in the same mix so I can tell if differences are genetic or environmental.

Also lots to learn about storage quality, do some get internal cork like I've read about? Don't really even know what it is exactly but don't think I've ever seen it. Anyway, the learning curve is not flattening much at all.

I just going to let these do their thing next spring, maybe see some difference in storage ability, flavor after storage, how well they produce slips and so on.

Those two in the second picture demonstrate a possible issue. The onw with lots of roots, especially that fatter root, I think is indicative of  one that might make deep or spread out roots which I don't want. On the other hand it was from the most seedy plant I've ever seen. The one next to it with just a little root sticking out is more indicative of those that only make my preferred clump roots.

There were other roots on each that I kept in the tub to eat along with all the poor seeders. Some had a small extra one or two that I went ahead and sampled. Found a couple more of the sweet purple/yellow ones and a purple/orange that's also quite tasty. I didn't make any effort to tag them separate.  Unless they rot or whither in storage which I doubt, I'll find them again next year.

The harvest to eat is still sitting out there as I stupidly pithed them all in one big tub and it was too heavy to lift so I pitched a piece of plastic and an old blanket on top. I'll get them put up tomorrow. Also didn't do much on bringing in stems to mature seeds, they will still be there tomorrow too. I don't really need them but might collect up a few more.

Fantastic work Reed and thanks for posting continual updates.

Quote from: S.Simonsen on 2020-10-15, 03:59:11 PM
Fantastic work Reed and thanks for posting continual updates.

Yes agree, well done.

Thanks, don't forget to keep us posted on your work down south this season!

I went out and collected up a few stems to finish up inside. These are all from the two most seedy plants, if I start any new seeds next year it might be just these. Maybe put them together but a little isolated from the bigger patch and see if I can make a "super seedy" sub strain from the overall mix.

I am real surprised at how well this finishing inside works. From past experience, most of these, even the smaller ones will go ahead finish up just fine.

Discussion over on the NZ thread has me thinking more on the issue of erratic germination. I think more predictable germination can be increased by selection. The first time I had seeds, I only had about 20. I started them in a warm south window on a heat mat and if I remember right it was just 3 that sprouted. This year I planted 300 directly in the ground and 150 or more sprouted. I also had some in the cold frame but most of the 100 I grew out were from those in the ground so I guess about 50 of them were fast enough to get assigned to a pot. The rest basically got discarded.

So altogether I threw away or neglected to death close to 100 seedlings this year. That is wasteful and a problem I can't easily resolve because of space restrictions. Such waste has been acceptable because I was primarily focused on finding seedy lines but now I want to select from them those more likely to also make good roots.

I need to figure out a way to predict root quality early on, maybe even as seedlings. I mentioned somewhere before about Carol Deppe in talking about corn said not to get too carried away in culling smaller plants because some grow top growth first and some develop a root system first.  I wondered if that might be true of sweet potatoes too and roots being the primary crop of sweet potatoes might that matter?  I had an idea to test that by starting some in sections of clear drinking straws but didn't get around to doing it. But if I do, what will it really tell me? Just because one grows a bigger root where another grows more on top, is that predictive of one that will eventually make good storage roots?

Maybe I could take out some older seeds (higher % of non-root plants) and an equal number of this years seeds (all from good root plants) and run that little experiment. I might could even do that now, instead of waiting till next spring.

I've also found that some, when grow in little cups on the window sill over winter actually have little storage roots when I take them out to plant the next spring. Can I use that to develop a useful experiment?

I wonder if you could germinate your seedlings in group pots (mostly for convenience) and once they are big enough to handle transplant into individual pots for growing on. If you photograph every seedling during transplantation with a good macro lens you can then keep track of them and compare seedling morphology to root quality in the grown out plants. It might be that there are signs of root formation potential in the seedlings if you know what you are looking for. I suspect there will be some signs that tell you how to separate out the non-tuberous seedlings.

Quote from: S.Simonsen on 2020-10-19, 02:15:37 PM
I wonder if you could germinate your seedlings in group pots (mostly for convenience) and once they are big enough to handle transplant into individual pots for growing on.

I started germinating in big pots back when I discovered how easy they are to transplant. One thing you don't have to worry about is root disturbance, they just don't seem bothered by that at all.

Quote from: S.Simonsen on 2020-10-19, 02:15:37 PM
If you photograph every seedling during transplantation with a good macro lens you can then keep track of them and compare seedling morphology to root quality in the grown out plants.

That sounds like a good approach but I know me. I'm just not that disciplined when it comes to recording and tracking, I doubt I could pull it off.

Quote from: S.Simonsen on 2020-10-19, 02:15:37 PM
It might be that there are signs of root formation potential in the seedlings if you know what you are looking for. I suspect there will be some signs that tell you how to separate out the non-tuberous seedlings.

That's what I wonder too, just got to find out what those signs are but within my own limitations of patience and organization.

Another thing I've thought of is to start lots of seeds and put them in very small pots so I can have more plants in the same space. Then after a few weeks dump them out and see which ones are starting to develop storage roots. If I could isolate the better ones by mid June there would be plenty of time to clone them in bigger pots.

So that's an approach that might work for me, the new question to ask is: How soon do they start storage root development?

I would be careful about early selection without checking correlation to mature characteristics. There is a chance you will select out genetics that forms good roots but doesnt look promising early on for some reason. Then again if you are aiming for an annual crop that is routinely grown from seed then maybe early root formation is a useful trait to select for. I am a few years behind you and working toward different end goals but should get time to check for correlations between root size over lifespan. I wonder if there are non-destructive ways to evaluate root development over time. Maybe just clearing soil away from the crown to check the main tuber?

Yep, my primary goal has been and I think still is, making them an annual seed grown crop. Eliminating the necessity of keeping living plant material over winter is to me the best way to insure food security. Crop failure one year, losing or eating all the stored roots, just start over with the seeds. But now as I'm seeing more and more very nice ones I'm getting more remorseful over discarding those that have potential to be a great new cloned variety, I have at least six in that category this year. Those very sweet, purple/yellow ones especially come to mind. They certainly will be cloned next year to increase those traits in the next generation seeds but they may all be eaten after that.

Yes you can just dig around a little and get an idea of what kind of roots are forming. I do that a lot to see if my preferred "clump root"  type is forming and what color they are, I might even scratch it a little to see what color it is inside but I haven't really used it for selecting other than maybe putting a ribbon on any really good ones.

Lots and lots of opportunities and directions to explore that I don't have space and time for. I'm still hopeful to make a partnership with one seed companies. If not then I might look into something like SARE grants or maybe some kind of partnership with EFN.

I am a big fan of seed grown crops as well for the same reasons. Another big factor is scaleability. If you suddenly need to grow a much bigger area of a crop then a vegetatively propagated plant can take several years to get up to scale. By contrast a seed grown crop (from a conveniently stored bag of seed) can instantly fill the space in one season. Sweet potato is one of the few vegetatively propagated plants though that has enormous potential for rapid scaling up since every short section of stem can grow a new plant.

Human attention really is the rate limiting ingredient in plant breeding (I saw Bill Whitson say as much). Makes you sad to think about all the human attention wasted on frivolous things when they could be deciding if a particular seedling was tasty or pretty enough to be worth propagating from.

Speaking of vegetative propagation of sweet potatoes.  Are sweet potatoes truly indeterminate, or are there some varieties that are actually determinate?  Could you continually propagate vegetatively over and over again for as long as your growing season length allowed? 

Compared to Solanum tuberosum potatoes, where there are no true indeterminate varieties (I would argue all are determinate, it is just a matter of how long before the senesce).  Even very long season potatoes do not grow forever, though short dormancy potatoes can be continually harvested and replanted without requiring storage. 

Have a true indeterminate crop seems to me to be an advantage in this way, as long as it is able to produce food continually while it remains alive.

Quote from: nathanp on 2020-10-20, 04:48:13 PM
Speaking of vegetative propagation of sweet potatoes.  Are sweet potatoes truly indeterminate, or are there some varieties that are actually determinate?  Could you continually propagate vegetatively over and over again for as long as your growing season length allowed? 

Not really sure how the term indeterminant applies to sweet potatoes. I think in a sense immortal might be more applicable. Of course every time you clip of a stem to clone, the cloned plant starts over and needs the necessary time to grow another harvestable crop of roots but you can do it over and over as long as you want. The mother plant is unaffected. Cloning is how it has traditionally always been, except by saving a root and sprouting slips from it the next spring.

A sweet potato that sprouts from a seed in late April can be cut back and cloned in May or June and made into several plants with little to no noticeable effect on the original plant. This could easily continue longer but new plants much later than say, mid July won't have time to make much.

Sweet potatoes don't really mature, not in the sense a tomato ripens or a green bean fills out. Mature is just when roots are big enough to be worthwhile to harvest. I guess different ones take more or less time for that.

The fellers down south are discussing needing to scarify seeds to get better germination and that has me thinking about that again. A linked article in Chris's post has a line that I take exception too.
"a gardener must scarify the seeds prior to planting"

One of the research papers I have saved from the 1980's talks about scarifying in detail. It is the one that mentions sulfuric acid. I suspect that's because they were working in such volume it was easier to do that than something on individual seeds. They had hundreds of varieties from all over the world in their work.

Regarding blooming and seeds they say that forcing blooms by cloning on different plants or other methods will carry poor blooming into the next generation. And they said if you start with plants that bloom at least a little on their own it only takes three to four generations to fully restore blooming in all the offspring. I think that is true, as some original parents only bloomed a little or only bloomed very late in the season. Now pretty much all new plants bloom early and lots. AND they said that blooming did not negatively impact root production. I can confirm that too! ;D

So by the same logic scarifying will do the same thing and lead to the next generation also being hard to sprout so I refuse to do it. I don't want them to ever completely lose the hard seed coat because I speculate it is also what makes them able to live so long in storage. But I doubt that losing it completely is something I ever really need to worry about.

A single nicely seedy plant can make hundreds of seeds in a season. So for a direct planted annual crop just plant 3 to 4 times more seeds than you need. Around 1/2 will sprout that year and about 1/2 of those will do it soon enough to make a harvest so if you want 25 plans, plant 100 seeds. The later ones could be used for greens and I'm thinking maybe the ones that don't sprout till the next year should also just be used for greens or discarded.

The instructions for other plants say much the same--plant three or four and thin to the strongest. This way you just avoid the thinning step. The plants are self selecting for the strongest. Makes a lot more sense to me.

Probably still a problem if you want to just direct plant. They need to be 18" apart in a row to produce good. My luck if I planted say 4 seeds in each spot spaced that way all four would come up in some and none in others. Wouldn't be a very big problem though cause they transplant so easy.

yep transplant, but force those tight ol bangers to sprout
you will not be disappointed imho
I am not after the Ford Edsel of SP...
Its nature after all ....think that thru?

Well, I been thinkin on it but not quite figured it out. The Edsel, big to do in marketing and stuff but nobody wanted it. I want to grow sweet potatoes from seeds, easy. No fuss no muss. Probably not gonna be a big hit in the commercial world but I don't care. If nobody else want's them I'll just keep them all to myself.

I play a little game where I pretend I could still produce food to eat even after a total collapse of the industrial, commercial un-civilization and haven't found anything else with the same promise as an easy sprouting sweet potato seed. 

Quote from: reed on 2020-10-27, 04:11:10 PM
Probably not gonna be a big hit in the commercial world but I don't care. If nobody else want's them I'll just keep them all to myself.

I dont know about, as I may have already pointed out that on our Sentinels website one of the best sellers is TPS, when it was first put up we thought it would be a poor seller. I reckon Ipomoea batatas would be of interest to quite a few gardeners, but, its down side at the stage is the poor germination rate

In my garden and climate potatoes are completely worthless. I tried three years growing from seeds. I never paid much attention to germ rate but it wasn't bad I don't think. But in those three years I managed to get a total of three seed berries and two of them were on plants from a commercial potato not the ones I started from seed. And all the ones I started from seed over the whole three years together would barely fill a tea cup with harvested potatoes. Noting at all to eat came from the seeds cause I had to try (and I failed) to keep the little tiny potatoes alive to replant the next year. I hate that cause I love potatoes but way too uncooperative to be a reliable food source here. I'll keep growing a few the way I always did by buying the tubers to plant each spring.

A sweet potato seed can make a food harvest and a couple hundred or more seeds it's first year. And if a person wants to they can easily keep a root from a favorite one to make slips the next spring or eat them all and just keep a stem growing as a house plant.

Germination has been improving each year and I think it will continue to but I'm really fine with as it is now. Out of 300 hundred seeds direct planted in the ground I had plenty sprout fast enough to fill my whole growing area.

By cloning the 20 best from this year, to cross with each other then next years seed crop will be improved even more.

Still there are other issues:
**They are genetically freaky enough that non-bloomers, non-seeders, and non-rooters will probably show up in some proportion even from the 2021 seeds. Always being necessary to grow extras to insure a good harvest isn't so bad. The rub here is you can't know until harvest what you will get from a new plant. I want to find a way to know that at seedling or young plant stage. 

Of course you can always eat the greens from a non-rooting plant but I don't really like the greens much. They don't taste bad but have a weird quality that's hard to describe, feels like having soap in your mouth although they don't taste like soap. They are OK mixed with other things in a salad or cooked in vegetable soup. I think if you dried them up and powdered them they might make a good thickener for gravy or stew.

**And then that sneaky little issue of compatibility. Say a gardener finds one they really like and decides to just clone it. Maybe it blooms a lot but will it make seeds? I don't know. Self compatibility is definitely in my seeds but I'm positive it isn't universal. AND I'm pretty sure some might be compatible with just some particular other one(s).  Or in one direction but not the other. How the heck am I ever gonna figure that out? It would take huge amounts of grow outs, isolation and recording. No way I'm gonna do that so for now I'm just going on the assumption that a good number of different plants have to be grown each year.

O' well no matter, the project is still going way better than I ever expected and it's lots of fun so first things first is to clone those twenty next year and make my new more elite line of seed. Already anxious for 2022 when I can pant them and see what comes out of it.

Your work is an invaluable example about how difficult (and rewarding) it can be to get over the hump of poor sexual fertility and local adaptation of any particular crop, especially staple crops. The idea of someone who has previously grown a few seed potatoes from the shops in compost (also from the shop usually) to grow a small percent of their calories can just scale up and grow more potatoes if they ever needed to live off them collides with the reality of trying to close the loop in food growing systems and reduce reliance on ongoing inputs. The issue of reliability is huge as well- a crop that gives huge yields nine years in a row then fails completely in the tenth year is going to be a timebomb if you are relying on it to survive. I climbed over that fertility barrier with Canna but it took a few years of dead ends and trial and error, but on the other side I have a huge diverse population that is much easier to work with. Potato is likely to be marginal in my climate as well, though I will keep playing with seed grown diploids. Anything with long lasting seeds is extra valuable in my book because you can save large amounts to use later, both for breeding work or to rapidly scale up production (essential to recover from major disasters). Most pre-industrial cultures seem to have had at least two major staple crops with complementary failure conditions (eg one fails in the wet, one fails in the dry) and a longer list of minor staples. I am still fishing around for my second major staple crop here.

The point for me is really, scarification is easy, so why ignore  that?
Simple to learn how, and see what nature provides,
My guess is the 'hard nuts' (like everything in life), are the HARD NUTS!
We will see, never been a fan of Easy Street, sorry.

Quote from: Chris Morrison on 2020-10-28, 04:25:54 AM
The point for me is really, scarification is easy, so why ignore  that?
Simple to learn how, and see what nature provides,
My guess is the 'hard nuts' (like everything in life), are the HARD NUTS!
We will see, never been a fan of Easy Street, sorry.

Well, I have to admit your wearing me down some.

Still I need a reason to think the harder ones some how have better genes. Do you think they might produce better? Be more cold or disease tolerant?

Another experiment that might be fun I reckon. Except a problem is ya can't tell by looking which would sprout easy and which one wouldn't so you would be scarifying them all and if the easy ones are some how inferior (which I don't buy) they would still be contributing pollen to the next generation.

My only guess so far and on very scant evidence is that the slightly larger, sometimes lighter colored seeds are the ones that sprout easier. They also tend to come from the plants that make comparatively fewer but still plenty of seeds. Those plants also tend more often to have nicer roots although also larger vines, which I don't like. Again very scant evidence, just some non scientific observation but maybe easy enough to test. Just sort some seeds and plant the larger, lighter in one pot and smaller, darker in another. 

The main advantage of scarifying seed in this instance that I see would be allowing someone who has trouble getting seed in the first place to establish a seed producing population.   Where one has seeds requiring different levels of treatment it can be a real pain, particularly if you are expecting people who are inexperienced at treating seeds to germinate them down the track.  Ideally one would select for seed that germinates easily if you are doing what Reed is aiming for.

I definitely see a reason to scarify if you only have a few seeds but when I got my first twenty or so it was before I did all the reading and research about them and didn't know they needed it so I ended up with 3 plants out of those 20 seeds. I was lucky to find some varieties that bloomed a little for the second year and they and those 3 crossed up and got things started. Actually now that I'm thinking about it I might have just had 2 plants that year and the third was a clone of the one that made the original seeds. Anyway that year turned out to be great with a long dry fall and I collected seeds all the way into November.

Weather is a huge factor in getting good seeds. I think it was 2018 when August was weirdly cool and wet, half of the seeds molded and rotted in the capsules and I discarded what might have been good ones if a capsule mate had rotted because I didn't what that residue left behind. Another year it was hot and wet and a lot of seeds sprouted in the still green capsules.  Even in those bad years I got plenty of seeds but it taught me not to take it for granted. Another reason I think to always keep a nice backup stock of seeds.

I've never so far had a failure in root production but I haven't up till now really been trying to maximize that. I suspect when I move to that stage next year by preparing the soil better and more uniformly I'll see weather related differences. Mostly next year I hope to find yield root quality variation just between the different ones, probably won't really lean much about effects of weather on that for a long time.

I was planning not to sprout seeds next year, just to clone this year's best plants to make the new elite line of seeds but maybe I will do a small scarification experiment. I could sort out 20 bigger, lighter color seeds and 20 smaller darker ones and scarify 1/2 of each, just to see what happens. They would be wasted cause I wouldn't have space to grow them out to see if indeed the harder to spout ones were some how better or worse than the easier ones but I might learn if my theory about seed size and color is true.  But it might just or even more likely be that differences in seed size and color is just another genetic variation like root color or leaf shape. 

   

Quote from: S.Simonsen on 2020-10-28, 01:21:14 AM
I am still fishing around for my second major staple crop here.

I am too. I have a nice mix of beans and lima beans. This year I added cowpeas and peanuts both of which did very well. And I'm having great luck with wild beans, Phaseolus polystachios, in just a few years seeds are getting larger and more numerous but I still haven't summoned the courage to eat any.

I've been dabbling with dahlias too. I think they are very similar to sweet potatoes in that most breeding has just been to find a new one to clone but I'm trying to select a seed grown line that reliably produces big roots that don't taste too much like perfume.

Haven't thought about cannas, have never grown them except for flowers. Might need to look into them a little more. Problem for them in my area is they are a favorite of Japanese beetles.

All the beans and peanuts go a long way on producing protein, it's stuff with other vitamins and nutrients that I'm short on. Sweet potatoes fill that void pretty well but still need more diversity.

I think if something doesn't produce food and seeds, from seed, in one season it isn't a staple crop because without seeds you can't recover from a crop failure.

What makes a huge difference is climate, here potatoes are reliable and that I normally manage to achieve around 11 month supply, atm Ive got another week left in the shed and the new season's plants are up and doing well.  Ipomoea batatas looks like it too will be also a ideal crop going by what I grew last summer, it would be great to get to the stage where its only seed sown but in the mean time I can see where growing Ipomoea batatas will be split into replanting tubers and another block from seed. But first step in getting my own seed.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-10-30, 01:02:19 PM
What makes a huge difference is climate, here potatoes are reliable and that I normally manage to achieve around 11 month supply, atm Ive got another week left in the shed and the new season's plants are up and doing well. 

Yep, climate is definitely the decider.  Pisser here is even just 20 years ago potatoes were easy to grow here, still are in some years not others. This year was sort of OK, last year total fail and year before that great. Another bad thing about potatoes and it's not their fault is I don't have a root cellar or any other suitable place to store them which makes it especially bad that a first year seedling only makes little tubers. And my climate even if the potatoes produce good still doesn't allow much on maturing seed berries, I've had bunches start to form but all drop off. I guess I might try to shade them more or water them more but sweet potatoes don't need any of that and they store harvest to harvest just in boxes in the extra room upstairs.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-10-30, 01:02:19 PM
Ipomoea batatas looks like it too will be also a ideal crop going by what I grew last summer, it would be great to get to the stage where its only seed sown but in the mean time I can see where growing Ipomoea batatas will be split into replanting tubers and another block from seed. But first step in getting my own seed.

That's just how I've done it but I'm not at all opposed to cloning any extra good ones over and over, especially if it was always making your backup seeds at the same time. Would be goofy to just insist they have to always come from seed. So far I've just been narrow focused on getting the good seed line.

Assuming they store well and sprout new slips well I might just keep cloning those purple/yellow ones indefinitely. Only thing that might change that is if they mutated in an bad direction. When I first read that they spontaneously mutate by cloning, especially in the first few years after starting from seed I didn't believe it but its true.

I have another scant evidence, unproven theory on that too. Especially on the shallow, clump rooters it is easy to preserve a piece of above ground stem attached to the root. I've noticed that piece sprouts slips like mad as soon as you put them to a little water and sunshine.

My theory is since they are roots not tubers they don't have the cell structure for lack of a better term to sprout new above ground growth but some how they do it anyway. That, I theorize is where a lot of the mutation happens. On the other hand the preserved piece of above ground stem does have what it needs to more easily sprout an exact copy of the old plant. But that's all just me wondering, not a shred of real evidence. Any way, again from what I've read, you have to clone a new one at least three years to lock it into cloning true and even then an occasional mutation will still happen.

It's hard for me to get that straight in my head cause I always thought cloning meant, well cloning. But sweet potatoes, in terms that reflect my actual understanding of it, are genetically, extra special weird.

I saved all the potato seeds I traded for back when and all the ones I got from my few berries. I guess they keep a long time too so when I get my sweet potatoes to a place I'm happy with I might try them again because I would really like to have both.

From what I've seen if you grow sweet potatoes in water they don't make any storage roots at all, even if it's one that does make roots when grown in soil. They do bloom and make seeds though. I don't know if this might be a way to induce blooming or not but if you like the greens it is definitely a way to produce them in abundance and the fish in a small artificial pond really enjoy it too. Some kind of bugs hide, or may just tasty algae grows in those root mats and the little bluegills are always looking around in them. Or maybe they just like hiding in them too.

Something that I just came across that maybe of interest

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/plants-blogs/plants/october-2020/Ipomoea-Treasure-Island-Series

Pat is doing great work. Basically created the whole sweet potato industry in Europe by supplying high quality propagating material to farmers in places with suitable summer climates. It is a real good example of the power of plant selection and breeding.

Interesting work for sure. Wouldn't think of Ireland as particularly hospitable to sweet potatoes but I think they may be way more adaptable than most people would have thought possible.

As far as "The world's first ornamental edible sweet potato" goes, I have to say bull feathers! I've had them for years that not only had a bushy growth habit and made nice roots (not tubers) but also bloom like crazy.  And that other one advertised as having bi-color flowers? They all do.

That guy just has a media/marketing machine on his  side.

Pat runs a horticulture company in Ireland. The gulf stream means parts of coastal Ireland have pretty even temperatures. He exports slips to the continent where they have hotter summers for production. Separating propagation and production means it is a lot easier to control pests and diseases.

That's all fine, I just take exception to the marketing crap. First ever? that's just hooey. The term ornamental is really just hooey too, as is the notion that crossing one that does makes storage roots with one that doesn't is some how original.

From what I gather "ornamental" just means they won't push themselves out of a hanging basket but they are all pretty IMO, so all are ornamental. If his makes nice roots they fail the grow in a hanging basket test and therefore are not ornamental by that standard. Also they are all edible, only difference is some make big roots and some just greens.

The named ornamental one called "blackie" has been around for decades but I imagine others that don't make roots have been around for centuries or even longer as have those that do make seeds.

Definition of ornamental  - a plant cultivated for its beauty rather than for use.


So really, you cant have an ornamental vegetable 

The Craig Yencho video where he discussed the development of the ornamental varieties is pretty interesting.  They were never intended, and normally would have been culled out of their breeding program (for storage roots), until someone thought out of the box that they could probably market some of them this way. 

The coolest 'ornamental" I've ever seen was in planters on campus of Indiana University. It had very, very long skinny lobes on its leaves and a lot darker black that blackie. No clue where it came from but it was way cooler than any of the UNC varieties I've seen. Actually I've discarded several that I think are better than them too because mine also bloom a lot but I don't have space to keep them going and haven't found any one yet to help me scale up.

Still no definite word on my hoped for partnership(s) with a seed company. The ones I've talked to are pretty big. I contacted them first because they had the most resources and I thought the ones most able. It occurred to me last night that maybe a smaller company might be a better shot. One where I can actually talk with the owners instead of a chain of underlings and that might recognize the potential of seed grow sweet potatoes as a bigger plus to their business instead of just another item in a big list. 

Richard was talking over on the NZ thread about seeds sprouting and think they were weeds because the came up under another already established one. I think that might be what happened with the ones in this picture. I was cleaning up where I had dumped my pots yesterday and found them buried. I don't recall seeing them during harvest and they are small plus the whole plant is intact. I expect their seeds had hitchhiked when I transplanted others, came up later and I didn't even notice they were there, they just got covered up when I harvested the others.

If you look at the one on the left the storage roots are all connected in a string, I call that crater root because if grown in the ground you have to dig a cater to find them.  The one on the right is a beautiful example of clump root, a bunch of nice ones all together right under the main stem. Even if I had noticed it before I would have discarded the one on the left. I think I'll keep the other one though especially since it tastes great.

Quote from: reed on 2020-11-01, 06:07:20 AM
From what I've seen if you grow sweet potatoes in water they don't make any storage roots at all, even if it's one that does make roots when grown in soil. They do bloom and make seeds though. I don't know if this might be a way to induce blooming or not but if you like the greens it is definitely a way to produce them in abundance and the fish in a small artificial pond really enjoy it too. Some kind of bugs hide, or may just tasty algae grows in those root mats and the little bluegills are always looking around in them. Or maybe they just like hiding in them too.

So, could hydroponically grown slips be a viable alternative to bulking up seed?

If that's the case, maybe I could get some slips from you guys who have reliable seed setting varieties,  but not enough seed to share. Or I could attempt it on my own. Are the ornamental varieties better at seed set? Is there better seed set with different varieties vs selfed?

I only check this thread occasionally,  so I'm not sure what the state of this project is at this point in time. How are you all getting along with it?

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2020-11-26, 04:51:47 AM
So, could hydroponically grown slips be a viable alternative to bulking up seed?

It's easy to make slips from any growing vine. It could be in an actual hydroponic system or just a glass of water on a windowsill or growing in the ground or pot in a greenhouse. Any section of vine at least a couple inches long with a leaf joint will root and in a little wile be big enough to make still more slips from it. And by then you can get more from the older one.  It isn't a substitute for seeds though cause it still requires keeping either a plant or roots alive during the off season. 

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2020-11-26, 04:51:47 AM
If that's the case, maybe I could get some slips from you guys who have reliable seed setting varieties,  but not enough seed to share. Or I could attempt it on my own. Are the ornamental varieties better at seed set? Is there better seed set with different varieties vs selfed?

I don't really make the distinction between ornamental and culinary anymore. All it means is if they make useable sized storage roots or not and that I think is just another variable trait in the species. I do think my initial luck in the project was because of the chance discovery of a self fertile "ornamental" and that trait got passed into my overall grex but most existing varieties are not self fertile. I don't really know the percentage of mine that are because I grow them all in a polyculture.

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2020-11-26, 04:51:47 AM
I only check this thread occasionally,  so I'm not sure what the state of this project is at this point in time. How are you all getting along with it?

Currently the "turning sweet potatoes into a seed grown annual" project is largely complete. This year I planted seeds directly in the ground and had about 30% germination within a couple of weeks. That was enough and fast enough to more than fill my planting area. Many that didn't come up fast enough were just left crowded in the planting bed, some ended up blooming but most came up too late to make much roots. A smaller number planted at the same time in a cold frame had about 70% germination in time to plant out but I didn't have enough space and favored the direct planted ones.

There are still lots of questions I'd like to answer but not likely to be able to, especially concerning compatibility. Who is self fertile and why? Who is compatible with one or more particular other and not another and why? Who is compatible with one or more other but only in one direction?  Are there any that are compatible with most or all others? Are self fertile ones compatible with others as a rule or are most of their seeds selfed? And lots of others like how are traits passed on?

I doubt I will ever know those answers cause it is just way more than I could do to answer them and the university scientists don't seem to care or if they do they don't seem to write about it. They just do large scale polycross looking for the next one to patent as a clone. They don't care about garden scale growing from seed. 

From what I read pretty much all traits are quantitive so I have just been applying what I call genetic distillation, trying to  cull out those that don't make nice roots, that have giant vines, don't bloom well or don't taste good. Stuff I can do just by looking and tasting, no need for microscopes, DNA tests and mountains of records.

This year I ended up with about 20 that meet most or all of my favored criteria. I archived most of my seeds in sealed test tubes, inside stainless steel canisters buried in the ground. Next year I'm planning on growing mostly just clones of those 20 with hope to make a new elite line of seeds.

State of the seeds right now is roughly. A single seed has about a 30% chance of sprouting within two weeks planted directly in the ground. That plant has probably a 95% chance that it will bloom and set seed, assuming it has an appropriate partner or is self fruitful. It has about a 70% chance that it will make nice roots and seeds within 100 days of sprouting. Probably 70% chance it will have bushy rather than large vine growth habit. I won't venture a guess on lots of other things like color, flavor and so on.

I am hopeful that the seeds produced next year will reveal all kinds of wonder things in 2022. Also I'm making more effort next year to give them better soil and take better care of them so as to learn their real potential as far as yield. If any of of those 20 show superior there I might also clone them again in 2022.

"What a long strange trip it's been"

Its great that you are getting around 70% chance of being the bushy type, to have trait that and to also have tubers close to main stem is the way to go.

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2020-11-28, 10:11:12 PM
Its great that you are getting around 70% chance of being the bushy type, to have trait that and to also have tubers close to main stem is the way to go.

I forgot to mention that but fortunately the two seem to go together to some degree. Between them though the clump root trait is the most important to me. It's a lot easier to trim or trellis big vines than to dig giant craters at harvest. It's even easier when growing in the big tubs, sometimes I can just loosen the dirt with my fingers and pull an entire clump root plant out in tact but still have to dump the tub to find the others.

Sometimes in the small pots and once in a while even in the big tubs I've found no roots at all inside. The big ones grew deeper, off of the feeder roots that had exited the drain holes. At first I kept all that bloomed but I've been culling those kind for last three or so years. Also cull the ones that make giant roots.

My tubs are maybe 50 centimeters deep, they are old juice barrels that the local winery gave me cut in half. Some have plugs on top about 5 centimeters across that become drain holes. One time I couldn't tip one over to harvest, it just wouldn't budge. When it finally broke I found a giant sweet potato had formed in that hole, 1/2 inside and 1/2 underneath, each piece weighted about 500 grams. I remember that plant had bloomed and set seed but I sure didn't keep it to clone. (hope I got my metric conversion right)

From what I could tell from my TSPS plants this year, the main difference between bushy and non-bushy (vining) plants seemed to be length of the internodes.  Bushy types have short internodes, and vining types have longer internodes. Michael Jennings confirmed that seemed to be the case after also looking at his plants. 

It could be that trait also corresponds to location of storage roots being either close together for bushy plants, and further apart for vining.  I was wondering if this was a trait that also was quantitative, and whether it isn't an either/or trait, but something that has a broad range of intermediate stem lengths.  I did not have enough plants to determine that, but it seemed likely given so many other traits are quantitative.

If that is the case, it seems likely you could select for extreme bushy types with very short internode lengths and possibly eliminate the longer internode lengths from your genepool.

Yes the bushy ones do have shorter internodes, they also tend to have flowers in clusters where longer vines often have just one or two flowers per stem. The longer vines that do bloom however tend to do it at virtually every internode and have a higher percentage with a full four seeds per capsule. But, yes I do believe the trait is quantitative, they can have from one to as many as twenty flowers per stem.

I think I fell into the bushy ones by the same accident as the seedy ones and I do like them best but can't completely discard the others yet. A lot of them are good or very good, probably not more than 20% since the beginning (of those that made nice roots) were really bad, flavor or texture or bug prone or whatever.

The best one ever so far and maybe the best sweet potato I ever ate showed up this year in the purple skin, yellow flesh one but it isn't bushy. It isn't a giant, only four feet or so but definitely not bushy and it has the two or three flower per node habit. Makes less seed per plant than a bushy but all are excellent quality fully formed seeds.  I'm gonna clone the heck out of it next year so my bushy preference may take a set back.

The UNC, I've read starts as many as 50,000 seeds per year but have only released one new one that I know of in the last ten years or more. That has me puzzled as it seem to me fairly easy to find really good new ones. I guess they have different priority like maybe tough skins, some and that wonderful purple/yellow one is like that, before curing you can rub the skin off with your finger, it would never survive mechanical harvest. And they know a lot more about other qualities than I do but I suspect it mostly has to do with commercial production than flavor.  I guess they also aren't interested in seeds on a patented clone or seed to harvest in 100 days but still with 50,000 a year they have to have culled out, by my standards,  some really great ones along the way.

Selection for compatibility with mechanisation is one of the great tragedies of modern plant breeding. It overrides everything else unless it is a crop with a high enough profit margin and suitable pool of slaves (virtual or actual) to do the manual harvesting (coffee and chocolate are great examples). Uniformity is the biggest factor since most farm machinery cannot tolerate much of a range in size of the plant organs or the timing of harvest.

Quote from: reed on 2020-11-30, 03:41:09 AM

The UNC, I've read starts as many as 50,000 seeds per year but have only released one new one that I know of in the last ten years or more. That has me puzzled as it seem to me fairly easy to find really good new ones. I guess they have different priority like maybe tough skins, some and that wonderful purple/yellow one is like that, before curing you can rub the skin off with your finger, it would never survive mechanical harvest. And they know a lot more about other qualities than I do but I suspect it mostly has to do with commercial production than flavor.  I guess they also aren't interested in seeds on a patented clone or seed to harvest in 100 days but still with 50,000 a year they have to have culled out, by my standards,  some really great ones along the way.

i am sure they are thinking only of commercial grower's interests.  This is the same with solanum potatoes.  Breeding programs will often grow out 100,000 seedlings for each one they eventually select.  Mechanized harvesting would be one of them, as Shane mentions, but so are many other traits including dormancy, regular shapes, consistent yield, disease resistance, etc.  Commercial potato programs have a list of over 30 traits that they are evaluating for, and evaluation can take 7-14 year for each new variety before they normally would be released.  So the vast majority of seedlings are eventually discarded.  I do not know how long the list is for sweet potatoes, but I would guess it is close to as long.

A lot of it comes down to marketing as well. Most consumers are very reluctant to try something different, even a new variety of apple with a slightly different colour, sugar/acid balance and mouth feel with often fail spectacularly despite being a great product simply because people tend to stick with what they know. Introducing a new variety means committing to a huge investment to sustain the push to gain market share, and the real risk of it not working out. We recently had "low carb" potatoes turn up in the shops with a bit of fanfare. They were still a non-waxy type, but instead of being starchy were just kind of bleh and nothing, vaguely crunchy even after cooking in a way I have never seen in a potato before . I figure some marketing genuis was convinced all the paleo people and weight watchers would jump on it. Haven't seen them in a couple of years now so I don't think it worked out.

I never used to even like sweet potatoes. Everyone I know and I think most people in general cook them covered in butter and brown sugar or maybe honey and they cook them into a mush with the consistency of baby food. Sometimes they stir in some marshmallows and call it a casserole, its gross. I guess if that's what your after anything that's the right color and shape works.

Most of mine still need a little assist from the butter and honey and I don't eat much of them. But there are others that are fantastic just baked dry and eaten that way. And there are some that aren't sweet at all and are good fried like potatoes with onions or in soup or beef stew, they have a different texture and cook faster than potatoes.  Eventually I'd like to separate the sweet and non-sweet into isolated breeding groups.

I would like to select for disease tolerance but haven't encountered much of that. There have been issues with those wire worms or I guess that's what they are but only in the solid purple ones that show up once in a while, I don't keep them. And there are definitely differences in how much Japanese beetles like them, I have had an occasional plant completely eaten by them when others were barely touched.

I've primarily selected for seediness, then for nice sized storage root over stringy roots. Then I guess for bushy habit and what I call clump root where a nice cluster of roots is right under the main stem. I've selected a little for long storage just by not cloning any that wrinkled up or otherwise didn't look good when time to make slips. And I favor fast maturity, in range of 100 days from seed.

All the different flavors and color combinations mostly just show up unpredictably but it makes it fun at harvest time to see what I get. The wonderful purple/yellow ones just showed up this year. By cloning this year's best ones and not starting many new seeds next year will be the first time I've really tired to focus on culinary qualities.

[add] By the university's standards a good one must show up about 1 in a 100,000. Seems like I even read that somewhere. Its a very discouraging statistic, makes one think breeding on a small scale isn't worth the trouble. But it is that standard that makes the difference I guess. For commercial/industrial production it has to withstand planting, tending, harvesting, washing, sorting, shipping by machines. If it also tastes good that's a bonus I guess but not really necessary and not at all necessary for it to make seeds.

You hear the same type thing about any plant that is traditionally sold as clones. Grapes and apples come to mind, sure they say, "you can plant the seeds but what you get won't be any good". I don't think they are really trying to mislead or discourage, it's just not how they think to consider some people don't care about industrial production.

I guess that makes sense, but how did that attitude (that nothing is good unless it's cloned) pop up in the first place? Up until the 1940's seed grown trees were common. People bred their own, they couldn't afford to buy a clone from a nursery. So at some point did some breeder think, "Darn, these people who grow their own are cutting into my profit margins"?

I have a seed grown interlaken/concord cross grapevine. The taste of the concord with the sweetness of the interlaken, the white skin of the interlaken, and it ripens just a few weeks later than the interlaken, so late July early August. I see no negatives here. But I've had people tell me flat out that it can't give good fruit--until they taste it.

Why do people just one or two generations removed from the reality actually believe that what their ancestors did as a standard is impossible?

It's a little later than I ordinarily do it but will be starting a few seeds soon and also cloning those best ones from last year. I have about 25 roots from last year, each one grown from a seed. I was intending to grow a tub of each one but I'm thinking of trimming that down by about half based on how well they stored and how easily they sprout slips.

I can't bring myself not to start any from seeds but will probably not plant more than 25 or so and I'm doing the whole operation outside in the cold frame, even the slips. Part of my overall goal is select them to be no more difficult to grow either by seed or clone than a tomato is, and part of that is no indoors or artificial light aspect too it at all. I've been reading more about them and although I'm sure season length has some importance what they really need is heat units so there is no need to start them sooner than the heat is expected to arrive.

I have cloned lots of my seed grown plants over the years, mostly with the intention of reinforcing the seedy trait, the bushy trait and the clump root trait but always let any particular one go extinct after just a season or two. Well, of course I have also selected for usable sized and tasty roots along with the other traits.

It is certainly possible to arrive at any one of those traits, probably all four in the same plant and perpetuate it long term IF on going cloning is used. To perpetuate it indefinitely by seed each year is probably not as easy.

Still, I have succeeded in making sweet potatoes into a seed grown annual so now I want to make them into a seed grown annual where the chances of any particular seed producing a plant with the desirable traits significantly higher than 50%.

Since I can't expect all four traits to show up reliably in any one plant I guess I need to assign a priority of traits:
1- blooms and matures seeds
2- produces quality food grade roots
3- clump root development
4- bushy growth habit

There are of course several other traits to keep in mind like storability, ease of sprouting slips and lots of others but for now I'm mostly gonna focus on just those four starting, except for what few seeds I do sprout, with just clones of my best plants from last year. 

Quote[add] By the university's standards a good one must show up about 1 in a 100,000. Seems like I even read that somewhere. Its a very discouraging statistic, makes one think breeding on a small scale isn't worth the trouble. But it is that standard that makes the difference I guess. For commercial/industrial production it has to withstand planting, tending, harvesting, washing, sorting, shipping by machines. If it also tastes good that's a bonus I guess but not really necessary and not at all necessary for it to make seeds.

While the 1 in 100,000 statistic is true of Solanum potatoes, I strongly suspect that is not true of Sweet Potatoes.  If you watch the video with Craig Yencho talking about his program, he gives much lower statistics from what can recall.

They are just looking at many more traits than we might, including things like how easy is it to harvest mechanically with machines,  and how uniform the tuber placement is.  Commercial Solanum potatoes are bred and evaluated on more then 30 traits.  I find a much higher percentage of potatoes from true seed that I find useful and worth regrowing.  Even if it is in the 2-5% ballpark, that is much higher, and sometimes as high as 80% of tubers from seed will produce offspring worth evaluating. 

Hey Reed.
Great to hear how your project is progressing. I have my first big in ground trial of seedlings from your line progressing nicely. I will dig in a month or two (I am guessing 6 months to maturity is about ideal?) and then clone the ones with the best roots. Interestingly despite flowering heavily here there is no evidence of natural seed set, which is weird since our wild Ipomoea are covered in carpenter bees. Maybe they haven't noticed the sweet potato patch yet. I will do hand pollination next season once I have weeded out any clones with substandard roots first. I am seeing nice compactness in the plants above ground so far as well in many of the seedlings- a really lovely trait that makes managing the crop much easier. Thanks again for doing the speculative work way back at the beginning to restore fertility to this important crop.

Yea, the 1 in a 100,000 thing is just goofy, even in the very early stages when they were only a generation or two removed from the rootless ornamentals a nicely rooted one was never less that 1 in 10. Of course that is based mostly on root size, not other factors like flavor or growth type.

The university select for all kinds of things that are beyond my ability even if I wanted to. I think they measure sugar content, select for disease and insect resistance, lots of stuff that could only be done with very large scale grow outs, testing and recording. They even breed for specific color after being fried like French fries or chips. For a home gardener like me all those things are certainly important but I think being able to sustain ongoing crops without need of preserving live plants in the off season override it all. Once you get the seedy ones you get lots of seeds and your next year is insured no matter what happens to your saved roots or houseplants. Not to mention since the greens are also food there is in a sense no such thing as a bad sweet potato.

S. Simonsen, I would never have believed that insects had to learn to like a particular flower but it might be true. In the first years I had flowers on mine pretty much nobody was interested in them. The bumblebees caught on first and sweet potatoes are now about the first flowers they visit each morning. In last couple years a lot of smaller bees and even hummingbirds have joined the party. Still though I have never seen a honeybee on a sweet potato flower.
Hope not, but it is also possible yours are not self or cross compatible. That's another little issue that I'm afraid could be a problem in future generations.

I tried to overwinter 6 plants--none of them lived. I had roots from those same six plants--none survived. So what I have is the leftovers from the minuscule "harvest" last year, plus seedlings. Working on slips right now from the remaining roots, but I didn't keep track of which was which so recordkeeping is right out the window.

The interesting thing, though. I decided to plant all the original seeds, maybe 30 left. I like breeding longevity into my seeds (i.e., supporting the existing longevity) so I'll plant last year's seeds next spring.

Anyway, I decided that the most important right now is the ability to germinate without nicking the seed. So I had the bag with the seeds on a heat mat and picked out the seedlings as they sprouted. After about a month of this nothing else was sprouting or even looked close so I dumped what was left in a pot out in the unheated greenhouse. Six came up. There might have been more, but I accidentally dumped dirt on them so who knows?

After all that careful planting, tending, blah, blah, blah, they started sprouting after I put them out in the cold.

Your cold tolerance may already be there, and the seeds that are cold tolerant just weren't sprouting because the conditions weren't right.

They are a little weird in how they sprout, I still don't know exactly what conditions are best but they commonly volunteer now and those I sprouted directly in the ground last year did great. Some sprout in a couple of days, some months later.

Most of those I'm cloning this year were from those direct seeded so I hope to really reinforce the easy sprouting trait in this years seeds. I discarded most that were sprouted in the cold frame last year in favor of the direct planted ones. I feel kind of bad discarding seedlings, or plants after just one season but just don't have room for too many.

I have never saved this many for cloning before, 25, and am noticing a significant difference in how easily they produce slips. I think that is a good trait too so have discarded 5 that are showing no sign of making slips. An easy choice because they were also my least favorite of the group. So down to 20 now, easier for me to manage. All good seeders and all good quality roots but they don't all have my preferred clump root and bushy growth traits.

I'm thinking if all goes well the seeds produced this year will be an elite line where chances of all the good traits are greatly increased. Then maybe next year I'll start some of the older seed and find some more with the clump root and bushy habit to cross in future seasons with the elite line.

Also growing in much better soil conditions this year to get an idea of actual production from the various ones. I have three or four that assuming they produce good roots in quantity as well as seeds I may keep cloning them for a while longer, maybe even give them names.

*That one little one that is the best flavor I've ever tasted and all of whose larger specimens were accidentally eaten has not sprouted slips. Bummer, but it also has not rotted so there is still a chance it won't be lost.   

Maybe something to consider, Reed: We almost discarded one of our garlic varieties because it is so slow to come up in the spring, and makes smaller heads. But then we realized that it is the last garlic to sprout in storage, staying good right into June. So now we grow smaller amounts and save it for last. So it might be possible that the slow to slip ones may also be the best to store.

I wasn't going to bring that little issue up but is has occurred to me that you wouldn't want them sprouting too soon and several did have little nubs that took off as soon as I applied water and light, one already had several sprouts about 1/2 inch or so. Similar ones in the food store bin don't seem to be degraded even though they have the little nubs.

Still, probably best not to go too overboard in encouraging that trait but I imagine there is a happy medium in there somewhere. Another thing is some have lots of sprouts and some only a couple. The more the better I think but only at the appropriate time. Some seem to sprout mostly at the end that had been, what I guess you would call the top and some have them all over.

They are just so crazy variable in pretty much all aspects. I figure you'd have to grow out about a 1000 of them to get enough meaningful data to really start figuring it all out.

One of the things I'm most interested in next is to start putting together the compatibility puzzle. I already know if one is self compatible then pretty much all flowers are pollinated. If not self compatible then flowers close to another one are all pollinated but only some on branches farther away are. It might not be hard to isolate some that are self compatible.

Here are my suspected possibilities on compatibility:
1) Self compatible
2) Self compatible & compatible with any other
3) Not self compatible but compatible with any other
4) Self compatible and compatible with just some other(s)
5 )Not self compatible but compatible with just some other(s)
6) Any of the above but only in one direction or the other
7) Not compatible at all
8) And probably more I haven't thought of

For now, if I go to the effort, it will be just to try to identify some self compatible ones.

Sounds like this project is really making progress. Can't wait till I can grow seeds from your labors.

I've been lazy on posting about my sweet potatoes but they are planted and growing. Get them in a little later than usual but that's fine. Part of the overall goal is short season maturity and eliminating need for indoor starting or artificial heat so waiting till it warms up good is part of it.

I trimmed them down to just 12 out of those I had saved to clone and have 15 large tubs each with three plants and each tub with a single type. I have them labeled to match the pictures I took when I put them in the cold frame to start the slips. I'll be able if I want to to keep seed of each one separately instead of just all mixed up as I have most often done. 

Starting them to slip in full sun in the cold frame worked great but I discovered something. Those with larger vines sprouted slips that grew up three or four inches and were easy to pull off individually. My preferred bush types sprouted bushy slips. They were only a couple inches tall and all clumped together. They were hard to separate into individual plants. I had to add a step of cutting them apart and rooting them individually. I used some cell packs full of sand set in trays of water to do that and it worked fine. A healthy stem with a nice growth tip sprouts roots literally overnight even if it is only an inch or so long.

I couldn't stand not planting any seeds so I prepped a little spot about two feet wide by ten feet long and scattered 100 seeds. That was less than a week ago and about forty of them have sprouted. It has been very hot and wet the whole time so I guess that is why so many sprouted so fast. Yesterday I also discovered a bunch of volunteers in about the same stage as those I planted. I don't know what to do with them all but I guess I'll try to scrounge up enough soil mix to fill some of the smaller pots and plant as many as I can. Also I'll just leave some in the ground where the sprouted.

That one small one with the yellow flesh has still not sprouted slips but some little purple bumps have formed so I think it might. It is the one that I accidentally ate all of the larger roots from and the one I most wanted to clone. I have a large pot saved for it and think that it can sprout slips before the first of July there will still be time to grow it out. When I put them to slip I set one side in sand and keep it wet. After pulling the others out that one ended up in a depression in the sand and was fully submerged in water for a few days by the rain. Now I wonder, if I had more fully submerged it earlier might it have sprouted sooner? Or is it because it is hotter now? Or was it just stubborn? Who the heck knows? Anyway I had pretty much given up on it but now it may be saved after all. I sure hope so as it may be the most delicious sweet potato I ever tasted.

I'm just going to plug along this year, hopefully producing a bunch of seeds from these clones. They represent the best of the best and should make a generation of seed where the chances of any particular seed producing a good plant is greatly increased.

Next year I will have to figure out what to do with those seeds and with all the older ones I have archived. I envision two large inground trials. One for this years seed and one for the older seeds.  To do them justice each will have to be a minimum of 500 sq feet, preferably 1000. Big enough to plant enough seed and allowing for low germination to end up with 100 plants in each patch and let them mature in place. Even at a 1000 sq feet each they might still be crowded but I've found they can reveal a lot about themselves even when crowded and I could cull any non-bloomers and giant vined ones along the way. Then of course there will have to be a third patch for clones as well.






 

Sounds awesome! Keep up the good work!

Thought I would post a couple of pictures. The first one shows the difference on how a bushy one sprouts slips compared to one with longer vines.

The second one is of two of my most favored roots. Well, most favored as far as production went last year and in the case of the orange ones in flavor. I had actually not intended to keep either of these because they are not bushy but they were both very productive of somewhat spherical shaped roots and the orange one like I said is quite tasty.

The white one is also good but it isn't sweet so it isn't what I really think of as a sweet potato. It is quite good however used more like a potato, fried with onions or something like that.

Unfortunately that little very sweet yellow one decided to rot  :'(, o'well the genetics that made it are no doubt in some of the other seeds so I can look forward to something like it showing up again sometime. If it's true that every one is genetically unique I guess it is gone for good but I'm counting on that others as good will show up.

That bushy slipped one in the picture is also very, very good and I planted a whole bunch of slips from it in the ground next to the others and also devoted one large tub to it. It also has the clump root trait as do some of the others. Will be fun in 2022 to see what comes form the 2021 seeds.

It's too wet right now to get a picture of all those seedlings nor can I explain why there are so many since some of the seeds were older. Not that germination decreases with age I don't think but because they are from older generations before much selection for easy sprouting. I guess it's cause it has been so hot an wet here.

Anyway here are the pictures. O' almost forgot, those two roots are still perfectly firm and still taste fine even after producing lots of slips. I don't recall however the others from the orange one having that whiteish coloration before.

Loos like one of the pictures uploaded twice, don't know what's up with that.

Unfortunately I lack photo upload ability right now but thought I would post a little update anyway. With just one or two exceptions all the plants are currently getting ready to flower.

One new seedling looks to be a new super bloomer type. It is only about 6 inches tall and has more flower buds than leaves, makes me wonder if the blooming thing can go a little too far. Also seems to be a super bush type as well, just a little round clump of small leaves and bloom stems with many tightly spaced buds on each one. If it makes anything good in the root department it might be a treasure assuming it doesn't just bloom itself to death.

Over in the cowpea patch three volunteer seedlings are growing nicely. There haven't been sweet potatoes grown in that area for three years so the seeds must have laid dormant all that time. Not sure how to handle any seed that comes from these plants, might they be carrying a difficult to sprout trait? I've worked so hard to make them easier to sprout, should I even let their pollen cross back into the others? They are clear on the other side of the garden where there shouldn't be too much crossing so I think I'll just not worry about it.

Especially with one of them in particular. It has very unique looking leaves, they are green not purple but a much darker shade of green than I'm used to. Usually only the purple ones are that dark and they have much skinnier lobes on the leaves than I've ever seen, except on some I saw in a flower pot on campus of Indiana University but those were purple.

I'm thinking of dividing this project into two separate lines, one ornamental even though you could still eat the greens and one food quality. The difference being that the ornamental do not make large storage roots. That skinny leave one and this new super bloomer one might be a good place to start with the ornamental line. I've already let lots of other nice ornamentals go extinct, favoring the food ones but I have lots of old seed that I am sure would produce new ones. It's harder to keep ornamentals to clone cause you have to keep a growing plant alive through winter where you can just stick a root in a drawer and get it out the next spring.

Looking at all the bloom buds on the main food quality patch I'm pretty confident I'll get nice harvest of elite seed from them. This patch is cloned form last years best of the best and being grown much less crowded and in much better soil. I wondered if such conditions would decrease flowering but apparently not. I hope to get a nice harvest from each one, enough to allow for lots of testing in different ways in the kitchen and select down to less than ten to keep cloning.

Quote from: reed on 2021-06-08, 04:52:39 AM
I couldn't stand not planting any seeds so I prepped a little spot about two feet wide by ten feet long and scattered 100 seeds. That was less than a week ago and about forty of them have sprouted.

Thats really good germination. Were they all strong seedlings?

Yep, pretty much all of them were nice seedlings. I didn't have room so only found spots for about a dozen of them and just in time too because a rabbit got in and chomped most of the rest. I think there 8 or 10 still growing where they sprouted. I was gonna use that spot for something else but I guess they can have it at this point. Some of them are long vine types and don't show much inclination to bloom, I may cull them out so the more bushy ones can have the spot.

That one volunteer that is blooming so much is still mostly just blooming. It's leaves are sparse and small. It's a weird looking thing, hope to get back to taking pictures soon. Better be soon cause I don't see how a plant can live very long if pretty much all it has is flowers.

Haven't updated for awhile so thought I'd post a little something. Starting to get a few seeds now, end of July, first of August. That's about in line with last few years. The seeds are harder to find than usual and some I'm sure have already been lost. Planting in better soil and less crowded has resulted in much more massive vines than I'm used to so vines and even the leaves are bigger. Although the plants are less crowded at the base they are even more overgrown than usual. I'll just keep collecting the easy to find seeds and then later on when more are maturing all at once I'll cut off a lot of the leaves to find them.

The biggest plants are those that I grew from clones but the seed started ones that were transplanted to pots are pretty big too even though they got smaller pots and lower quality soil. Most of them are are also making seeds as are about 1/2 of the ones that were just left in the ground.

Volunteers are all over the place, under tomatoes, in the cowpea patch, all over the place and although they are much smaller many of them are also blooming.  Some of these had to have laid dormant as seeds for a long time because they are just too widely scattered to be from last year's patch or even the year before.

Hope to have resolved my photo taking issue pretty soon.

O' one more thing, probably about 90% are the short vine or even the bushy variety which I prefer, yea! The biggest vines are one that was cloned from last year, it has rather spherical white / white roots. Some of those cloned this spring will probably be cloned again next year but white isn't our favorite as far as flavor so it might be dropped.

I finally got my first in-ground trial of the seedy sweet potato line completed. I grew about 14 seedlings out, kept in pots for safe keeping, and planted out slips into a bed. I improved the texture of our cracking clay by digging biochar into a one spade wide/deep channel where the slips were planted. They were top dressed with a little goat and chicken manure. We had a strangely cool/wet summer as they grew. I harvested the roots after a little over 6 months growing.

During the growing season I was impressed at the diversity and compactness of the top growth. Flowering started at around 3-4 months, and I managed to collect a small amount of seed but a lot of it wasn't well formed (still soft inside a dried capsule). It seemed to take our local pollinators a while to figure out the patch. The cold summer might have contributed to slow seed formation. One clone with huge orange roots that pushed out of the soil didnt flower. I took slips from each clone to pot up again. The original pots got hit by rats as they tubered up.

When I dug all the roots I was again impressed, overall. Some varieties had very small roots, some rotted, some split, some divided into chains of tubers. But about 1/3 of the varieties had large, smooth roots produced in clusters of 4-8 right at the base of the plant. The varieties with a slightly rough skin seemed to hold up to our bandicoots, which had been digging up our high cyanide cassava tubers for months before moving onto the sweet potato. I am hopeful there may be some potential to breed at least moderate bandicoot resistance into my sweet potato line. I plan to grow at least twice as much in field trials next year, one bed with each clone for pollination/diversity, and another bed or two with only the best quality tuber clones for production (and seed formation, using the pollen from the other clones if needed). Once I have a healthier size seed stock in long term storage I will try only growing the handful of best clones along with their outcrossed seeds to start improving average tuber quality. A hotter summer might help seed set, or simply turning over a few generations.

All in all I am very happy. I had nearly given up on sweet potato. I did see a tiny touch of tuber weevil in some of them, but being able to eliminate all the vines every year and restart from seed gives me hope I can come up with ways to manage this serious pest. Big thanks to Reed and the others that started and shared this project.

Going forward I am curious to see if I can turn sweet potato into an annual starch crop. Grafting seedlings temporarily with more toxic/pest resistant members of the family might be a way to transfer some microbiome that makes them less palatable as whole tubers. That would work for me as I want a root crop I can grind up and store long term as starch, like arrowroot, cassava and typha.

I had a couple show up last year with very rough skin, I almost culled them but they were such good seeders I decided to clone them this spring but I only planted one of each. Just couldn't bring myself to discard that super seedy genetics. One is orange and very sweet but they about have to be peeled before cooking cause the skin is so rough it's about impossible to get them clean otherwise. The other is white and not sweet at all.

I don't know much about growing for starch, I'm guessing for that, you do not what them to be sweet? My preference is the opposite of that and find the orange and especially the yellow ones are the sweetest. There is a variety here called O'Henry that is white and described as sweet but none of the white ones I've encountered were sweet. I've never grown O'Henry.

Colour and sweetness might correlate in terms of sugar/starch, but I have read the beta-carotene in vegetables gives them a pleasant taste as well. That rough skinned super seedy form sounds amazing- any chance I can get some seeds from it? It is amazing how seemingly minor and possible negative traits in one situation can turn out to be the key for success in a different location.

I may be able to spare a few seeds from that plant as although completely out of character for me, I have actual tags on each one and individual marked envelopes to collect the different seeds in. Of course the pollen parent will be unknown. Remind me around the end of October.

I'm pretty sure I'll get bored with trying to keep them all separate but thought it might be fun to have at least some this year where I know who the mother plant is.

Still no pictures unfortunately but thought I'd post another update. I've wondered for some time if there is a way when to know what kind of roots a plant will make without having to wait all the way to normal harvest time. I already know that sweet potatoes are about as forgiving of root disturbance and transplant as anything could be.

So several days ago I dug up all all of those that I had started by direct seeding and that not transplanted into pots as seedlings. I also went around the garden and found all the volunteers and dug them up too. Any that had not bloomed and showed no sign of it were just left alone cause I don't care about them, I'll dig them at regular time for eating, assuming the have nice roots.

Anyway I made a wonderful discovery, it is very possible to just dig them up, check for good roots and replant. It may set them back as far as ultimate harvest but at least it makes it possible cull non rooters at a much earlier stage. And some of the volunteers were quite recent and still very small but even they, or at least some of them were already starting to make storage roots. Now I'm thinking it is possible to plant more seeds than I generally do and screen them in this manner fairly fairly in the season.

Like I said they may be set back on ultimate harvest but even if they don't make storable roots that can be cloned the next year(I actually think they will) I will still have a better line of seeds.

I also have come to the believe that the "bushy" and "clump root" traits that I like are not just related but maybe the result of the same genetic makeup. That makes sense I think, because it seems logical that a counterpart to the short internodes of the leaves could in the roots. All the ones I replanted, 7 of them all together, are bushy, clump root and currently maturing seed. I discarded the stringy rooted ones even if they were bushy and seedy.

On the down side, while the bushy and clump root traits seem to be linked, the stringy vs clump root trait is independent of that.  In fact some of the most bushy and seedy are of the stringy root type but still compact in the area they occupy. Color of the leaves and roots also, seems to be completely unrelated. 

I have also wondered about screening for self fertility but couldn't figure an easy way to do till now, I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes. When I bring in cutting in the fall to finish maturing seed sometimes they even keep on blooming. Finally occurred to me all I have to do is take some cuttings now from plants currently blooming and simply hand pollinate them.

Could also do controlled crossings between different ones to see who is compatible with whom. That would be a good test of my theory that some plants are compatible with just particular others but not all others and perhaps in only one direction or the other.   

Interesting update. Thanks for sharing. There really is so much involved in getting a handle on the behavior and breeding options for not even a single species but a particular population within it. My number of seedlings and clones is still too low to be culling ruthlessly just yet, at least until I can reliably produce large amounts of seed. If you have superior genetics spare later from your more extensive trials that could be a great way to leapfrog my breeding efforts forward. I suspect traits that allow good seed production under your conditions might be slightly different under mine, hence I am reluctant to get rid of any fertile seedy genetics at the moment, even if the roots are not great. Hopefully I can work my way out of this situation to consistently better roots without compromising on fertility.

Still no pictures to post. I've got lots but when my old computer died it took my image software with it and I haven't found a good "cheap" replacement yet. I have metered internet connection and like to reduce file size to kilobytes instead of megabytes that come straight from the camera or phone. My new cell phone works but it is a $39 model. Camera is great but no editing software included and all the so called "apps" come with still more accounts, passwords, advertising and all that crap.

Anyway sweet potato seed harvest is reaching it's peak right now. Getting plenty but I do think maybe a few less than I'm used to. I'm growing less crowded and in better soil than ever before so maybe it is the case that more stressed plants make more seeds. That's OK as like I said, I'm still getting plenty and it also shows that stressing plants isn't necessary. At least not for those that are happy to make seeds anyway, maybe for those that are reluctant to bloom but I just cull them.

Doubt this really means anything, at least not that I will ever identify but I've found two capsules this year that had five seeds. I've seen one, two, three and in the case of a perfect capsule, four but this is the first time I've seen five.

Makes ya wonder if you could select for 5 seed capsules??

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2021-09-05, 11:12:54 PM
Makes ya wonder if you could select for 5 seed capsules??

Maybe could but way more trouble than it's worth I think. It's just one of those weird little things that shows up once in a while I reckon.

I went ahead and harvested most of my sweet potatoes. Still haven't figured out how I want to edit and post my pictures since losing my old computer and the software I had on it. I got lots and will figure it out eventually.

Any way in the mean time I got a couple of things to post. First, there has always been a question and speculation on how to make sweet potatoes bloom more and make more seeds. I'm pretty convinced now that stress will do that at least to some degree.

I planted most of them this year in less crowded conditions and with a better soil mix. While they still bloomed and made seeds there was a noticeable difference between them and those planted in poor conditions. After I planted mine the woman here, for reasons unexplained, planted some of the left over slips in the ground outside the fence. That ground was not well prepared or amended and also subject to repeated rabbit attack. I eventually got around to putting up some electric fence and those plants started blooming in the extreme. All cloned from the same roots as in the pots those few plants, with little stunted, rabbit chewed vines made probably 25% of the total seeds. It isn't necessary as those in better conditions made plenty of seed but good to know in the event you have one not prone to blooming and you want to force it to. I haven't dug those plants yet so will be interesting to see how they compare in root production.

The other thing is I've had my most dramatic example of mutation so far. Plant 20-pW-sV-sC came up from a seed last year. It made somewhat spherical roots with pink skin and white flesh and was not very sweet. It was also had a little larger vines than I like but I cloned it this year for backcrossing. One of those clones made much lighter colored and much more elongated roots. Flesh is a bit more yellowish and sweeter than the others as well.

I taste them all as soon as I harvest to compare how the flavor changes or improves after curing. I've never paid much attention to proper curing before but one reason I went ahead and harvested was to allow for some warmer weather for curing. I have them in black pots in one of my cold frames, vented during the day and closed at night just like when starting spring plants. Will be interesting to see if and how flavor is effected.

I only had one of the new 21 sprouts that made all the criteria for cloning next year. It has orange/orange roots, is nicely bushy and made lots of seeds. Overall I did not have as much fun growing mostly clones as when I grew just seeds so I'm going to be very selective on what gets cloned next year. I want to get it down to not more than five to clone and I want to plant about 500 seeds next year. And I'm going back to smaller pots, they don't seem to need the bigger pots for production anyway and it is much easier to dump them out. Plus I can grow lot more that way.

So far I have just three that I'm for sure going to clone. Two from 2020 seedlings and that one from this year. One of the 2020, plant (20-PO-sB-C) has lovely purple/orange roots that grow in a nice clump and are distinctly sweet before cure. I grew bunch of them this year so we'll have plenty to eat this winter.

Sounds like you had a good season Mark

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2021-09-27, 01:15:20 PM
Sounds like you had a good season Mark

Yea, pretty good. Got plenty of seed and more than enough nice roots to eat a couple times a week all year. I guess I'll give some away or maybe try to find some new recipes to use them in. Which reminds me, cleaning out the potato onion bin the other day I found some from last year that were still just fine so they really do keep from one harvest to the next.

Another thing I noticed. I've read where some people plant a whole root instead of making slips. I threw the roots that I made slips from in the compost this spring and they went on growing there. The other day I was hauling out some compost and found those original roots. They made some nice new roots but mostly the old ones just got bigger.

Also went ahead and dug the ones the rabbits chomped on. They mostly chomped the leaves and where the bare stems touched the ground they just rooted down again. They didn't make any of decent size, just lots of little ones.

After years of waiting. Some flowers on my sweetpotatoes. Now I need a second one...

It's a start! Not likely but it could also be self compatible. The anthers are generally located down low in the flower so even if is a self compatible situation you'd need to use a tooth pick or something to bring it up to the stigma, unless the bees do it for you.

Here, weather depending, the flowers only stay open for a few hours in the morning so it also needs to be done right away. They can last into the afternoon on a cloudy or cooler day but may not be receptive that whole time. I think one reason I've had such good luck with them is because the bumblebees arrive first thing in the mornings and seem to go for them first.

Maybe that's my problem, the bumblebees around here seem to prefer other flowers more so like poppies and runner beans

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2021-09-29, 01:09:59 PM
Maybe that's my problem, the bumblebees around here seem to prefer other flowers more so like poppies and runner beans

Well I reckon your gonna have to give em a talkin to about that. The first couple years I had a lot of blooms they didn't seem all that interested here either. I think it was Joseph who suggested they might need to learn about a new flower. I was skeptical abut that but maybe it's so cause now they love them. At fist too, they were about the only things but now smaller bees and couple different kinds of butterflies like them too. I think the big fat bumblebees are the best though cause some of the little bees and a butterfly tongue can get to the pollen and back out with even touching the stigma.

I'm yet to see a honey bee on a sweet potato flower but then we don't have near as many of them as we used too. 

Training them to prefer some flowers over others,?? ok, wonder how big a whip I'm guna need for that

Yes those big ol Bumble bees attack the flowers pre opening (pre dawn?), ripping them to shreds to get at the goodies inside.
Here, we do have plenty of honey bees that also do their business, I posted a few pics last year of honey bees coming out of SP flowers covered in pollen
Reckon ants, midges, gnats, snatch flys etc all do their bit too.

Haven't had any sweet potato news for a good bit, wrong time of the year for it. Spring is about here though so last evening I got out and inspected those I had saved for possible cloning this year. I'm thinking now I will only be cloning from four different saved roots. Three of them have reddish/purple skin and one has white. The white one is also white inside the others are orange. Two have regular leaves and two have the ivy leaf type.

To reduce chances that I'll change my mind I removed the tags from all the rest and put them in the bin to eat. I think I will grow just one big tube of each, close enough together for the vines and flowers to comingle, thus encouraging crossing by the bees. I even thought of growing just one, the best of the best but then I remembered the non-self-compatible nature of some sweet potatoes and decided for insurance I better keep a variety.

Anyway, that frees up the rest of my big tubs. I also have about 100 smaller pots and I'm thinking I'll make a five x fifty-foot row for inground planting. I'm going to plant around 1000 seeds mostly direct sown in the tubs, pots and ground. 

It's time to get back to the original purpose of turning them into a seed grown annual instead of saving and cloning. I hope with planting 1000 seeds it will be enough to:
1- Find at least 200 that sprout quickly and easily, although I expect there may be more than that.
2- Out of those hoped for 200, find 50 that meet all or at least most of the preferred traits. Seedy, bushy, clump root, sweet.

Even if I end up with just 25 that meet the criteria hopefully, I'll also end up with lots more fresh seeds.

At that point, with the 25 plants worthy of cloning the following year and the seeds this project will officially exceed my ability to continue by myself.

Sounds like a fun season coming up for you mate.  I have some seed raised tubers in pots that I have to get the slips into the ground from then work covers over to keep them going over winter, not the best situation but they were late getting here from Qld, so making the best of the situation I can.  Just need one or two plants of each to survive and I will be away.

Quote from: whwoz on 2022-04-19, 04:15:42 AM
Sounds like a fun season coming up for you mate.  I have some seed raised tubers in pots that I have to get the slips into the ground from then work covers over to keep them going over winter, not the best situation but they were late getting here from Qld, so making the best of the situation I can.  Just need one or two plants of each to survive and I will be away.

Cuttings are very easy to keep as house plants. In your case I guess a nice north window would do the trick. If your inside conditions are better than mine, as in warmer and brighter they could get a bit overgrown by spring. No problem, you can just clip them into pieces and start more or you could use the extra growth as greens.

Something a lot of folks don't realize about them, at least in my experience is that they are extremely easy to start and when transplanting a stem section with very little root growth actually takes off and produces better than one with an established root system. When I plant out my slips, I cut off most or even all of the roots and let the plant start over.

Thanks Reed, keeping some as cuttings either inside or out on the deck in a mini greenhouse is what I intend to do, but there are more slips than I really want to carry over that way, so will plant surplus in soil under plastic.  Can do peppers that way easily here, so will see how they go. Not worried about production now, only that I get a couple to survive.

Sweet potato season is getting underway here, it seems late but that's just because it's been very hot. Slips have been removed from last year's storage roots and are developing new roots of their own right now. I fill cell packs with sand and stick a slip in each one and set it in a tray of water. They were outside in full sun as they developed so no need for a transition as far as that goes. I'll be putting in several each from the best of last year's plants and a couple from the year before.

This project has reached the point where turning sweet potatoes into a seed grown annual is now relatively easy and reliable. It's OK to celebrate that I reckon but as it turns out it may have been the easy part. That random discovery several years ago and a lot of bumblebee activity provided for that. I helped out by planting the seeds but beyond that they and the bees just did it themselves.

Still so many unknowns and so many experiments to conduct in effort to find out other things. The question of compatibility for example. I know some are self-compatible while most are not. I also very strongly suspect that one may be compatible with one or more other one(s) but not necessarily with just any other.  I'll probably never really figure that out but I think it is important. That's because for example, if I sold or gifted say, ten seeds and due to still low germination only two sprouted, would those two be enough to insure compatibility?  At this point I just don't know. Apparently in a patch of at least 25, or sometimes a lot more any that can make seeds finds a pollinator.

Anyway, there will still be lots more questions for a long time but for now I'm going to establish a germination rate. I already know it is increasing in later generations from seed to seed and from others I have shared seed with, I know it can be as high as 90% or so using controlled conditions like in a greenhouse with consistent high temperatures but I don't use controlled conditions.

This year I didn't even use the cold frame but instead have planted around 1000 seeds directly in the ground. I don't know if it is really a 1000 seeds because I got tired of counting sweet potato seeds. I just planted two seed beds, each about 4 x 10 feet with rows about four inches apart and the seeds thickly in each row. They transplant very easily so I am not worried about separating those that come up on top of each other but having the 4 inches between will make it easier. They were planted on our official last frost date of May 15. It had been very dry in the three weeks before but it rained a little bit on the 17th. On the 19th, 22 seeds had sprouted. So, 0.2% germination within four days. It rained a lot more last night, the 19th/20th and is projected to be in the 90s F today, the 20th and for the next couple of days. I know they like it pretty warm to sprout so it will be interesting over the next few days to see how many more pop up.

I have a total of 18 of the large tubs now but half of them are reserved for the slips cloned from the previous year's plants. I think I can put as many as five seedlings in each one of the rest and they will do fine so that's (45). I also have about 30 large pots that will hold two each (60) and about 50 pots big enough for one (50). That adds up to room for around 150 but with the very warm weather I expect more than that may sprout. I have a great big pile of partially composted wood chips mixed up with other compost and regular soil to fill the pots as needed.

I don't know what I will do if more than anticipated end up sprouting. If just 20%  end up sprouting, let alone 30% or 40% I'll be in a pickle.  I really want to make some good progress with my sweet potatoes this year so if a lot sprout, I may rip out something else to make room for an inground patch. I also have a couple hundred small 1 gallon pots. That certainly is too small but I wonder if I might be able to use them anyway, possibly to determine those that have the clump root trait that I like. If a plant managed to make even a small storage root inside a 1 gallon pot it might indicate that trait.

However it works out I hope to first recoup the investment of seeds. I expect that will be doable, assuming of course I am there to spend the time, at the appropriate time to collect them. If I'm lucky I might also find a bunch of new ones that exhibit all or most of the traits I favor which I can save and clone next year.

On an aside, the woman here by trickery, because she didn't know what she was eating, has come to realize that some of mine taste better than her previous favorite, an heirloom called Puerto Rico. I'm so glad of that because Puerto Rico has never bloomed for me and I'm tired of wasting space on it.

Quote from: reed on 2022-05-20, 07:51:14 AM
This project has reached the point where turning sweet potatoes into a seed grown annual is now relatively easy and reliable. It's OK to celebrate that I reckon but as it turns out it may have been the easy part. That random discovery several years ago and a lot of bumblebee activity provided for that. I helped out by planting the seeds but beyond that they and the bees just did it themselves.

I also very strongly suspect that one may be compatible with one or more other one(s) but not necessarily with just any other.  I'll probably never really figure that out but I think it is important. That's because for example, if I sold or gifted say, ten seeds and due to still low germination only two sprouted, would those two be enough to insure compatibility?  At this point I just don't know. Apparently in a patch of at least 25, or sometimes a lot more any that can make seeds finds a pollinator.

Anyway, there will still be lots more questions for a long time but for now I'm going to establish a germination rate. I already know it is increasing in later generations from seed to seed and from others I have shared seed with, I know it can be as high as 90% or so using controlled conditions like in a greenhouse with consistent high temperatures but I don't use controlled conditions.

Woo Hoo! Congrats! I've been patiently waiting for this to inch closer and closer to getting some seeds. Heck at this point I would even buy seeds from you.

Sounds like this may be somewhat similar to tomatillos or Joseph's self incompatible tomato project. Good to know that we might need more than 10 seeds. Perhaps a standard seed sharing size should be more like 40-60? A minimum of 30?

From what bill was saying on his blog about regular TPS that he has found a higher success rate by very shallowly planting the seeds and even using plastic wrap to make a mini "greenhouse". Do you think something like that could help? Can't find his experiment page with plastic wrap.

https://www.cultivariable.com/instructions/potatoes/how-to-grow-true-potato-seeds-tps/

I think about any method of increasing the temp would work to enhance germination, I just choose not to do any of them other than waiting for warm weather. I have plenty of growing season so no real need for getting them started early, plus I want to select for those that sprout easier on their own.

Sweet potatoes have other issues concerning germination, but I don't do anything about that either.  I don't nick the seed or soak it in acid, I just want them to do it themselves. A lot of the seed I planted were from older generations that lack any adaptation for easy sprouting. I suspect I have just sacrificed several hundred seeds, but I guess that is just the price I have to pay to find some that may have a genetic predisposition for easier sprouting.

From what I've seen, as long as I don't bury that spot in deep mulch or something they will keep sprouting for months, even for two or three years. I just wanted the ones that sprout in the first couple of weeks or so but I'm up to about 50 now. I did not expect this many so quickly, it's just the 6th day and I'm up to about 50. Actually, any that sprout before July will have time to make usable sized roots.

Sweet potatoes have very little in common with potatoes. I found TPS to be pretty easy to sprout, both in trays and direct planted but in three years all I got was three seed berries and a total of maybe a quart of marble sized potatoes. In my climate I think there is little chance that potatoes could be a seed grown annual, in that you actually get something to eat from them in the first year. You have to save the little tuber and grow it the next year. Sweet potatoes can make a harvest from seed just as good or even better than from clones.

I don't think that in a sense, sweet potatoes don't actually mature. In their native climate they are perennial, and I guess the roots just keep getting bigger. When I talk about maturity in 100 days or less, I just mean they make roots big enough to be worth the effort in that time. By selecting for that I think, aside from my own preference for quick maturity they may be more adaptable for people in with shorter seasons.

QuoteI know some are self-compatible while most are not. I also very strongly suspect that one may be compatible with one or more other one(s) but not necessarily with just any other.

Craig Yencho, in a previously linked to youtube video, says there are probably four compatibility groups with sweet potatoes.  Nearly all would be self incompatible, and compatibility from group to group is not guaranteed, except between some specific groups.  Not all groups are compatible with all the other groups.

Quote from: reed on 2022-05-21, 04:21:52 AM
Sweet potatoes have very little in common with potatoes. I found TPS to be pretty easy to sprout, both in trays and direct planted but in three years all I got was three seed berries and a total of maybe a quart of marble sized potatoes. In my climate I think there is little chance that potatoes could be a seed grown annual, in that you actually get something to eat from them in the first year. You have to save the little tuber and grow it the next year. Sweet potatoes can make a harvest from seed just as good or even better than from clones.

I don't think that in a sense, sweet potatoes don't actually mature. In their native climate they are perennial, and I guess the roots just keep getting bigger. When I talk about maturity in 100 days or less, I just mean they make roots big enough to be worth the effort in that time. By selecting for that I think, aside from my own preference for quick maturity they may be more adaptable for people in with shorter seasons.

With TPS potatoes, you nearly always need at least a 150 day growing season after transplanting (after 8 weeks indoors or in a greenhouse), to have a reasonable chance of a harvest that approaches that of tuber grown potatoes.  And many will still not be close.  If you had a 180 day growing season, you would have a pretty safe guarantee that a good percentage might make it.  But if you are directly sowing seeds outdoors, you would likely need 200+ day growing seasons to reach that.  And you need parent varieties that produce a lot of berries to have enough seeds to direct sow outdoors, because only a low percentage would germinate and grow long enough to create viable plants in most climates.

I think a more realistic approach with TPS is using it as a means to create new seed tubers for subsequent years.  Saving the best, healthiest, etc (whatever you want to select for) to use as seed potatoes could easily be done with minimal space required.

Cool. Looking forward to eventually growing TSPS!

Keep up the good work!

50 sounds like a good population size to work with from a genetics standpoint!

Good golly, lots more have sprouted. I'm guessing in the range of about 300, way off the charts of what I expected, and I don't have nearly enough pots for them all. Sweet potatoes are the crown jewel of my plant breeding projects so I guess I'll sacrifice a couple of my corn patches and plant some of them in the ground.  I'll need to build some trellises too cause it's hard on a feller's back, searching for seeds when they are grown in the ground.  I'll also try some in the small 1-gallon pots to see what happens, maybe it will work to identify the clump root plants. Can't tell yet what leaf shape they will have but there is a big range of color in the seed leaves.

One of the "vampires" showed up too. I figured it would die today but it's cloudy and raining so I have time to rescue it just for the heck of it. It makes maybe the 5th one I have seen over the years; they apparently can't make chlorophyl but will grow slowly as long as they are kept in the shade. I grew one for several weeks one time but when I tried to acclimate it to the sun a ten-minute exposure killed it.  I would never allow one of these to bloom. Also, since it looks to be a rainy day, I think I'll practice with my new image software so I can post some pictures.

Nathan,
on the Yencho videos, are you talking about the ones where he discusses his work in Africa, breeding for use as French fries and the variety Covington? I guess I need to watch it again, I don't remember him mentioning the compatibility groups. If there is a non-laboratory way to identify those groups, it would be a giant help to me.

on TPS, I have plenty of season length, but I think too much heat. One year growing TPS my plants were almost as big as the patch grown from tubers, and they were covered with absolutely beautiful flowers. Then one of our hot dry spells came along and all the flowers dried up and fell off. Then the plants themselves started drying up. From a fifty-foot row I got one seed berry and a cup full of little potatoes, the biggest was about the size of a medium sized grape, most were more like peas. I planted those that survived in the refrigerator the next year, but an earlier hot dry spell killed them, so I gave up on potatoes except for buying a few new seed tubers each year. 

QuoteNathan,
on the Yencho videos, are you talking about the ones where he discusses his work in Africa, breeding for use as French fries and the variety Covington? I guess I need to watch it again, I don't remember him mentioning the compatibility groups. If there is a non-laboratory way to identify those groups, it would be a giant help to me.

I believe that was the one.  But now I'm 2ng guessing myself that maybe it was the podcast interview Bill Whitson did with Telsing Andrews. But I don't believe there was information mentioned about what was in any compatibility groups, just that there were four groups with varying amounts of group compatibility.

Quote
on TPS, I have plenty of season length, but I think too much heat. One year growing TPS my plants were almost as big as the patch grown from tubers, and they were covered with absolutely beautiful flowers. Then one of our hot dry spells came along and all the flowers dried up and fell off. Then the plants themselves started drying up. From a fifty-foot row I got one seed berry and a cup full of little potatoes, the biggest was about the size of a medium sized grape, most were more like peas. I planted those that survived in the refrigerator the next year, but an earlier hot dry spell killed them, so I gave up on potatoes except for buying a few new seed tubers each year. 

Potatoes certainly do not like very warm temperatures, nor very warm soil.  Flowering, in particular, seems to be reduced above 80F with nearly all potatoes, and at 90F nearly no potatoes will flower.  But my answer about handling heat and dry spells would be that you were not working with germplasm that can handle it, not that all potatoes cannot.  Rich Machado successfully bred potatoes to handle high soil temperatures in Southern California.  I've seen a number of potatoes weather 6+ weeks of nearly zero rain.  I think that's just a matter of working with the right parents and selecting for potatoes that can handle it.  Probably would mean survival of the fittest with a wide germplasm base to begin, then work with the survivors, if you were inclined to try.  There are a number of Mexican bred, late blight resistant clones, for example, that I bet would do fine.  But expecting good harvests from TPS plants is another matter and perhaps a different set of goals or factors than growing TPS plants to select for seed tubers for the next year.

Quote from: nathanp on 2022-05-22, 06:12:47 PM
... expecting good harvests from TPS plants is another matter and perhaps a different set of goals or factors than growing TPS plants to select for seed tubers for the next year.

Yep, that's exactly it. I want food from seed, eliminating the need to store cloneable material until the next season. With TSPS the university breeders and the few other individuals I know of, in that aspect, are treating them like TPS. That is, just looking for that great one to clone from then on. I have discarded many that at least in my estimation were fine for perpetuating as clones and I have cloned many for a year or two, but just to backcross and reinforce the traits I like in the next generation of seed. I'm doing that again with some nice ones from 2020 and 2021.

I don't intend to ever name and propagate a food quality sweet potato for sale or sharing as a clone. Instead, I want seeds that have been bred and selected to the point I'm confident they will produce quality food in good quantity and more seeds, in 100 days or less.

I'll take listen to that podcast, but I admit I'm skeptical about the compatibility groups. Not necessarily that that they don't exist but that they could possibly be identified, unless maybe in a laboratory. Even with that, considering the massive genetic variation of sweet potatoes and their penchant for random mutation it would be difficult at best.

I found this very interesting video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1vzRPms15E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1vzRPms15E). Especially the first few minutes gives me the idea that maybe I can screen for traits early on, rather than waiting all the way till fall to observe things like color, size and growth habit of the roots. He does early screening in May and plants out the selections in June. I'm a bit behind that in my climate but maybe I could do initial screening in June and plant my selections in July.

If I could do it by early July, there should still be time to grow to more maturity and get seeds. The last part of the video is interesting as well. He doesn't really talk about it, but I notice that all of theirs have the "clump root" trait that I have been chasing. Maybe the early screening along with growing lots in small pots could help me better identify that in time for a larger amount of my seed to carry the trait.

Just a few days till June 1st and I'm in the neighborhood of 400 - 450 seeds sprouted. More than enough to offset the remorse of discarding any that sprout later. I was more careful this year to make evenly deep rows and consistent soil conditions instead of just sowing them sloppily like last year. I figured the uneven treatment might be giving a false image of how quicky they came up. Seems to have worked with each row sprouting evenly instead a cluster here and none there like last year.

When I planted two weeks ago it was hot, high 80s to low 90s and dry. It had been that way for a couple of weeks. When it rained a couple days later, and they started sprouting I never expected to be trialing for cold tolerance. Since that first rain though, it has rained several more times and stayed cloudy and cool a lot. A few clear nights have dipped into the low 50s. I don't know how it was established or by whom but 50 is the commonly accepted lower limit for growth in sweet potatoes. I don't know if the roots keep growing but, in the fall, the vines and seed production doesn't seem effected until the 30s and it takes an actual frost to kill them down. Maybe their growth isn't as fast as might have been, but the seedlings seem fine.

Off to a bit of weird start, will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes. 

Really interesting discussion. I really like the main goal of breeding for fast tuber growth and seeds in one season as opposed to for cloning like was mentioned. I wonder if the same could be bred for in regular potatoes with TPS.

Either way, cool stuff.

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2022-05-27, 04:00:37 PM
Really interesting discussion. I really like the main goal of breeding for fast tuber growth and seeds in one season as opposed to for cloning like was mentioned. I wonder if the same could be bred for in regular potatoes with TPS.

I sure wish someone would do it with TPS and maybe throw in a little more heat and drought tolerance to go along with it. I would definitely trade some TSPS for them.

It was actually pretty easy to do it with sweet potatoes. It was just that at the start, not all of them did it. Back then only maybe 10% - 15% did all four of the necessary things, 1-sprout easily from seed, 2-make big storage roots, 3-bloom a lot and 4-make seeds. That number has improved a lot over time. I think it's well over 50% now, but I would like to see it confidently measured at 90%.

I have transplanted 150 seedlings into medium sized pots where I hope to be able to determine things like whether or not they have the clump root trait and what type of vine growth they have. I may start culling the very large vines fairly early or at least keep them heavily trimmed to keep them form overrunning the place. Also put five seedlings in each of ten large tubs so 200 planted so far. That accounts for about half of the total and I'm running out of pots.

I tagged about 15 to leave where they sprouted, the only ones I'll be able to say were truly direct planted and the seed beds were pretty small so they might be crowded later on, especially if they turn out to be large vine types. 

Already with this amount sprouted I can see that the ones with dark purple cotyledons are about 15% of the total. Lots of other variations though, different shades of green, green with purple or red stems and so on. Can't tell yet except of a very few what the other leaves will look like but the few so far are all the plain non-lobed kind and light to medium green. Maybe 10 out of the bunch had the white, pink or yellow cotyledons. When the cool cloudy days switched to the hot sunny days, they all died. 

Two seedlings have four rather than two cotyledons, three seedlings have three cotyledons. They are all very dark purple and very small. They don't look unhealthy. The stems are just as thick as the others or even thicker, but the leaves and the height are only about a third the size of the rest.  I'm very intrigued by these dark purple "miniatures" and intend to keep a close eye on them.

Your potted TSPS sounds similar to what I'm doing with TPS this year. I've got a pot of many TPS sprouts all growing. I've noticed several are growing much faster and bigger than the rest. I have been trimming them to try and let some of the others catch up. In my case i planted tetraploids and diploids together, so it is possible that the fast large ones are tetraploidy. In any case I will evaluate them by biggest tubers in the first season and see if any are worth attempting to save for next year. If any make TPS in this first year I will also try to save those (assuming they also have tubers). I suppose one should be careful saving TPS from plants that might produce TPS in the first year, but little to no tubers.

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2022-05-31, 12:51:41 PM
Your potted TSPS sounds similar to what I'm doing with TPS this year. I've got a pot of many TPS sprouts all growing. I've noticed several are growing much faster and bigger than the rest. I have been trimming them to try and let some of the others catch up

Sweet potatoes come in so many different phenotypes as far as how large the vines get, long, bushy or semi-bushy. I hope with such a large number of them this year to see if I can learn anything about predicting eventual growth at an early stage so that in later seasons, I'll know which ones to cull early on.  Already, I'm starting to suspect those getting a bit taller and with longer internodes might be the large vine types. I can't cull them though because I won't have any idea of how they are at blooming for a good while longer. I do anticipate keeping them clipped back if they get too out of hand.

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2022-05-31, 12:51:41 PMIn my case i planted tetraploids and diploids together, so it is possible that the fast large ones are tetraploidy.

I don't completely understand ploidy levels, although I did come across it in researching about sweet potatoes. But there are no references or information that I found that would indicate which ones might be which so even if I researched it better, I'd still be mostly in the dark as to how it might be at play in my project. If I remember right, they do vary for it but that it isn't the culprit in their weird compatibility issue. It sounded like that was more related to the physical size and structure of the pollen and the pollen tubes, but I don't remember those issues and ploidy levels being related. It's one of those questions I have little chance of finding an answer to. Fortunately, I don't have to. They grow and bloom and make seeds and roots or they don't, even if I don't understand exactly why.  I do wonder if the ploidy could levels have something to do with the ones with anomalous numbers of cotyledons. 

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2022-05-31, 12:51:41 PMIn any case I will evaluate them by biggest tubers in the first season and see if any are worth attempting to save for next year. If any make TPS in this first year I will also try to save those (assuming they also have tubers). I suppose one should be careful saving TPS from plants that might produce TPS in the first year, but little to no tubers.

In the first years with sweet potatoes I was just happy to get seeds. Less than half back then made good sized storage roots and still not all do. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are such different critters, about the only thing in common is they both grow in the ground. Sweet potatoes are roots rather than tubers although I don't completely understand the difference. Except that if you plant a whole sweet potato or even half of a sweet potato (rather than a slip) it just starts growing again rather than rotting away like a seed potato does. 

QuoteQuote from: Andrew Barney on 2022-05-31, 02:51:41 PM

    In my case i planted tetraploids and diploids together, so it is possible that the fast large ones are tetraploidy.


I don't completely understand ploidy levels, although I did come across it in researching about sweet potatoes. But there are no references or information that I found that would indicate which ones might be which so even if I researched it better, I'd still be mostly in the dark as to how it might be at play in my project. If I remember right, they do vary for it but that it isn't the culprit in their weird compatibility issue. It sounded like that was more related to the physical size and structure of the pollen and the pollen tubes, but I don't remember those issues and ploidy levels being related. It's one of those questions I have little chance of finding an answer to. Fortunately, I don't have to. They grow and bloom and make seeds and roots or they don't, even if I don't understand exactly why.  I do wonder if the ploidy could levels have something to do with the ones with anomalous numbers of cotyledons.

Sweet potatoes are hexaploid and appear to be much more complex because of that, making them very different from other crops, like potatoes, which are largely tetraploid. 

Technically, I believe they would be considered allopolyploids (is that correct)?
I believe some of the problem with the compatibility issues comes from this, meaning parts of the polyploid genome are compatible with some other sweet potatoes, while parts are not compatible.  There would be tetraploid part of the hexaploid genome, and a diploid part, coming most likely from two different species ancestors.  Or something like that.  The genetics got mashed together into the hexaploid genome.  And the tetraploid part is only compatible with some other sweet potatoes' tetraploid genes, while not compatible with others.  Same with the diploid part.  And the diploid and tetraploid parts would not be compatible with each other.  Or something like that.  I'm no geneticist, so I'm sure I'm not 100% accurate with this.

My understanding is that tetraploids and higher ploidy numbers are generally bigger and perhaps faster growing because the growth genes are more or less doubled or more as well. Thus they basically get double the hormones.

This is why tetraploid potatoes are bigger and why modern strawberries are much larger than wild type mountain strawberries.

Quote from: nathanp on 2022-06-02, 05:08:31 PM
Sweet potatoes are hexaploid and appear to be much more complex because of that, making them very different from other crops, like potatoes, which are largely tetraploid. 

Technically, I believe they would be considered allopolyploids (is that correct)?
I believe some of the problem with the compatibility issues comes from this, meaning parts of the polyploid genome are compatible with some other sweet potatoes, while parts are not compatible.  There would be tetraploid part of the hexaploid genome, and a diploid part, coming most likely from two different species ancestors.  Or something like that.  The genetics got mashed together into the hexaploid genome.  And the tetraploid part is only compatible with some other sweet potatoes' tetraploid genes, while not compatible with others.  Same with the diploid part.  And the diploid and tetraploid parts would not be compatible with each other.  Or something like that.  I'm no geneticist, so I'm sure I'm not 100% accurate with this.

I had to look up allopolyploids and I think your guess is probably better than mine as to how it affects compatibility.  I also do remember in my research, coming across them having a two species origin. As I recall they still don't really know what two species were involved. They also don't know when, but believe that it happened pretty recently, maybe just several thousand years ago, probably in south or central America.

I also remember something about them being naturally transgenic, having picked up a bit of genetic material from an unrelated species and that was even more recent, just a few thousand years ago. I don't remember that being implicated in the compatibility issues nor their habit of spontaneous mutation, but it might have something to do with the sugars they make and store in the roots.

Mutation in clones is most common in the first few years after a new one germinates.  They can revert back to the phenotype of one of the parents, usually the mother or they can mutate to something completely different. I didn't really believe that until I saw slips from the same root develop two different colors in their roots. I don't know if I've had any revert to the mother type, because I don't keep good enough track but the two from one stood out. And I guess if the root color can mutate about anything else can too, including compatibility. 

The unbalanced hexaploid genome separates how they behave in breeding, differently than potatoes, which are mostly tetraploid.  Tetraploid potatoes will cross and neatly result in crosses which have two alleles from each parent, in nearly all cases (there are exceptions). With the sweet potatoes hexaploid genome, there is an uneven split.  One parent needs to contribute a full tetraploid set of alleles, and the other a diploid set.  But which one does which, and in what possible combinations?  The incompatibilities would have to do with which combinations will be compatible or not compatible with other donors.  And if there are at least two species involved in their origin, the compatibility of each may still be dictating what is happening at some level.

In other words, they are pretty screwy. It goes along with what you said earlier about the compatibility groups. I potted up a bunch more yesterday and was sitting there thinking about this. I suppose I could take a single plant, assuming it turns out to be one that blooms at all. Then, carefully pollinate individual flowers one at a time, with pollen from all the other individual plants, taking all the necessary steps to make sure that each flower wasn't accidentally otherwise pollinated. And keeping track of which other plant provided the pollen for each individual flower.

I don't remember statistics well enough but even if I did that with just one plant, and with just 99 other plants providing pollen, the task would be enormous. To do it with each of the 100 plants, matched to each of the other 99 plants would be absolutely ridiculous. Trying to do it with all of the approximately 400 plants would just be crazy.

Do you think it's possible a universal compatibility might exist? That is, a plant that was compatible with any other plant.

[add]
What about the ones with three, four or five sets cotyledons? Or the ones that grow their first true leaves from a branch below the cotyledons, or the ones that apparently can't make chlorophyl? Are those things related to the unbalanced hexaploidy? 

If these compatibility groups exist as it sounds like they do, I wonder which or how many of them I have. I have seen examples of plants cloned from the same root make lots of seed in one part of the patch and few seeds in another part. I guess the seedy ones had immediate neighbors that were compatible, and the non-seed ones didn't.

Last year or the year before I had two volunteers that came up about six inches apart and formed a comingled mass about four feet around. Nearly all the flowers in the very comingled part made seeds but the edges of both plants made noticeably less seeds. I think that's because since the bees are very methodical, moving from one flower to the next closest mixed them up more where the flowers were close together, whereas the flowers on the edges were more self-pollinated and the individual plants were apparently not self-compatible.

I have gotten lots of seeds from as few as twenty plants, but I still have a feeling that there may be a minimum number needed to ensure that some will end up being compatible. Especially if you don't have any clones of know compatible ones from the previous year.

Not accounting for those that in fact are self-compatible. Those at least are fairly easy to test for. Just wait till they start blooming and root a cutting, isolate it and hand pollinate. I've done that a little bit already, maybe I'll do a lot more of it this year. Even though I'm not really100% sure that self-compatibility is necessarily inherited by the next generation.

Hi Nathan,
   I'm curious about your suggestion that the hexaploid genome of Sweet Potatoes is split unevenly at meiosis 4/2. (Its not a plant I have much experience of.) I have an orchid collection which includes diploids, triploids, tetraploids, pentaploids and hexaploids. My assumption with the hexaploids was that they would always split 3/3.

   Wouldn't the existence of tetraploid gametes result in the possibility of Octoploid plants?

Tim DH

Quote from: Tim DH on 2022-06-06, 10:08:10 AM
Hi Nathan,
   I'm curious about your suggestion that the hexaploid genome of Sweet Potatoes is split unevenly at meiosis 4/2. (Its not a plant I have much experience of.) I have an orchid collection which includes diploids, triploids, tetraploids, pentaploids and hexaploids. My assumption with the hexaploids was that they would always split 3/3.

   Wouldn't the existence of tetraploid gametes result in the possibility of Octoploid plants?

Tim DH

Good question, and I don't really know.  But this paper is well worth reading if you want to sort through this.  I believe this implies that the B1B1 diploid chromosome pair crosses with the B1B1 of another sweet potato, while the B2B2B2B2 tetraploid chromosome set crosses with the tetraploid B2B2B2B2 of the the other.  Or I really don't understand this at all. ;)

QuoteIn others words, I. trifida would be a direct progenitor to only one (Bs1'Bs1') of the constituent diploid subgenomes in sweetpotato. The other two subgenomes in sweetpotato would have been derived from hybrids of two pairs of duplicated diploid genomes (in Ip-Tn and Ip-Lt) in a respective niece and aunt kinship to that of I. trifida. They would thus be extremely closely related to, but not the same origin as the first sweetpotato subgenome from I. trifida. Additionally, I. tenuissima and I. trifida would be in a niece and aunt kinship, derived from the predicted ancestor Ip-N2 hosting the network nodes N2 and M, and in a third and second cousin kinship to I. littoralis, respectively. By the parsimony principle, I. littoralis was modeled as a paleo-tetraploid derived from the predicted Ip-Lt tetraploid. Since the three diploid subgenomes in sweetpotato were only partly differentiated as represented by the three inter-subgenomic pairs of differentiable lineages of some COSII genes, they were thus noted using the three color-gradients blocks under the subgenome designations.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0229624 (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0229624)

Does multiple subgenomes mean that there are different sweet potatoes or that there are three different genomes within a single sweet potato?

Quote from: reed on 2022-06-07, 06:39:42 AM
Does multiple subgenomes mean that there are different sweet potatoes or that there are three different genomes within a single sweet potato?

Yes, there are three different genomes.  Two from one species that represent a tetraploid component, and one from another species that is a diploid component.  That paper in the link above goes into the details. 

I've skimmed over the linked paper but have to admit my education level related to genetics is a bit lacking. Makes it rather tough to chew on although fascinating at the same time.

This sentence in the introduction amuses me a little bit, "A more effective genetic improvement of sweetpotato depends on advances in our understanding of its genome and genetic inheritance." I guess that's so but from what I gather from the North Carolina and Louisiana universities over the last ten years they have started around 800,000 seedlings.

In that same time, I have started about .0025% of that and I've seen all kinds of interesting things show up. They have lots of staff and other resources, why don't they just observe and select like I do?  ;D

Transplanting more seedlings last evening, some good indications as far as determining some traits very early on. Those not yet transplanted, while still pretty small have grown enough that I can tell what color the roots will be, at least on the outside. Also seems fairly apparent which will be bushy with some having shorter internodes and already developing a branching habit. Have half a dozen or so are already developing bloom buds even though they only have a few leaves, going to keep a close eye on them over the season.

Probably 2/3 of the bushy ones have the deeply lobed leaves and all the ones with bloom buds have the heart shaped leaves but I don't know if that really means much of anything. I've lost some very dark purple ones to some critter >:(; I suspect it is birds because some of them were well above the ground in the big tubs.

I worry about how much it will set them back as far as root development but in another couple of weeks I think I'll apply the LSU method of dumping them out of their pots or digging them up to see what I've got. I hope this year to find a good number of seedy, bushy ones with nice, tasty roots that I can clone next year.

Raining and raining here so still have lot of plants remaining in the starting beds. Several both still in the ground and potted are developing blooms at a very early stage. I also still have a clone of that original ornamental that blooms so much and is self-compatible. Last several years we have kept it overwinter as a house plant and the woman uses it in her flowerpots on the patio over summer.

I haven't paid much attention to it or saved any seed from it over that time but now I'm getting an idea. I took a couple of cuttings from it, already developing seeds, and put them in small pots so they are easy to move around. I don't really want its pollen distributed in the overall patch because I don't want the non-rooting trait re-introduced back into my strain. I'm thinking when those very early bloomers get going real good, I might take cuttings from them as well and put them somewhere with the old ornamental and see what kind of super blooming ornamental plants might result.

I'm also very intrigued by those apparently miniature plants so I think I might do the same thing with them.  If they continue with this miniature growth habit and assuming they continue to look healthy otherwise I am going to place them together to try get seed specifically from that phenotype.

So, I'll end up with I guess, with four semi-independent breeding efforts. First is seed from the best of the best plants that were cloned from last year which are planted in the big tubs a little distance from the main patch. Second, the super bloomers, semi-isolated from all others, Third, the miniatures also semi-isolated and lastly the main patch of this year's seedlings.

Of course, I have no clue at this point of what kind of root production I'll get from the super bloomers or the miniatures, or even if they will continue this behavior as the season progresses. It will be nice if they do and if any happen to also make quality sized roots it will open up all kinds of fun opportunities for following seasons.

Testing some new image software. Well, it worked for this one image but not the others, so I'll go ahead and talk about this particular 2022 seedling. It is unfortunately not blooming yet while I'm guessing about 40% of the others are. I've even harvested a few seeds. I have gotten seeds in July before, but I think this is the earliest ever.

Since so many are already blooming, I'm thinking that after another four weeks or so that I'll go ahead and start culling those that aren't, especially if they have traits I don't like, such as very long vines. As long as blooming starts by mid-August or so there is plenty of time to mature seeds.

Anyway, back to this particular plant. Of course, I don't know yet what kind or color of roots it might have or if it will have storage roots at all. I am however definitely keeping in a group that I'll wait the longest for to bloom.  I really like a compact and bushy growth habit and I have never seen one that has it this extreme. I thought at first maybe it had been clipped by a bird or rabbit, causing it to branch but I've examined it closely and find no evidence of that. Its internodes are an inch apart or even less and its stem at the ground is bigger around than a pencil. I don't know that bushy habit and short internodes has a counterpart underground, (think clump root) but I'm hopeful of that.

There are actually another 1/2 dozen or more very similar plants just not quite as compact and bushy as this one. AND one of them is blooming!

Now to figure out why the other pictures didn't load.

Trying the new image software again. Well seems to work better than yesterday but still need to figure out scaling so a person doesn't have to scroll to see the whole picture.  Anyway, this shows one of the potted groups. Those in the big tubs farthest back are grown from clones from the best seedlings in 2020 and 2021. Those to the right are 2022 seedlings. There in the foreground are some that are starting to bloom and one that got snipped by a rabbit and I replanted it. It is another of that phenotype in the previous post, fingers crossed it will regrow enough to see what it turns out to be

I'm really pleased so far with how the sweet potatoes are coming along this year. I have about 20 that have already produced a few seeds and happily they are all of the bushy type. I've never had so many all at the same time for a good observation of such things but there is apparently some variation in maturity. That is defining it as getting to the point of starting to bloom, root maturity is of course a whole different thing. 

Along with those 20 that have already produced seeds I'm guessing about 40 more are at the stage of starting to set capsules. Roughly 75% of this second group are also of the bushy type.  A third group is just starting to bloom but I can't tell how many because they are starting to get overgrown and all mixed up, I can't easily tell which branch comes from which plant.

I think, in my climate any that start blooming before the end of August will have time to mature seeds but I'm not sure I want to wait that long before I start culling some. I'm thinking now that I might start that at the beginning of August. I'll start with any that have not bloomed and that have very long vines. I don't like the long vines and think I will try to keep any seed I do get from them separated from the rest. I don't like the long vines mostly because they just take up too much space and it's a pain to try to keep them trellised.

In what I'm calling my production tubs I have clones of plants from the last couple of years (those I'm growing to eat). They are the best of the best in all aspects. Bushy, seedy and productive of nicely sized delicious roots. They are also all blooming and producing seeds and are a little bit isolated from the new plants so will mostly be crossing and backcrossing with each other.

Of course, I won't know for some time what kind of roots the new ones will have. I planted a lot of older seed that may lack the selected adaptation for nice roots so I suspect not more that 1/2 of these new ones will have good roots. Still as many as there are I should have plenty good new ones to add to the clones next year.

That pesky issue of compatibility is still lurking around. I still have that original self-compatible clone that started all of this, and it made the first seeds this year, reconfirming since no others were blooming yet that is indeed self-compatible.

The production plants are much larger and branchier than the new ones, so I could take some cuttings and isolate them individually to see if any of them are also self-compatible.  Even if they are though, I'm not sure what it would prove because I know from the original one that offspring from a self-compatible plant aren't necessarily self-compatible themselves or even compatible at all.

The bushy plants probably have shorter nodes and thus would reach flowering stage earlier regardless of any other genes that might code for earlier flowering, so by continuing to select for those you might be on the right track. Maybe short bushy plants are the way to go for temperate and northern climates as well.

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2022-07-18, 08:13:42 AM
The bushy plants probably have shorter nodes and thus would reach flowering stage earlier regardless of any other genes that might code for earlier flowering, so by continuing to select for those you might be on the right track. Maybe short bushy plants are the way to go for temperate and northern climates as well.

Yes, they definitely have shorter nodes and I hope to find out this year for sure if that has a counterpart underground, read clump root! If I can get all of that together, compact, bushy, seedy, clump root and short maturity time then they could be grown almost anywhere. Clump root is easier to dig if grown in the ground and takes up less space in a small garden. They might also produce just fine in a pot on the patio, it doesn't even have to be a very large pot.

I sure hope the one pictured alone in the previous post starts blooming soon. Its growth is so compact that assuming it makes nice roots I may keep it to clone even if it doesn't bloom at all.

Looking really good.

Well, the sweet potatoes have turned into an overgrown mess, as usual. The ones growing in the ground are an extra-overgrown mess and last night I found capsules that had already shattered and lost the seeds. Overall, I'm guessing I've been collecting seeds from about 25% and another 25% are starting to mature seeds. That leaves about 1/2 that either have just started blooming or have shown no sign of it. The rest of this month through September and probably even into October should yield the bulk of seeds but any that aren't blooming yet at all, or that are blooming but not setting seeds are kind of just in the way at this point.   

I think this weekend I'll go out and find vines with no bloom buds and see if I can track them back to the trunk in the ground and cull them out. I can just completely get rid of the ones in the pots but in the ground, I think I'll probably have to leave the roots so as not to damage those being left to keep making seeds.  That, along with clipping of a lot of extra leaves will make it easier to find and collect the seeds. I'll try to post some before and after pictures of the process.

I haven't updated this for a while, been busy with lots of things. Took quite a few pictures and learned some new tings but for now I'm just going to post this little video I made as I was finishing up harvesting this year.
 
One thing I learned for sure is that I'm not very good at making videos. (ERROR! - I meant to say early October, not September.)

I've finished up with harvesting and grading my sweet potatoes for the season. I bit off more than I could chew this year with the number of seeds I started and fear I probably ended up wasting some seeds due to not being able to properly care for them all. I ran out of pots and in ground space so quite a few were left terribly overcrowded in the seed beds where they didn't have a chance to fully show what they might have produced. Plus, it was difficult to dig those grown crowded in the ground without separating the vines from the roots, so I don't know which nice roots came from which vine, so I also don't know if a particular nice root came from a nicely seedy vine. And it was hard to collect seeds from the overgrown patches, so I'm sure a lot of seeds were lost. 

Still, I learned some new things. Most importantly perhaps is that finding an individual plant with all of my preferred traits is pretty rare, probably not more than one in a hundred.

On the positive side I collected a nice bunch of seeds, way more than I planted and am still collecting them from the vines that I stuck back in pots after harvesting the big roots. That will go on until frost and I may even bring some of the most preferred ones inside to get still more.

With those added this year and those from prior years, I now have seven or eight plants that do have all of the preferred traits and about twenty more that have all except for the very bushy growth habit. Two or three have very large vines but are so nice otherwise that I am going to keep them to clone anyway. The rest of the nicely rooted and seedy ones are more of a mid-sized vine, not bushy but also not giant.

I've saved about 50 very bushy and seedy plants that did not make roots and am going to try to keep a lot of them alive as house plants. All of my sweet potatoes started from those same original crosses with that first discovered self-compatible, rootless ornamental. Those ended up with offspring that do sometimes make roots, so I figure the genetics for that are still in these plants, even if it didn't show up in this generation. I haven't given up on a super bushy and nicely rooted strain is why I want to keep these for backcrossing.

I think for next year I will try to keep the total number grown to around 200 and pretty much all of them in pots. I what all of the pots to be the same size, I'm thinking 5 gallons and the soil mix to be consistent in all of them. The 200 plants will be as follows:

*50 (elite) cloned from the best of the best grown in semi-isolation. these include those that do have the nice clump roots but not necessarily the bushy top growth habit.
*50 of the (elite) line, grown in close proximity
with
*50 the very bushy and seedy but non rooting line
*50 from new sprouts (will need to plant at least 100 seeds to insure 50 plants) these will also be in semi-isolation to prevent reintroduction of bad traits into the elite lines.

Here is another little video of results from one of the inground patches
 

A lot of red skins, are they the same colour inside also.

The ones with red skins can be either white or orange inside. A lighter color skin is usually orange inside and darker color skin usually white. The ones with white skins are always white inside, as far as I've seen so far. Interesting is those with green leaves are almost always orange inside.

I found two yellow inside this year, they are my favorite for flavor but neither had nice size to the roots or many seeds. An all purple one showed up too. That makes maybe five total over the years, and they all have had issues with bugs or rotting in storage, so I didn't even save this one.

Hey, Reed!  I just want to say that I absolutely love this thread, and it inspired me to finally stop lurking and sign up to the forum, so that I could post this.

The reason this thread has meant so much to me, reading over it obsessively over the past few weeks, is that my goal is very similar: taking a tropical long-season perennial that's usually propagated asexually and breeding it using seeds to work as a short-season annual.

In my case: bananas.  I'll be using a bunch of cold hardy, dwarf wild bananas to try to breed a local landrace.

I'll start my own thread about it, just like you've done, so that other people can follow along, and perhaps find as much joy in it as I have found in your thread about sweet potatoes!

Quote from: UnicornEmily on 2022-10-11, 12:34:24 AMHey, Reed!  I just want to say that I absolutely love this thread, and it inspired me to finally stop lurking and sign up to the forum, so that I could post this.
The reason this thread has meant so much to me, reading over it obsessively over the past few weeks, is that my goal is very similar: taking a tropical long-season perennial that's usually propagated asexually and breeding it using seeds to work as a short-season annual.
In my case: bananas.  I'll be using a bunch of cold hardy, dwarf wild bananas to try to breed a local landrace.
I'll start my own thread about it, just like you've done, so that other people can follow along, and perhaps find as much joy in it as I have found in your thread about sweet potatoes!

Sweet! really looking forward to being able to grow bananas. There is a strain that has been passed around here in my neck of the woods. One fellow has managed to overwinter it in the ground using lots of mulch.  I grew it one year, it got very large and grew some "pups". I think that's the term, but mine all froze out. My niece takes them in her greenhouse and sometimes gets a few little bananas.

Looking forward to following your progress on this.

Oh, nice!  If it's seedless, it's probably a Dwarf Namwah or Dwarf Orinoco.  My suspicion is Dwarf Orinoco, since that seems to be the most popular seedless banana for cold hardiness.  Dwarf Namwah seems to be the second most popular.

If anyone in your area ends up with extra pups, let me know!  Cold hardy seedless bananas are very welcome in my yard, too.  :)  I have a baby Dwarf Namwah, and I'm hoping it'll survive this winter without protection.  If I get any extra pups next year, I'd be happy to send you one if you'd like it.

My primary landrace goal is cold hardy, tasty seeded bananas, but if I manage to get brand new cold hardy, tasty *seedless* banana . . . well, that's sorta the holy grail of banana breeding!  *grin*  If I ever happen to have a seeded banana and a seedless banana flowering at the same time, I'll definitely try to cross them and see if anything interesting results.

Do you have any sweet potato seeds you wouldn't mind sharing?  I'd be interested in trying to grow some, and I'll probably trial them for drought tolerance.  I'd be happy to send you back seeds next year from anything promising.  I'm very sold on the idea of growing things from seeds instead of constantly cloning them.  Genetic diversity is so much better.

So how cold are you talking when comes to cold hardy seedless bananas. Man I would love to grow them. ;D

This has been really interesting on sweet potatoes. I'll have to see how next year goes before I add more  ::) but definitely might have to make room to try sweet potatoes.

Quote from: UnicornEmily on 2022-10-18, 07:13:32 PMOh, nice!  If it's seedless, it's probably a Dwarf Namwah or Dwarf Orinoco.  My suspicion is Dwarf Orinoco, since that seems to be the most popular seedless banana for cold hardiness.  Dwarf Namwah seems to be the second most popular.

If anyone in your area ends up with extra pups, let me know!  Cold hardy seedless bananas are very welcome in my yard, too.  :)  I have a baby Dwarf Namwah, and I'm hoping it'll survive this winter without protection.  If I get any extra pups next year, I'd be happy to send you one if you'd like it.

My primary landrace goal is cold hardy, tasty seeded bananas, but if I manage to get brand new cold hardy, tasty *seedless* banana . . . well, that's sorta the holy grail of banana breeding!  *grin*  If I ever happen to have a seeded banana and a seedless banana flowering at the same time, I'll definitely try to cross them and see if anything interesting results.

Do you have any sweet potato seeds you wouldn't mind sharing?  I'd be interested in trying to grow some, and I'll probably trial them for drought tolerance.  I'd be happy to send you back seeds next year from anything promising.  I'm very sold on the idea of growing things from seeds instead of constantly cloning them.  Genetic diversity is so much better.

I suppose it also depends on the species. I've seen many banana seeds, and depending on which one, you could be talking about a banana you'd have to mash up before consumption to avoid cracking your teeth on thumb end sized rock hard seeds!

I have my own little pet project (trying to bring the Asian rice bean farther north and make it a feasible crop for growing in the US.

It can hit -20 C or colder here but usually only does it for a day or two at a time. The fellow I know that has the bananas lives in the valley about 400 feet lower elevation and with deep black flood plain soil and at the base of a south facing hill. I don't think he knows what kind they are or much about them really, someone gave them to him, and they lived. The leaves are very dark green and reddish on the underside. He has quite a patch of them, I'm not sure, but I think the larger ones die in winter and the pups survive under the mulch. I don't think he ever gets a banana, but his grove of trees is a popular drive by tourist attraction. He gave me a couple of pups one time and they grew well but did not grow any more pups or survive winter, even with lots of mulch. The ones my niece has look the same but don't get as big, she lives up a ridge like I do.

Off topic, but just saw a video from allthefruit on YouTube where an Avacado tree is growing in Germany

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2022-10-19, 05:46:36 PMSo how cold are you talking when comes to cold hardy seedless bananas. Man I would love to grow them. ;D

Well, I'm in zone 7b, so at least that cold hardy!  ;P

It looks like you're in zone 9?  There are a TON of options for zone 9 that you could grow right now!  Including quite a few seedless ones.  Here are some I've considered for myself (even though some of them aren't hardy to my zone) that would all work in zone 9 easily:

Dwarf Namwah (a.k.a. Pisang Awak, Dwarf Ducasse): Zone 7.  Triploid ABB.  Tastiest, sweetest, high-quality fruit.  One of the best ladyfinger bananas.  6-8 feet tall.  Great container banana.  Drought resistant and vigorous.
Dwarf Orinoco: Zone 7. The most popular seedless cold hardy banana.
California Gold:  Zone 7.  It was a sport of Dwarf Orinoco.  It grows back as quickly as Basjoo in the spring and will fruit in eleven months from pup to mature height.  Mature and producing fruit at six feet tall.  Fruits every single year.  It's very rare, and pups often cost $100 each.
Raja Puri: Zone 8.  Triploid AAB.  8-10 feet tall.  Immune to Panama Disease and resistant to insects.
Thousand Fingers: Zone 8.  Triploid AAB.  8-10 feet tall.  Fruit is small, with a pleasant flavor.
Misi Luki (a.k.a. Mysore, Pisang Ceylon, Pisang Keling): Zone 9.  Triploid AAB.  15-20 feet tall in the ground; 10-12 feet tall in a container.  Sweet, silky, with a slight apple flavor.  Some say it tastes like strawberry shortcake.  Some say it's the best-tasting ladyfinger banana in the world.


If I were you, with zone 9 to work with, I'd try all of them!  Raja Puri and Misi Luki are definitely varieties I'd like to try; I'd definitely have to mulch them heavily to get them survive in my zone, but it may be possible.

Quote from: Jeremy Weiss on 2022-10-20, 12:41:59 AMI suppose it also depends on the species. I've seen many banana seeds, and depending on which one, you could be talking about a banana you'd have to mash up before consumption to avoid cracking your teeth on thumb end sized rock hard seeds!

Yep.  All of the banana seeds I have are as hard as rocks.  (Well, little pebbles.)  And too big to swallow.  And a lot of the fruits are chock full of those seeds.

One of the things I'm planning to do is to follow Carol Deppe's example in breeding squash.  She said she actively selects for fewer seeds that are bigger, and a higher ratio of fruit to seed.  I figure if that can be done with squash, it can probably be done with bananas, too!  (Especially since it's obvious a lot of domesticated fruits have been bred that way, compared to their wild counterparts.)

I figure when it comes to the seeds, there are several different paths to success, and I'll favor any plant that shows any of these:

• Seedless.  This tends to mean triploid, which is really tough to get, so I'm not holding my breath, and it's not my primary goal.  Besides, it would be a genetic dead end that could only be propagated asexually.  Still, a new cold hardy seedless banana plant would be awesome, and I'd definitely propagate it to share if I got one.
• Mostly seedless.  This is a very intriguing possibility that I only just stumbled across.  Some tetraploid bananas produce a lot of seedless fruits and a few fruits with very few seeds, mostly clustered up at the top.  If I could manage that, I'd have the best of both worlds.  That may be very cool, if something like that turns up for me.
• Larger seeds and a lot fewer of them.  Right now, the seeds are small enough to be hard to avoid, yet big enough to be too large to swallow.  I figure seeds that are twice the size would be easier to notice and eat around, especially if there are a lot fewer, and germination may be easier.
• Smaller seeds that can be swallowed.  I don't really favor this one because I suspect that would be selecting for less vigorous seeds -- small seeds have a tendency to be more difficult to germinate, in my experience.  And banana seeds are already hard to germinate, because the seeded species are mostly wild and haven't been domesticated at all yet.  Still, if something like this turns up, I'd certainly keep it around and see what I can do with it.
• Softer seeds that can be chewed.  This might be particularly interesting, because that would imply a thinner seed coat, which may make germination much easier.  This would only work if the seeds taste fine and don't spoil the flavor of the fruit.

So yeah, seeds are definitely an issue.  For now, my plan is to eat the bananas by taking a bite, sucking on the pulp, and spitting out the seeds.  If the banana tastes even halfway decent, I'll immediately direct sow half the seeds and save the other half.  Heck, for the first generation, if I don't have a lot of plants to choose from, I'll probably save and sow even the seeds from fruits that don't taste very good, since survival is the highest priority at the beginning.  For sure I'll be selecting for flavor once survival becomes consistent.

I would say my priorities, in order, are:

1) Survival to produce mature seeds (which happily also means fruit).
2) Larger seeds, smaller seeds, fewer seeds, or the same number of seeds but more fruit flesh.  (If both larger and smaller seeds pop up, I'll keep the populations as separate as possible.)
3) Delicious flavor.

I have a ton of other things I want that I will get excited about if they show up (variations in color or flavor or shape, exceptionally beautiful plants, drought tolerance, etc.), but those are all bonuses.  I figure plant breeding is collaborative by its very nature, so I'll see whatever the plants offer me!

Quote from: reed on 2022-10-20, 03:39:36 AMIt can hit -20 C or colder here but usually only does it for a day or two at a time. The fellow I know that has the bananas lives in the valley about 400 feet lower elevation and with deep black flood plain soil and at the base of a south facing hill. I don't think he knows what kind they are or much about them really, someone gave them to him, and they lived. The leaves are very dark green and reddish on the underside. He has quite a patch of them, I'm not sure, but I think the larger ones die in winter and the pups survive under the mulch. I don't think he ever gets a banana, but his grove of trees is a popular drive by tourist attraction. He gave me a couple of pups one time and they grew well but did not grow any more pups or survive winter, even with lots of mulch. The ones my niece has look the same but don't get as big, she lives up a ridge like I do.

Ohhhh!  I bet that's an Ensete, not a Musa!  It sounds like Red Banana, which is in the Ensete genus and hardy to zone 7.  That would be consistent with what you've described.  Do they produce fruit?  Do they make pups (suckers)?  If they make suckers, they're probably a Musa.  Same for if they make fruit.

I'm less interested in Ensete, because I think it's mainly ornamental for the leaves, and I want fruit.  If it makes fruit I can eat, though, I'm not too fussed about the genus.

Edit: Whoops, you said it made pups, and I'm a doofus and didn't pay enough attention.  Probably a Musa, then!

How tall do they get?  Do they have a dwarf growth habit (leaves really close together, trunk really thick and stocky) or a tall growth habit (each new leaf grows upwards quite a bit, trunk quite thin)?  I may be able to figure out what species they are from those details.  If nothing else, it's fun to know that.  :)

I'm planning next season's sweet potato project. I have clippings of 10 different plants from what I'm calling the "ornamental" class growing in the south facing kitchen windows. They vary in leaf shape, color and vine growth habit. What they have in common is prolific blooming and lack of large storage roots. They all matured seeds and are all sprouts from 2022.

I have storage roots from fifteen different plants of what I'm now calling the "culinary" class. These also vary in leaf shape and color and to a lesser degree in vine growth type. Most are in the bushy range or semi-vining, with a couple large vine types. These all make nicely sized storage roots of the clump root type. Root skin and flesh color varies with most being white fleshed. About half are "best of the best" clones from 2021, 2020 or 2019 and the rest new sprouts from 2022.

In preparation to begin planning for some kind of marketing and distribution late in 2023 or 2024 I'm setting up a comparison trial for 2023. The trial will include 100 newly sprouted plants, along with clones from "best of the best" and some commercial clones. The commercial clones I'm considering are the most recent releases from university breeding programs (Covington) from North Carolina State University and (Evangeline) from Louisiana State University and maybe a couple of popular "heirloom" varieties as well.

My own clones and the university clones will be compared to each other in production, flavor and so on as well as similar comparison to newly sprouted plants.

The newly sprouted plants will be closely monitored and documented for the following.   

During the Growing Season
*Days to germination
*Color and shape of leaves
*Internode distance between leaves
*Type of vine growth, bushy - vining - semi vining
*Number of flowers overall
*Number of flowers per cluster
*Ability to accept pollen and mature seeds
*Thickness of primary stem where it enters the ground
*Date of first blooms
*Response to temperature extremes
*Susceptibility to insects, specifically Japanese Beetles
At Harvest
*Type of root growth
*Configuration of root growth
*Color of root skin
*Color of root flesh
*Size of roots
*Shape of roots
*Number of roots per plant
*Sweetness (before curing)
*Weight of roots per plant

Along with determining a true germination rate of seeds, I want to know if traits observable during the growing season can be used to predict the root type, prior to actual harvest. If so, it will be useful in the future for eliminating undesirable plants before harvest time, perhaps even before they bloom.

I may also grow a few that I suspect of being self-pollinating in semi-isolated spots just to see what happens. My very first seeds came from a self-pollinating, rootless ornamental. I think it would be very cool if some self-pollinating culinary plants could be confirmed. Those plants might be very useful in expanding breeding projects with sweet potatoes.

I will also be recording daily weather data and types of pollinators visiting the flowers.

This sounds incredibly awesome.  When your seed variety is purchasable, I will definitely buy some.  :)

Love this project. Can't wait for seeds! Keep up the hard work!!

I have an unusual situation with some of my ornamental class clones that I'm keeping for next year. As shown in the picture some of them don't look great. A cold drafty window isn't the best place for sweet potatoes but that's expected and not really a concern. From past experience any tiny bit of life remaining when warmer temps and increasing light arrives is enough. Those to the left in the photo also were infested with aphids and it's been a struggle keeping them washed off.

These are the best of last year's ornamental class seedlings, they lacked large storage roots, and all bloomed excessively. Lack of storge roots is why they have to be kept as house plants instead of just sprouting slips next year.

What is unusual is that several have continued to bloom since being brough it back in October. It's normal for existing buds to go ahead and open but this is the first time new buds have formed after being brought inside. Only one has a flower right now on January 3rd, 2023, but several have been doing it all through December.

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How curious. I wouldn't have guessed that they would even think about flowering inside, though I'm a sweet potato novice. I guess just because they are always talked about like, so difficult to grow.

If you have some excess seed I'd be interested in trying to grow some. And we aren't too far away.

Yes, flowering inside is a surprise. I've been at this for ten years and haven't always kept any of the ornamental plants as clones, probably only five of the ten, but this is the first time I've seen this.

Here is a little video about one of the houseplant sweet potatoes that up from seed in April of 2022.



*clearly, I have a lot to learn about making good videos.

Is it possible you have accidentally discovered a day length neutral strain or some sort of "superbloomer"? I would mark these and watch them compared to the others.

I've been having some aphid problems in the grow tent too. Thinking of ordering 250 ladybugs on Amazon even though I only need like 5. Seems weird ordering ladybugs in winter, but I guess they are available. Maybe a local greenhouse would have them in stock too?

I'm not sure if this is possible, but, ideally, try to order ladybugs that are a species native to wherever you are. All of those Asiatic ones that keep escaping are decimating the native populations (plus, they bite, and tend to overpopulate.) Farm grown natives wouldn't be a PERFECT solution (they could still carry diseases that could pass onto the local population, same as what sometimes happens with those butterflies people buy to release at weddings,) but it seems like a better one.

I've toyed with the idea of catching a few native ladybugs from around here and breeding up my own supply, but, by now, the situation around here is so bad I basically don't SEE any native ones most years, let alone enough to make a breeding population.

Quote from: Andrew Barney on 2023-02-25, 03:57:41 PMIs it possible you have accidentally discovered a day length neutral strain or some sort of "superbloomer"?

Ooh, day length neutral would have all kinds of possibilities.  Definitely something to watch out for.

Quote from: Jeremy Weiss on 2023-02-25, 08:02:53 PMI've toyed with the idea of catching a few native ladybugs from around here and breeding up my own supply, but, by now, the situation around here is so bad I basically don't SEE any native ones most years, let alone enough to make a breeding population.

That would be a very cool thing to do.  Hard to think how you would go about it without a starting population to use for breeding.  If you had the starting population, what would you do to breed them into a big supply?

Presumably provide them with lots of food, (which I guess, would mean actively cultivating aphids, or buying those ladybug food pellets they sell) and somewhere protected where the birds won't bother them (yes, ladybugs taste bad, and birds will spit them out, but if the ladybug is already dead by then, that doesn't do much for the breeding population) and the Asiatic ones don't out compete them. Not that much different that what I do to allow caterpillars to turn into butterflies (well, except that feeding them just means making sure that the plants they like to eat are kept fresh).

Actually, by now, I think the Asiatics are so common here they have even outcompeted the equally non-native 14-spotted ladybug (the REALLY tiny, yellow shelled one with the spots that look sort of like an anchor on their back.)

I have ever observed them to be day length sensitive. If they do have daylength sensitivity, then there are multiple variations or degrees of it. They do not all start blooming at the same time, but day length doesn't appear to be the reason for it. I have had them start blooming almost immediately after sprouting and they keep it up until frost, not daylength, puts a stop to it.

My cold, drafty, low light, windowsill where they spend the winter is about as bad a place as could be for sweet potatoes. I think that is why they stop blooming, heck they often times barely have any leaves. Existing seed capsules usually finish maturing but up till now any flower buds and any new ones that try to form just dry up and fall off when I bring them in.

Several have tried to bloom this winter with the buds aborting, as usual, but this one actually pulled it off. 

Yes there is certainly a wide range in flowering times between cultivars, as I posted in my thread, I have one that tried to develop flowers during summer but never managed to make it happen 

Yea, most don't start blooming until later, but I've had them that start after just one set of true leaves. Day length gets mentioned sometimes as the trigger, but I don' think that's it. I think they just bloom whenever they feel like it and daylength has nothing to do with it. All that do bloom. once they start, never stop until frost kills them.

Slightly off-topic: Has anyone identified a strain of sweet potato that can thrive in cooler soils? I don't mean really cold soil, but something like 70F instead of the 90 - 100F soils that most sweet potatoes prefer. That would make it an easy summer crop in temperate zones.

I would enjoy growing sweet potatoes in Vermont if I didn't have to take extreme measures like covering soil with black plastic to artificially raise the soil temperature.

Quote from: Cathy A on 2023-03-04, 08:37:46 AMSlightly off-topic: Has anyone identified a strain of sweet potato that can thrive in cooler soils? I don't mean really cold soil, but something like 70F instead of the 90 - 100F soils that most sweet potatoes prefer. That would make it an easy summer crop in temperate zones.

I would enjoy growing sweet potatoes in Vermont if I didn't have to take extreme measures like covering soil with black plastic to artificially raise the soil temperature.

That's really the idea of working with seed so as to localize new cultivars that can handle cooler soils, which I have here as well 

In the years I have been working with sweet potatoes I have firstly been focused on growing from actual seeds rather than clones. I also haven't attempted to push them so much toward tolerance for cool temperatures but instead for fast maturity. My goal there, that has largely been achieved is to go from seed to harvest, and more seed in 100 days or less. Shortening the time, it takes to get a crop rather than for cold tolerance.

What work I have done on cold tolerance has not worked well at the beginning of the season. They either don't sprout or sprout and then just sit there doing not much of anything if it isn't warm enough, especially at night.

The end of season is very different. I can't see any above ground effects when temperature falls even into the high 30s F at night, low 30s F causes color changes and a slight hint of frost kills them dead, no exceptions. I don't know if the roots are still developing then or if they had actually stopped growing when the temperature fell below 50.I suspect the roots do stop growing in the cooler temperatures.

Still, I think shortening the time to maturity serves basically the same purpose as cold tolerance.

Yeah, I think so, too.  It would be nice to have both, but shorter time to maturity is better, because it's useful in so many more situations!

A page or two back on the thread I posted a little video about the plant I called Ms Bloom and how it was still blooming this winter on the cold drafty windowsill. Just above the video post I posted a photo of my "ornamental" collection. That photo post was on January 4th and it shows a flower that opened that day and that I hand pollinated. The video posted February 25th and made on February 8th shows me trying to pollinate a second flower and discovering that the January flower was indeed developing a capsule. Pollination on that second flower did not take and it aborted.

Three days ago, March 16th, I harvested the capsule from the January flower and found a single, perfect looking seed. Perfect in that it had the proper shape, no wrinkles of puckering of the seed coat and a nice dark brown color. So now I know, for sure that the plant is self-pollinating and that it takes two months or more to go from flower to dry capsule, but I think it might take a little less time outside.

The capsule and the little stem were completely dry before I picked it and I knew I had a good seed as soon as I heard the characteristic little crunch noise that they make when crushed. They don't necessarily have to make that sound, but it seems to be a tell-tale sign that everything has gone right.

Quote from: reed on 2023-03-19, 04:32:20 AMThe capsule and the little stem were completely dry before I picked it and I knew I had a good seed as soon as I heard the characteristic little crunch noise that they make when crushed. They don't necessarily have to make that sound, but it seems to be a tell-tale sign that everything has gone right.

Yes, that is what I found today while removing viable seed pods from my four plants that flowered, three dried up stems and seed pods still on the plant, only one seed per seed capsule though. I can see what you mean by crunchy, wouldn't be hard to loose em.

I haven't posted for quite a while about my sweet potatoes, so I made a little video of what is currently going on with them.

Great to hear from you again Mark, and thanks for your update, will do another video when you empty the pots?

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2023-08-21, 02:59:59 PMGreat to hear from you again Mark, and thanks for your update, will do another video when you empty the pots?

Yes, I will. Actually, I have some videos of last year's plants too. Don't know why I haven't put them over here. I'm pretty new at the YouTube thing, but this might work to visit all my sweet potato videos.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeEn7PRYA_55spXmLPsR2jhzLslg7aRlB

I made a little video on this year's crop of seed grown sweet potatoes, collecting some seeds and evaluation of the plants. * I said in the video that I selected for a certain leaf type, I meant to say I "may" have accidentally selected for it because it "may" be related to the things I do select for.

I look forward to the day when I too find picking seed tedious. ;D

This season has been really good for seeds. Drought might not be good for most crops and probably not the best for the biggest harvest of roots, but it is perfect for maturing sweet potato seeds. In cool damp weather a lot of them rot in the capsules, in hot damp weather they sprout in the capsules. This year is just right and I'm getting lots every day.

It's possible that we won't get a frost until November but just in case I'm going to start harvesting roots this week. I don't want to get caught having to harvest them all in a hurry, or in the dark, as has happened a time or two before. I already have ten times the number of seed I planted so it's OK not to push it this year. 

I have a large patch of Ipomoea lacunosa growing nearby.

It produces tubers.

It's sometimes called the "Whitestar potato" and was used by native americans as a root crop.

Most ornamental Ipomoea species, are from the tropical Americas or other tropics.


I'm unsure if anyone is interested in this species. It's obviously related to common sweet potatoes.


The ones here, I've noticed a few white flowered vines. Most are pink / purple. The tubers aren't much of anything.


My main concern, is that growing tropical species in North America as food - they may be more prone to certain issues and things than what they've been adapted to for so long.


Plus more disease resistances and traits may be nice.


I haven't researched the genus too much.

I've grown Lavender Moon flowers before. Haven't grown water spinach.


Sweet potatoes, I've grown before - as ornamental leaf shaped things.


If anyone's interested, I could try to obtain seed.


I've seen some sellers online, mainly selling a white flowered type.


There's around 4 small seeds in each flower. These are growing around a patio area by the pool.


And these are growing in 8B.



I haven't saw much mention of these anywhere.


These are obviously grown from seed. They probably don't taste very good.

I can attest that they're very heat tolerant. The heat waves killed a lot of things, but not these.

Always fun to follow this post.
I put a sweet potato (regular store ones) in a big pot this spring. Mix of soil and last year's sheep bedding/manure. I barely ever watered it but it's survived okay. Getting a bit chewed on by some insects but I haven't given it much attention. I know there is at least one medium sweet potato in there. I'm going to try rooting a cutting to keep it going inside.
Excited to see how yours look once you've evaluated them.

Below photos are of eleven plants being evaluated to clone next year. These are all in what I call the culinary group. All but one of them flower and produce abundant seeds. I hope based on flavor and storage quality to trim this group down to not more than five to plant next year. I'm sure there will be plenty of volunteers next year as I've gotten lazy about collecting seeds and lots are being lost, but I'm not going to start any seeds on purpose net year. Instead, I want to reinforce the preferred traits by just growing the best of the best and use them to produce a new generation elite seed. I have a similar but larger group of my ornamental group which I'll get to later.

 

Had to start a new post for the rest of the photos

And, one more

Great seeing your progress for the growing season

Getting ready for sweet potatoes 2024. Got thirty new 7.5 gallon pots and going to use them instead of the big tubs. I'll probably start a few seeds but mostly I'm trialing the plants I posted photos of above. There were eleven of them but after tasting I've narrowed that down to just seven. All have the clump root trait I like, all are bushy or at least semi-bushy, no giant vines and all flower and produce seed. These will be semi-isolated from any new sprouts and from my ornamental group.

I have four in the ornamental group with tentative names. Ms. Bloom is very bushy and compact with light green ivy leaves, and she blooms a lot. Superseed has heart shape leaves and is also very bushy. It isn't an exceptionally striking plant except for the massive blooms, which are slightly larger and lighter color than most. Dark Child has very dark red/purple ivy leaves and is a large vine with moderate bloom. And then there is Tries to Climb.

Tries to Climb is also a long vine and exhibits a growth habit almost like a climbing bean, something I have never seen before. Leaves are dark purple ivy leaf and smaller than most. Internodes are very long and a single darker than average flower blooms at each one. Tries To Climb is a glorious ornamental plant that could be trellised or grown in a hanging basket. It woke up two weeks earlier from the chill of the drafty kitchen window than the others and is growing an inch a day or more depending on sunshine.  Today I noticed tiny flower buds at each new leaf joint. I'll post pictures when they bloom. 

I transplanted the four ornamental plants that endured the cold, drafty window sill into bigger pots with fresh compost and pinched out the growing tips, to try to boost them along into growing lots of stems that I can chop off for cloning. I want to make a whole bunch of these clones this summer and take a lot of pictures and videos for use later on. I want to be like Carol talked about, a freelance plant breeder rather than an amature plant breeder and I think the ornamentals might be the most profitable for marketing and maybe less hassle regulations wise. The one I'm calling Tries to Climb is one of a kind based on observation over the years. The smaller than normal, dark purple leaves, very long internodes with flowers at each one makes it a really cool plant. I'm going to grow it as a climbing plant and in hanging baskets.

In the culinary bunch I posted about before I'm keeping #s 1, 2, 6, 7, 10 & 11. There were eleven of them but some failed due mostly to lacking flavor. I've got my 7.5-gallon pots ready for these plants in varying numbers. Half of them will probably be 10 & 11. Some clones will only get two pots. Soil is all very consistent, placed in equal sun and so on. I'll be collecting seed from all as usual but will be looking mostly for differences in production. I want to cull all but three to four of these for contained cloning next year. I hope now to just keep "distilling" down to the best traits.

 I'll keep selecting and culling old clones but at the same time be growing new ones from seed. I think you would have to work hard at it to make genetic depression a problem with sweet potatoes but still no need to push it so also, along with those from the group of eleven, I kept the roots of four plants that sprouted in 2023. I think I've settled on a good plan, to grow the best clones each year but also start some new ones each year.

I've changed my timing a little bit too. Last year the whole month of June was cool and damp and they didn't like that. I generally start slips in the middle of April but this year I'm putting it off for a couple of weeks, those in the photo will be set in damp sand in another day or two. I've always pushed the limit in the fall too, putting off harvest as long as possible in order to get more seeds. This year I'm going to harvest while the weather is still warmer so I can cure them better to improve sweetness.

I've wasted a lot of seed over the last couple years by starting way too many to properly take care of. I'm only going to start about fifty seeds this year. Some of them will be those collected from my favorite ornamental plants that keep maturing seeds after they were brought inside for the winter, ensuring they are self-pollinated. I've selected pretty hard against large storage roots in the ornamentals so the two groups will be semi-isolated again this year. Ornamentals will be grown on the patio and culinary will be grown out in the garden.

Anyway, here is a photo of the culinary group ready to bring down and set in damp sand. All of these are good and all of them readily make seeds. All but one is nicely bushy and have the clump root trait which makes them more economical on growing space and easier to harvest. I have one more really cool one with very light skin and very dark orange flesh already in sand downstairs. It sprouted las year, and we accidentally ate all but one shriveled little root, fingers crossed it is alive enough to sprout.

As far as turning sweet potatoes into a seed grown annual, it's done!

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Congratulations on the completion of your project.  Now the big question is, what's next?  Are you going to try to commercialize each variety by seed, look at getting the various varieties grown for commercial root sales? (Is there a sweet potato growers group over there?)

Would be interesting to track how long it takes for each variety to drop off flower production once commercial growing through cloning for each variety starts.

I'm not sure where to go from here, except to continue improvement in the culinary line and keeping really good records. Same with the ornamental line and focusing on a lot of good pictures and videos to use for marketing with it. I have some interest in both lines already, but nothing concrete. I'm leaning toward releasing clones rather than seeds, but not really sure about any of it right now.

Picking some lettuce yesterday and discovered the first volunteer sweet potato of the season, probably more hiding in the rest of the lettuce patch. Guess it's a hint that it's time to go ahead and direct plant a few.

It was about two weeks ago when I discovered those first two volunteers, now I'm up to five that I've transplanted into pots and yesterday found three more.

Yesterday I planted thirty seeds, way less than I've done in the past but much more in line with what I can really handle. Planting two or three hundred seeds direct in the ground has really been a waste. It told me that it can now easily be done with my seeds, and that the germination rate has vastly improved over the years, but I wasn't able to take good care of or properly evaluate them all. I'm sure many that might have been excellent plants were simply lost.

Fifteen of the seeds I planted were from my ornamental line, about half from the one I'm calling Ms. Bloom and were self-pollinated from flowers that opened after the plant was brought in last fall and pollinated by me shaking the flowers. Self-pollination won't happen with sweet potatoes without some help because the flowers generally point up and the anthers are down in the bottom, below the stigma. There is something tasty to bees in the bottom of the flower, so the pollen gets moved to the stigma as they squeeze past on their way in and out. The rest of those fifteen seeds were from the Ms. Bloom and the one I call Tries to Climb but they were developing capsules when I brought them in, so I don't know where the pollen came from. The original Tries to Climb did not tolerate indoor conditions as well as most and is just now recovering nicely, I may have to change the name because it IS climbing, just like a pole bean. The other fifteen seeds were from the 2023 semi-isolated culinary elite line.

I planted them in trays this year instead of direct seeding, as I transplant and grow them in pots anyway, and I already know that my seeds can easily be direct seeded and produce a crop in 100 days or less. That 100 DTM from seed has been a big focus of selection over the years. That's a huge difference between sweet potatoes and potatoes. With sweet potatoes I get more seeds and something to eat from seed.

The culinary roots I put in wet sand to clone are doing well and I'll be transplanting the slips into their pots over the next few days.

All of this is a bit later than I usually do it. In my climate I'm sure I could wait as long as the first of July to set out clones of my short season sweet potatoes, or for that matter probably any sweet potato. I don't think the term "mature" means the same thing with sweet potatoes as with most other crops. They "mature" to the point of producing seeds in around forty days or even less, many start blooming even sooner than that. "Mature" as far as storage roots is just whenever they are big enough to be worth eating, they don't get "ripe". Eating size happens in probably not much more than fifty days, it's just that the longer they are in the ground the bigger they get.

I started them later this year and I'm going to harvest them sooner. I've always left them as long as possible in order to harvest more seed but waiting almost till frost precludes having warm weather for the roots to cure and increase the sugars. Since I'm also now sure that they vines will finish maturing seeds, even if the roots have been removed, there little to be lost by harvesting in late September while the weather is still consistently warm.

I'll see how things go this year but I'm thinking of offering two to three thousand seeds from the culinarily line for sale, and basically retiring from the project other than for my own use. I'm going to continue with my ornamental line and eventually hope to offer them as clones or sell them and my rights to them, also in their entirety. Three thousand seeds in the hands of someone with the facilities and manpower to do so can easily produce a large number of new, genetically unique individual varieties. If just two hundred superior plants were selected for continued breeding the possibilities are vast. 

No matter which line is moved to a new owner they all contain the genetics to restore seed production to any sweet potato that can be forced into bloom. The culinary line just comes ready to eat, so to speak, where the ornamental line might take a few, or several years of selection like I did.

I would prefer that they stay in the public domain but that is not a requirement. If in the event that money talks, I'm prepared to listen, and I have all the documentation and breeding pedigree to go with them. 

Prepping a large area for planting corn yesterday, I found five more volunteer sweet potatoes. This is a spot where sweet potatoes have not been for four years. Laying there for years before sprouting sort of confirms my theory that what is believed to be low germination rate of sweet potatoes isn't that something is wrong with the seed. It's just that without artificial intervention like nicking the seed coat or soaking in acid they just sprout when they get around to it.

In my seeds I planted I only have around 25% germination. I think that's because it's been too cloudy and wet. In years past I've noticed that when planted in a bed or trays a few come up right away and those that don't seem to like drying out. Whenever they dry out, as soon as it gets wet again more sprout, this can go on in cycles for weeks. I've had them set around dried out all summer only to sprout in August or September. I've always selected for those that sprout faster and more predictably and not kept most of those that sprouted later. This year it's been constantly wet and cloudy, so they have never dried out, nor had a lot of hot sunshine. Still between the volunteers and those I planted I have exceeded the number I actually have room for, so I'll watch them a bit longer before selecting the ones I want to keep. 

Last summer I put the whole seed tray in the freezer for three weeks and had a couple more seeds pop up once back outside again, doing the same thing as drying out I suppose. 

Quote from: Richard Watson on 2024-06-26, 04:11:05 PMLast summer I put the whole seed tray in the freezer for three weeks and had a couple more seeds pop up once back outside again, doing the same thing as drying out I suppose. 

Could be I reckon. Being a tropical species I'm a bit surprised they can lay in the ground for years and survive all the freeze/thaw and wet/dry cycles that happen in that time. I bet in a drier climate they might be able to lay dormant in the ground for a very long time.

Sweet potatoes are doing really well this year. It's been hot and very dry with only about 1/4 inch or so of rain in the past five weeks, but I've been regularly watering the sweet taters. I think they like my keeping the water in a big tub for a few days to reduce temperature shock of pouring ground temp water on what is probably 100 plus degree soil.

Even with regular water those with dark colored leaves wilt a bit in the hottest part of the day but I don't think it really hurts them. It makes me wonder, and I have some reason already to believe that sweet potatoes don't really need full sun all day, at least not in a hot climate. I think they might do just as well or even better with mostly just morning sun. Morning too, is when they bloom and when the bees are most active.

My more uniform pots and soil mix seems to be working well too. Now if there are differences in growth or production, I'll be more sure it's genetic.

I don't have a good scale, so I took some that I harvested last October to work and used the postage scale to weight them. They averaged 8 ounces, which I think is a very nice size. Before, in a 3-gallon pot I've seen a range of two or three to six or seven that size per pot.

This year in 7.5 gallon pots and with consistent soil I should be able to get a good idea of production. If anything, I hope I end up with more that size rather than larger ones. 

**Note on production in small pots. It is critical that the bottoms of the pots with drain holes are buried a bit in the ground and that the pots are never moved once feeder roots have exited into the ground. So, they are not actually growing in just in the pot. The "clump root" trait is also critical, so you don't end up with empty pots with taters in the ground under them. All of my clones have that trait, I hope those started from seed this year do to.

Thats a good thought about the water temp on hot days, I going to think about how I could set up a system, an iron bath might be an idea, before fulling with water I could spread Butynol over it surface so as to help heat the water.

I have a big Rubbermaid stock watering tank sitting in the garden. I fill it from the municipal water and let it sit in the hot sun for a day or two. Water is about 55 F out of the tap but just one day in the sun warms it much closer to the temp of the soil in the pots. Also gives some time for a lot of the chlorine to evaporate. I don't really know for sure if temperature shock is an issue just seems like it might be. Using my watering can also lets me be sure each plant gets the exact same amount.

Sweet potatoes flowering is really picking up right now. I'm starting to pay attention to differences in size and color of the flowers.

Another thing I've noted is, and it's not cut in stone, that seed started planted plants seem to start blooming sooner than cloned plants. I wonder if that is somehow related or maybe over time, part of the process of them forgetting how to bloom and make seed. My clones are in full bloom now but some of the seed grow plants have been doing it for a month. Haven't seen quite as many bumblebees as usual which is a bit worrisome but lots of little bees are visiting and capsules are starting to form.

Here are some photos showing variation in flowers. The dark one is the darkest I've even seen.

Dark.JPG
Darker color flower on a 2024 volunteer

MB.JPG
Mid range color on the plant "Miss Bloom" sprouted in 2022

Mid.JPG
Lighter color on a 2024 seed grown plant

That first photo is quite a colourful flower

I don't think the color and size of flowers really matters much but it's fun to see.

I've just now started collecting sweet potato seeds and finding some capsules that have already shattered and dropped seeds. It's been an odd year in several ways, and I hadn't even kept the paths clear around the pots. It's all cleaned up now and I've started the process of removing lots of old leaves, which makes finding the seeds a lot easier. The plants themselves being grown in pots aren't affected by the neglect and tall weeds in the paths and they are looking great. Since I was careful to make sure soil mix and conditions were consistent this year, I should be able to see any differences in production between the various plants.

I think there are nine volunteer plants that came up early enough that I quickly prepared pots for them and added them to the patch. They all look great too with two especially interesting ones with dense bushy growth and lots of seeds forming. Volunteers are all over the place this year with new ones coming up even now. A couple that ended up being left where they sprouted are just as big and vigorous as those I planted.

After making the slips this spring I just pitched the old roots on top of an unused tub of soil where the just kept making more slips. We plated some of them in two spots in the garden. One in quite a bit of shade and one at the other end in full hot sun. They are all from the same two clones and those in the shade, even without any watering all year look fantastic. Those in full sun and also without watering look ok but are about 1/2 the size of the shade ones. The primary patch is in full sun but has been watered regularly. I've thought before that sweet potatoes might be happier in some climates with a bit of shade, and this seem to support that. Makes it easier to take care of because you don't have to be so attentive to watering.

I think that selecting for the clump root trait and bushy habit along with growing in pots is the way to go with sweet potatoes because it makes harvest so easy. Although they are every easy to trellis so a larger vine, as long as it has clump root does fine too. A tree branch with some side branches stuck in the ground works fine. I'm also more and more convinced that the pots don't have to be really large. I've had good harvests in 3-gallon pots and those I'm using this year are 7.5 gallons.

I have roots from last year that are still good to eat so I know that they easily store for a full year without much effort. I took some to work and used the postage scale, and they averaged about 8 ounces. That's the range I'm hoping for because each one makes for a nice serving. I'll see if the improved conditions this year makes bigger roots or more roots, I hope it makes more. I'll find out in another month or so.

I had resolved to take lots of pictures and videos this year, and I have taken some but haven't processed and sorted them yet. I'll definitely be taking lots of the harvest and the whole patch is more much photogenic now that the paths are cleaned up. 

 
   

This year I trialed a bunch of random varieties I've found at grocery stores. One variety, whose identity I'm not sure of [either standard beauregard or Jersey] seems to have self pollenated and is developing a seed capsule. I'm hopeful I can collect it before it shatters.

Quote from: Ohio Alex on 2024-08-23, 05:43:31 PMseems to have self pollenated and is developing a seed capsule. I'm hopeful I can collect it before it shatters.

Some are more prone to shattering than others, but you don't have the wait until danger of that. Once it gets to full size and starts to yellow a bit you can clip the stem and take it inside and put the cut stem in a little water. I do that often in late season when frost is likely. Probably a third of my total seeds each year mature inside like that with no apparent ill effect.

Something that I have never understood is how a species such as sweet potatoes or garlic loses its ability to make seeds because people started cloning it instead. I've observed something over the last few years that makes me wonder about it even more.

My clones that are three or four years old still flower and make plenty of seeds, but they aren't perfectly consistent. Two plants slipped from the same root may not produce seeds at the same rate or start doing it at the same time.

I plant in a mixed polyculture so it may be that one is next to a highly compatible neighbor and another one isn't but that doesn't explain the other thing I see. That is often times a new seed grown plant makes a huge number of seeds its first year and just lots of seeds its first year as a clone.  The first-year seed grown plants don't sacrifice anything in favor of seeds, they grow just as big and make just as many sweet potatoes as the clones.

The decreased seed from the clones isn't all that dramatic but it makes me wonder how many years or decades it would take until they do stop making seeds. Obviously, it isn't a universal thing because some the heirlooms I started with had been cloned for a long time and still managed to make some seeds, just not as many as the younger clones.   

I doubt I'll ever know the whole story on why these plants do what they do but fortunately I don't think it really matters all that much. It's just an interesting phenomenon that I've observed. 

I haven't done much as far as posting photos this year, so I made this little video to catch up.

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.

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?

Quote from: Cathy A on 2024-09-18, 10:44:25 AMhe 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.

Enjoyed your videos Mark.

How do you treat your tubers so they store well?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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. 

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.

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.

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.
(https://ibb.co/PzvJPK5s)

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.   

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.

Nice video Reed.  I find it useful to help sorting out ideas to write them down while thinking about them, even if I then don't go back to those notes

Still assessing it all in effort to make a plan for next year but here are a couple more little videos about this year's harvest.

Watched your videos earlier. My mind has been turning over the bit about (from memory) your experience has been that if you grow a sweet potato plant from seed it's likely to produce some amount of seed. If you keep a sweet potato of the plant to grow clones next year, the clones are less likely to produce seed, and maybe even to flower. If you save a clone of that plant to grow out the following year, etc into future years, then the ability for it to produce seed, or even be able to make flowers gets much less likely each time.

That is quite interesting! Is it possible that the sweet potato clones are losing the ability because those genes are inserted a different way in the tuber/root than into the seed? Or could it be like a "use it or lose it" trait, where the moment it doesn't get used the genes go dormant...? Very curious!

Quote from: Kadence Luneman on 2025-10-05, 10:24:45 PMWatched your videos earlier. My mind has been turning over the bit about (from memory) your experience has been that if you grow a sweet potato plant from seed it's likely to produce some amount of seed. If you keep a sweet potato of the plant to grow clones next year, the clones are less likely to produce seed, and maybe even to flower. If you save a clone of that plant to grow out the following year, etc into future years, then the ability for it to produce seed, or even be able to make flowers gets much less likely each time.

I can't say that for sure but there does seem to be a hint of something like that going on. A lot more time and experiments would been needed to see if it is really so, or not. It does appear that in general, first year seedlings and clones for the first two or three years make the most seeds but the older generations don't completely stop. Exceptions like the number seven plant contradict that though.

There is also the compatible issue, maybe a very seedy plant, one year is because it was a close neighbor of a highly compatible partner but another year the same clone by chance is only close to less a less compatible one. Just too many variables to identify to make any statement for sure. 

I think I've read somewhere (Cultivariable?) that potatoes tend to gradually accumulate viruses throughout their lifetimes, and the longer they live (in other words, the more years they are cloned), the more their productivity and fertility tend to decrease.

Maybe a lot of root crops might be the same way?  Like sweet potatoes?  The hypothesis could be tested by taking some sweet potatoes that used to be able to make seeds and stopped being able to, and tissue culturing them to remove any viruses, and seeing what the resulting clones do.  My suspicion is that, because that works for potatoes, it may work for other root crops, too.

I certainly don't really know but I don't think it is really the same. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are commonly associated but they are very different things. The word potato is in their name and the part generally eaten grows in the ground but that's about the limit of the similarity. It's a little like saying that what applies to peaches applies to cucumbers because they are both juicy inside.

In garlic, there seems to be some epigenetics involved in diminished seed set, with fertility rapidly recovered to some extent in few generations.  Most garlic lines just hadn't been reproduced by seed until very recently.

Potatoes definitely acquire viruses over time, but they also suffer from being grown outside of their original short-day and restricted temperature conditions, which means reproduction in our gardens has to be bred into them (and largely has, though large operations are busy inserting male sterility into everything to ease their cross-breeding).  But given their strong day-length sensitivity, there's no reason to expect potatoes to be equally fertile at all latitudes. And that's before we mix in all of the various species that have been bred into modern potatoes, and varying levels of ploidy, allele, and cytoplasmic compatibility.  I suspect that some species and landraces (like Ozette) have similar issues as garlic, though.

I've also heard the same claim made for potatoes (without much data) that I've heard for sweet potatoes, that first year seedlings produce seed differently than overwintered tubers.  There is certainly precedence in many other plants for diminished fruit production with age.

I don't see a lot of concern about virus accumulation in ipomoea in the scientific literature, but they also don't view fertility as a problem.  Most sweet potato lines are easily induced to produce seed under controlled conditions, so I think the problem we have with reproducing them is that the conditions are not the same as those in our gardens (though the above problems might apply more with older heirloom varieties).  I've spoken with some southern growers who claim that most of their varieties of sweet potato go to seed every year.  Some of them view this as a negative, believing (without providing data that I've seen) that this diminishes tuber production.  I suspect there is at least some selection bias going on among farmers to grow varieties that don't flower in production, and to save tubers which haven't flowered.  Seed production in their fields could be a real quality control problem if they come up with subsequent plantings, so I suspect it is a highly undesirable trait, selected against in breeding programs, much like the biennial seed production we've induced in so many other crops.

All of which is to say that I suspect Mark's program is exactly right, selecting for varieties that are prolific in tuber production while still being fecund in his growing conditions.  This will line up all of the variables in his favor, genetically and epigenetically, and either leave behind viruses that inhibit this, or breed fertile tolerance to endemic diseases in his soil and companion plants.  Honestly, I don't think there's any way around this--if you want to make a particular line of sweet potatoes more likely to produce seed, you're going to have to find a way to get seeds from it and start a selection program (even if it's just a survivability/fecundity screen).

Day length sensitivity comes up in discussion of sweet potatoes sometimes. I was convinced that they are not day length sensitive, and I know for sure that mine are not because I've had them bloom after the first set of true leaves. I've also seen some examples, including in videos of them blooming and even volunteers sprouting down south.

A friend in South Carolina grows one released by a university in Louisiana and it blooms for him a lot, but not until late in the season, but does not make seeds, I don't remember its name right off. He sent me some roots, and the clones indeed bloomed but just a very few and very late. There was no time for seeds with its genetics, even if it happened to pollinate mine to mature. I wanted it to cross with mine because it had the nice clump root trait that I like, and I figured it might have other genetics that a university can test for, but I can't, so I tried again with some purchased slips. Same thing happened.

I saw a video from a woman, I think she was in Tennessee and she was showing how she hoes and hills her corn. In the process she was chopping out lots of sweet potato seedlings. She didn't mention the seedlings, I don't think she knew what they were or didn't care. Maybe she thought they were some other Ipomoea like bindweed or morning glories, but they most certainly were sweet potatoes. By the size of the corn, the seedlings had sprouted pretty late but apparently a lot of seeds had been lost on the ground the year before. The plants they came had to have been either self-compatible or she had more than one variety growing together and both had to have bloomed early enough for the seeds to mature, and they had to have been cross-compatible.  I know for sure that not all plants capable of producing seed are compatible with all others that are.  Identifying which particular one(s) is/are compatible with which other(s) is way beyond my ability. I have to be careful not to get too carried away with culling so as not to lose that apparent balance in mine.  Anyway, I tried twice to contact that woman to find out what varieties she grew but she never responded.

I imagine that if those varieties have genetics applicable to my project, I already have them anyway because I've grown pretty much all of the varieties common down south except for Georgia Jet because it came up in my research as having several traits that I don't want in mine. I don't know if it is self-compatible, but Georgia Jet does make seeds because the folks in Canada who worked on breeding sweet potatoes, even before I did, mentioned using it. I don't know what happened to that project, but I think, similarly to the universities, they were just looking for another new clone. If they were looking for a line nicely adapted to Canada, I think they gave up too soon. I don't think anything but continued selection through sexual reproduction could do that, and it might take decades.

I eat the last of or outright discard good new clones all the time. For my goal they have to make nice roots and seeds, and they have to do it fast. I have a half a dozen or so other traits I consider important, if not critical. Almost all of my more recent generation seed will yield some of those traits and I'm not so picky that one has to have all of them but just two or three isn't enough to warrant cloning.  I can't yet afford to discard outright any that don't have the whole collection. I can't guess how much longer that will take.

Finding all of the traits in the same plant is still pretty rare but percentages are improving. Those are the ones that I clone for crossing with each other and with new seedlings in separate semi-isolated plots. All traits seem to be quantitative, controlled by a group of genes, Mendel's pea experiments just don't apply. If I say a plant has green leaves, it's because I don't know how to describe dozens of different shades of green. The only things that seem to have just a little bit of variation is the color and size of the flowers. 

My rambling about other stuff aside, my previous belief that sweet potatoes are not day-length sensitive may be wrong. Most of what I've seen from down south, even when I've sent my seeds and clones to people there, looks like they are day-length sensitive, when I know, or though I knew that they are not. I think I figured that something like day-length sensitivity was such a fundamental thing to a species that it wasn't variable but maybe not. I'm thinking now that it is. 

Or maybe there is some other environmental issue between here and there that I haven't identified.  One time I sent slips to a friend in Texas and they didn't bloom until October when I was collecting seeds from the same clones in July. Does anyone have a guess about why that could happen? 

Sweet potato season will be starting soon. I've been thinking about making a video about it and I will I guess pretty soon but I have been a bit lazy about it so for now just a written update.

My two favorite ornamental plants that I have referred to as Miss Bloom and Likes to Climb have done very well over winter. Always before I kept them as potted plants in the unheated room upstairs where they lived but just barely. This winter I just kept them as cuttings in pint jars of water in the south facing windows downstairs and they have done really well. Not nearly as much issue with spider mites overall and the lady bugs helped out with that too.

All through my work, along with selecting for sexual reproduction of superior lines, I've also worked to see just what a plant really needs to live and produce. For over winter storage, all a sweet potato needs at the beginning of the growing season is to not be dead. It doesn't matter how bad it looks when the longer days and warmer temps arrive, if the plant has life, it will soon be growing again. Doesn't matter at all to me what the "best" way to do it might be. I don't know how many plants I have, some died early on because the stems were not long enough and they didn't make it down to the water. I'm guessing I have about ten nice plants each of the two ornamentals and they have started growing nicely so each can easily make three or four new cuttings. Lots more than that actually if I keep letting them regrow after trimming and there is lots of time before they need to go out. They were just in the jars of water and fed once in a while with the stuff I squeeze out of my aquarium filter. This method was lots easier and more productive than keeping them as potted plants.

On the culinary side I'd have to go look to see how many I have, but again I'm getting pretty lazy. I remember I have plants #s 10 and 11. They are both very nice bushy, seedy plants with orange/orange nicely sweet roots that grow in the clump habit that I like. I also have plant # 7 which is similar except it has white/orange roots and is very, very seedy. All together I guess I have eight to ten culinary roots saved to grow this year. One is a 2025 volunteer with white/yellowish roots that I think I might like but need to grow more of it to see for sure. It's roots boarder on what I call clunkers, meaning they get bigger than I like. I prefer clusters of roots around six to eight ounces over a few much larger ones. I grow most of mine in pots, so it isn't an issue to just dump them out but if the really big ones were grown in the ground, it would be hard to harvest without damaging them. Also, if you have a three-pound sweet potato you can cut off a piece to eat and the rest will still keep for later, I would just rather have six 1/2-pound sweet potatoes. 

I had mentioned in one of my videos that selecting for the traits I like I might also be selecting for the same boring heart shaped leaf. There is nothing wrong with that, I reckon, I just like a little more variety and the 2025 volunteer I mentioned has a thin finger shaped leaf so I'm going to turn it loose in the culinary patch.

I only have the two ornamentals but last year three or four great ornamentals volunteered but I did not keep them. Now that I know how easy it can really be to keep them, I'm going to save more of them from now on.

I've said before that I might not start any new seeds, but I always do, plus I always find volunteers. Volunteers are decreasing a little though because I'm keeping the garden more heavily mulched most of the time and that seem to prevent them from having a chance. I have the same issue with my marigolds, dill, radishes, mustard and so on but that's a different problem that needs addressed overall.

So, I probably will start some new seeds, but I think I'll open the vault, put in most of the newer seeds and get out some of the much older ones. They have lower probability of having all the preferred traits of course, but they also have a bit more diversity of phenotype and I think it might be fun to explore that more, now that I have little better handle on what I'm doing. Even back in the beginning, more than ten years ago some really nice ones showed up but I didn't keep them more than a year or two for backcrossing. To prevent contaminating the current project I'll keep sprouted from old seeds isolated from the rest. I did keep a small area around last year's patch mostly mulch free so should also have some volunteers.

Hi Reed,
   Forgive me, but I'm a little confused. ...
   The title of this thread mentions 'turning them into a seed grown annual', but you don't appear to be planning any ''seed to harvest'' this year?
   Have the goal posts moved since you first embarked on your project?

Tim DH

O' no, the ultimate goal of seed to harvest and more seed in 100 days or less is already accomplished. They really are already a seed grown annual. It's just that there are still lots of unanswered answered questions and lots of different side avenues that might be explored.

I want to get to where I feel comfortable releasing them too, for money. I'm thinking now the best way to do that might be by clones that I know have all the desired traits instead of seeds that only might have them. That way I can be sure the buyer gets a plant that will make nice roots and seeds. Even that though has a problem because I grow in polyculture and still in most cases I don't know for sure which plants are self-compatible and which are not, nor which particular plant is compatible with which other particular plant(s). I need to know those things so that so a person could buy either a known self-compatible plant or a collection of two or more cross-compatible plants. Because collecting sweet potato seeds in quantity is such a pain in the rear, I'm not sure selling seeds is worth the effort from a financial standpoint and selling plants has regulatory issues that I'm not sure I can afford to navigate.

What I would really like is to pass a few thousand seeds and clones of the best plants to someone who can scale this project up and market it widely. That way people who were interested in a little food security could just grow clones like normally done and at the same time squirrel away the seeds. That way a total crop failure in one year isn't the end of the world, just get out your seeds and start over. Or if they wanted to keep breeding new ones. Maybe someday 100% of new plants would have all of the desired traits instead of just 25% or so.

Somebody needs to grow, track and document hundreds of plants and I just can't do that. I want to just keep a few for myself and ride off into the sunset.

Quote from: Kadence Luneman on 2025-10-05, 10:24:45 PM...your experience has been that if you grow a sweet potato plant from seed it's likely to produce some amount of seed. If you keep a sweet potato of the plant to grow clones next year, the clones are less likely to produce seed, and maybe even to flower. If you save a clone of that plant to grow out the following year, etc into future years, then the ability for it to produce seed, or even be able to make flowers gets much less likely each time.

Kelly Winterton observed this exact behavior when breeding potato onions. He eventually concluded that it was important to grow a certain amount from seed each year in order to preserve the seed-producing trait. Unfortunately that means it's difficult to preserve a particular strain of potato onion, which is generally done by cloning.

It's interesting to see the same behavior reported for sweet potatoes.

I put my sweet potatoes in for clones today. I have nine plants in the culinary line and two ornamentals. The culinary are a mix of mostly planted on purpose and volunteers. Three of them #s 7, 10 and 11 are three or more years old, some are just newly sprouted last year. I've changed up how I'm starting them this year with each in its individual pot, so they don't get so tangled together.

The ornamentals, Miss Bloom and Likes to Climb are started from clippings kept in the window over winter. They look kind of rough but will perk up soon.

SPs 2026 J.jpg

I've been wanting to sell some of my sweet potatoes for a long time and I'm thinking I may offer some on eBay or maybe Permies but I don't think I'll offer seeds, rather clones. I've done a lot with them, but they are still pretty screwy, and I think a buyer might get a better deal with clones of proven seed producing plants than with seeds. Uless someone bought a lot of seeds the chances of failing in the first year are too high for my comfort level, considering how much I will likely ask for them. All nine of the roots I'm cloning make seeds, nice roots and have all or most of my other preferred traits like clump root, bushy habit and so on. I of course still cannot guarantee success but if a person buys a collection of say five or more clones (from different roots) the chances of getting more seeds and roots to eat, on 100 days or less are very high.

I have all the sweet potatoes and sweet potato seeds I will ever need and will keep playing with them myself for the most part I'm considering the culinary side of this project near completion. The culinary line is what I'm considering selling perhaps under OSSI, perhaps not. I need to get in contact with my advisor with OSSI and get their input first.

While I won't stop working with the culinary, maybe introducing a new one now and then, I'm turning my attention to the ornamental line. Lots of ornamental sweet potatoes are already on the market but mine, I believe are superior for a number of reasons, one being they bloom, a lot. Miss Bloom for example is quite unique in that the abundant flowers are held above the foliage rather than buried in it like most strong blooming plants.

My abuse of the ornamental plants, keeping them in water on a cold windowsill, allowing the spider mites to chew on them and they still survive shows that they, with just a bit of attention could be fantastic and edible house plants. Pretty plant, pretty flowers and greens, year-round anywhere with a sunny warm window. So many great ones show up and I just discard them. I think it would be more fun to turn most of my breeding attention to them. I've observed often times that people will often pay more for flowers than food, so perhaps considerably more profitable and less restricted too. If I'm able to get through the OSSI pledge process it will just be for the culinary.

Very exciting!

Selling through eBay, Permies, or elsewhere, would be grand. You will have a buyer with me at least, for both clones and seeds. A mix of clones for "guaranteed" success and a bunch of seeds to see what takes or not would be interesting. Sweet potato has a special place in my heart, just hard to grow as far north as I am! Having them as an annual would be a big win in my book and something to share with those around me. Thank you for all your hard work, please keep us updated with your plans!

Well, a little bit of a disaster has struck. When I put my saved roots in the cold frame as in the photo shown in earlier post it was still pretty chilly in the mornings, but they took right off. Then it got warmer and I went ahead and took off a few slips, just from three or four roots and planted one of each thinking it would probably get colder again, and I wanted to see what effect that would have on them. Unsurprisingly it slowed them down but did not hurt even though one morning had light frost on the car windshield it didn't kill or even damage the plants.

Meanwhile in the cold frame the others were doing nicely, and I was planning to set them out in a day or two, but it got a bit warmer and I forgot to open the cold frame one morning. The cold frame had been recently remodeled with new tape to seal the seams and with a foot deep bed of composting material providing a little heat from the bottom, and a fully sunny day with a high of about 85 F, my sweet potatoes and the slips they were making cooked. I held out hope they might make some more slips, but the roots themselves were actually cooked. They were soft and dead.

I was only able to save a couple slips from one root so those I planted earlier and those are the only ones I have. Five of the nine roots in that other photo, five unique examples of ipomoea batatas were lost. Fortunately, one that I had planted earlier is our favorite for cooking and it is doing fine as are the other three. All of them are fine sweet potatoes that all have most of my preferred traits. It's just that I won't have extra slips to maybe sell this year.

I described it a "little bit" of a disaster because that is all it is, maybe no disaster at all really because one of the main objectives of this project is a guarantee that a crop failure, even a total one which this isn't, is recoverable the next season.

Except all along I have selected for fast maturity, seed to harvest in 100 days or less and I have plenty more season this year, no need to wait till next. So, I got into my seeds and planted forty in a row in the ground. These seeds are top line seeds mostly from the very plants that were lost. They just sat there for a while until it finally rained and twenty-seven of them popped up immediately and a few more since then. A little bit of a disaster is that I only have twenty-five pots ready and four of them are already take.   

And then on a whim I planted a couple hundred low grade seeds. These are seeds that after harvesting last year were later picked off the discarded vines. Mostly little brown and wrinkled things, not the nice fully formed black ones. Drying on discarded vines without fully maturing and even after a frost or two I figured I would be lucky to get half a dozen plants but apparently what I thought were bad seeds and usually didn't mess with aren't bad at all. I suppose they are responsible for the volunteers that I find each year.

Germination on the low grade wasn't the two or three percent I expected but more like 25% or more. This photo was taken a couple days ago and a few more have pooped up since then.

B-seeds 26 j.jpg

Now I guess the disaster is that I have probably wasted a bunch of seeds because all together I have close to a hundred and only space for about twenty. I do have some more pots but not that many but I don't have enough compost and stuff to mix up more soil to fill them and I have a near religious objection to buying dirt. I might do that though, so I don't have to discard them because chances are very high that plants as good or better than those I lost are in there.

Maybe this is more of an opportunity than a disaster. These low-grade seeds also (mostly) came from those same superior plants. If I can pull off keeping them all maybe I can arrive at a measure of probability that any one new plant will have all or most of the desired traits. Another possibility is that if I can study them close enough maybe I can get better at finding observable traits that will indicate early on which ones are likely to make nice big roots and which ones are more just ornamental. 

On the ornamental side both "Likes to Climb" and "Ms. Bloom" are doing fine. I had already planted several of them here and there and those in the cold frame died back from the cold frame turned sauna but immediately shot back up from the roots. I had thought of planting some older generation seeds looking for more ornamentals but under the circumstances won't be doing that this year.
   

Sweet potatoes are mostly transplanted and looking good. I ended up with 30 from the grade A seeds in my 7.5-gallon pots and 15 from the grade B seeds in 3-gallon pots. I left half a dozen of the grade A sprouts in the ground, but they are being smothered by okra now. I might try to find a new place for them too but not worried about it right now.  I made a nice well amended bed and put another 35 from the grade B seeds in there. They are a bit crowded but it's the best I can do. There is another very nice dozen or so of them left for now in the big tub I started them in. I also scrounged up ten mismatched pots for some volunteers that I found here and there but are still some more volunteers.

I have another smaller spot that I was going to turn into a new onion patch but since I'm already so invested in the sweet potatoes this year, I might use it for the leftovers. I'll leave three or four in the big tub where they sprouted and have another big tub currently drying down some peas that can take three or four.

A lot of interesting things showed up in the grade B seeds. They are from the same plants as the grade A but something weird happened. I don't want to say that mutations were caused in the lower grade seeds, but it seems like that might be the case. There were three what I call "vampires" in the bunch. I've seen them before and they apparently don't know how to make chlorophyl. They also die fast if exposed to full sun, I didn't mess with trying t save them. Probably a dozen more had just one or fused cotyledons. I have also seen extra cotyledons in the past, as many as five but none of the showed up this year.

Often when the cotyledons are single or fused the true leaves sort of bust out of the stem below the cotyledons and the plant grows normally after that. I planted a few of them in the in-ground patch and they just look like normal plants now.

I remember when I did lots of research, I found that they can mutate or revert to the mother phenotype in the first few seasons of cloning. I won't say I didn't believe that because I think the university plant witches know what they are talking about, I guess I didn't expect to actually see it myself. Turns out it isn't all that uncommon like when the plant I call Ms Bloom grew a different color root. I think it applies not just to sweet potatoes but to most plants that are generally cloned like apples. That's why a new one has to clone true for a few years before it can be presented for patent, not that I want to patent anything.

I lost the saved roots of Ms Bloom. Not from failure to produce slips of anything, I mean I can't find them. I'm not the only one that gets into the storage bins so my best guess it that we must have ate them.  Kind of a bummer but as they say, stuff happens.

I'm watching one those with the fused cotyledons this year because heart shaped leaves busted out in the center but another stem with "maybe" ivy leaf bust out below. I say maybe because it is just one leaf right now and could be just an injury or something. If it turns out a single plant really has two different leaf shapes it will be fun to grow it out, but I don't know that there will be anything really special about it.

All of the cloned plants are in big tubs and doing nicely. I've got about twenty each of my ornamentals, Ms Bloom and Likes to Climb stuck here and there all over the place. They are in varying conditions depending on how well the ground was prepared and how hard it is to keep them watered.

I almost forgot that lots of seedlings and clones are growing flower buds. Several started with just the first or second set of true leaves. I've seen that before but not to this extent. I don't know if it is genetic or environmental or maybe a bit of both.     

 

I've neglected to update on my sweet potatoes lately so made a little video this morning. I accidentally refered to my ornamental plants as culinary, so ignore that.

Just uploaded another little update about my sweet potatoes.

It's too early to say for sure but observing my sweet potatoes this year they certainly do better with some shade. At least they are much easier to take care of. I sat and watched them for a couple hours the other day and those that get full sun until early afternoon and full shade by later in the afternoon never wilt from the heat.

Those in full sun all day are wilted by midafternoon, especially the ones with darker colored leaves, no matter how much I water them. By evening when they also fall into shade you can literally watch them perk back up. By morning there is no difference. It's a big difference though in how often I have to water them. I have clones of the same ones in the different spots, will be interesting to see at harvest time if there is a difference in root production. If not or if it is just slight, they are all going into more shade from now on.

When I first started with them, I thought that being tropical in origin they probably wanted full sun. Looking back that was a silly assumption. I'm sure there is lots of shade in the tropics and probably lots of plants there prefer it.   
   

I've mostly just been wandering around visiting with the sweet potatoes for the last several days. After much pondering and some great consultation, I think I have an idea on how to proceed next year.

I have those three clones that survived the easy bake cold frame incident growing together now semi-isolated from the others and want to expand on that idea next year. It will depend of course on what I find underground with all the newly sprouted plants at harvest time. Those seeds came last year mostly from the same original nine clones I had in the cold frame.

The survival of those three I still have isn't because of genetics. It's because I had taken some slips already and put them out early knowing they might get frozen, they didn't. When I forgot to open the cold frame that morning and it hit 85 F with bright sunshine all of the slips and all of the roots died. The slips were fried that evening, and I thought the roots might sprout more slips but within a week or so they all turned dark color and started getting soft.

Anyway, out of those almost 100 new plants I hope to come up with a few more of what I'll call breeding groups or compatible groups or something like that. Seeds from those three which I guess I'll call breeding group #1 will be saved separately from all the others, I may even separate those from each individual clone. I may or may not grow those seeds the following year. If I end up with more collections of three, I will only grow clones next year, no new seeds at all except for what might come up volunteer. I imagine there will be quite a few as both the in ground and in pots plants are terribly overgrown and intermingled. It will be near impossible to find all of the seeds and I don't intend to even try. I'll just watch for seedlings next year and move them appropriately away from the breeding groups.

I have close to twenty of my big tubs which can easily hold three plants so my breeding groups like the one this year will be sets of three different clones in the tubs and isolated from each other by forty to fifty feet. That's nearly far enough I think but there will also be such things as runner beans, dahlias and corn separating them. Any pollen sneaking in from one of the other groups will be minimal.

I'm going with three per group because I don't know the compatibility preferences of any one plant and I think it is possible that some plants might only be compatible with some other particular plant(s). Just two plants in a group have a higher chance of incompatibility, four plants make it overly complicated for continued work of eventually answering some questions about any particular plant(s) compatibility preferences. It's possible that self-pollinating plants could be identified as well but in the near term, I'm looking at narrowing it to polyculture but not mass polyculture, at least for a couple of years.

Assuming the breeding groups goes well, seed from those groups will need to be grown in 2028 to confirm that they reproduce acceptably true to type and continue to be cross-compatible. On second thought I will grow seed from breeding group #1 next year, it has a head start.

My sweet potatoes are moving on, starting to make seeds but I haven't collected a lot, just too lazy, I guess. Have to get on that though because September is generally the seediest month, even into October as long as frost doesn't threaten.  I've taken a lot of photos, just haven't put them on the computer yet. Made a couple videos too but when I played them back had screw-ups I didn't like so they ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. I don't script my videos and I don't edit them, if they come out wonky, I just have to start over.

It had been hot and dry, but I kept them watered, so they looked good already, but it finally rained a couple weeks ago and stayed cooler, just lower 80s for a while with ample water and they went crazy. Several are totally out of control, sprawling across the paths and invading beds on the other side. Hot and dry again now, so I'm back to watering every couple of days.

I have always avoided mentioning much about the genetics, lest I give the appearance of knowing what I'm taking about or demonstrating that I don't. I've been digging into that now and learning and relearning lots of things. I batatas is a hexaploid species, and it evolved from a cross between two different species, and it picked up a bit of genetics from a bacterium somewhere along the way.

There is a bit more known about them now that ten years ago when I first read up on them. Seems a very well-funded outfit is putting them under a microscope, so to speak but I won't go on more about that just yet.

To understand what exactly what hexaploid means I had to go back a bit to what diploid really means and came across some other terms that if I ever knew, I had forgotten. Something confusing was the difference between a diploid species and diploid cell but I think I have that down now.

Then you got your haploid cells and something called meiosis. This is where sweet potatoes as compared to a diploid species go a bit off the rails of predicting what will happen when a new seed sprouts. Diploid, no problem, a cell undergoes meiosis and produces new cells, each with just one half of the DNA strand. I'm unsure of the proper term for that half, so I'll call it a string, and two strings make a strand. The same chromosomes are lined up in the same order, and the strings are the same length so poof, when two get together they combine into a DNA strand and new seed. The short, I guess of sexual reproduction minus the many nuisances. I wonder too, not that it matters, if a single DNA string is basically the same thing as RNA.

So, in a diploid species its theoretically fairly simple. Genes are easily identifiable in a lab or over a much longer time just by observation and selection. But a haploid sweet potato cell (I'm guessing) has three of the individual strings each with 45 chromosomes instead of one string of 23, like with people. Does the term haploid even mean the same thing whit a hexaploid, since we're dealing with three strings instead of one? Three strings from each parent make six strings, six copies of each chromosome instead of two.  What a mess.

The new research I found complicated it even more. It appears that with most species that originated from an interspecies cross the chromosomes are arranged in such a way as to be identifiable as to which species they came from. I don't remember the term for that, but sweet potatoes don't follow it. In sweet potatoes they are all mixed up. Attempting to sort that out in the lab is what this new research is doing, I guess.

Well, I've been reading on the topic some more and I'm pretty sure my last post is not entirely accurate if it's accurate at all. It appears that meiosis in a hexaploid species is way more complicated than in a diploid, way more. It seems that meiosis in any polypoid, of which there are a lot more than I realized is a whole different critter than in diploids. Lots of interesting stuff about wheat and kiwi came up in my searches.

In any event I'm pretty sure that's the root of issues with breeding sweet potatoes. I think sexual incompatibility including male and or female sterility and spontaneous mutation are the two most important. I've tamed the incompatibility problem to a large degree just by observation and selection, but I doubt it will ever completely go away and it's probably really best that it doesn't. The mutation will probably also always be in play. I like the mutations. It's fun to see new phenotypes just pop up by surprise once in a while. 
.

I finally got a new quick little video of my sweet potatoes, and I did a couple little side experiments this year that I mention there. One is in what I'm calling breeding group 1 and it is just seeing how fast a sweet potato can produce roots. They were planted as no-rot cuttings on July 10th and are growing very well. I'll hold off on harvesting them until last to give them a bit more time. The vines are bigger than I expected they might be at only about sixty days.

Here is breeding group 1 on July 10th
BG1 July10.jpg

And now, on September 6th
BG1 Sept6.jpg

And the little video I made yesterday is below. I mentioned that I was going to start harvesting soon but have moved that up to today. Digging around in the vines yesterday I discovered quite a few capsules seeds had already shattered and lost seeds and a lot more pretty well advanced.  I'll just save any dry ones I come across and clip pieces with lots of seeds and put them in water to finish. Some of those that are already lost will volunteer next year but I'm not planning to start any new ones. I want instead to just focus on establishing the compatibility groups from clones. 

I don't think sweet potatoes will ever breed true and there will always be some percentage of new sprouts that do not have all of the preferred traits but by establishing the breed group(s) I think I can bring the percentage of that to a good level. Then I can release seeds from these groups and folks can plant some seeds, find some they like to clone and just save the seeds year to year. That way if something ever happens and live clones are not available anymore; they can just get out some seeds and start over. Or if they want, they can continue breeding them year to year.

I'm looking forward to the first option for myself, just clone my favorites year to year and stash the seeds, just in case.

Do these grow fast enough from cuttings to mostly suppress weeds? Looks like much of the planting is a cheerful jungle.

Are these in full sun or partial shade?
I think I've read about sweet potatoes being interplanted with corn in tropical areas. What do they prefer with respect to full sun vs partial shade in Indiana?

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-07, 04:45:28 AMDo these grow fast enough from cuttings to mostly suppress weeds? Looks like much of the planting is a cheerful jungle.

Yes, they do especially if the soil is good and they get plenty of water which these did. About the only weeds that found the sun above the sweet potatoes were a couple of tomatoes that I pulled out and a cowpea that I just left alone.

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-07, 04:45:28 AMAre these in full sun or partial shade?
I think I've read about sweet potatoes being interplanted with corn in tropical areas. What do they prefer with respect to full sun vs partial shade in Indiana?

These are in full sun, but I've kept them well watered ever since planting. Overall though, I think they do better in considerable shade. They are certainly easier to care for in shade as they don't need as much water. I think full sun in mornings and full shade in the afternoon would be ideal, but it is the water that makes the big difference.

I finished harvesting the in-ground patch and the result was not exceptional, I'm just guessing at best 40 pounds from the approximately 30 sq ft planted area. I'm not really disappointed though because this patch was hastily put in just to use up the extras when more than expected sprouted this year. I'm not surprised by the low harvest weight as I just crowded them into a small space and didn't keep them nearly as well watered as I did the breeding group or the ones in pots.

After the cold frame disaster, I had a pack of what I considered low grade seeds, and I just planted them instead of getting into the better ones and was a bit shocked that so many of them sprouted in good time. What I mean by that is that many still have the annoying habit of sprouting when they feel like it instead of when you want them too. So, if you want twenty plants to sprout within a week or so, you need to plant fifty. Over the last several years I have just discarded any that sprouted later which they can do, months later. I guess my selection for quick sprouting over the years is working.  

These low-grade seeds were collected from discarded vines the year before and had even been through a couple of light frosts before I got around to collecting them. Lots were not full sized or a bit puckered up and some even looked a little molded. A good lesson learned, that even seeds that look bad are often actually still good.

I planted at least forty plants in that patch but only found twenty-three.  A plant dying after setting out is very rare, but they were awfully crowded and some of them turned into giant vines that must have smothered some others out. Also, I noted a bit of vole activity which I suspect had something to do with the poor harvest. Some roots with teeth marks had healed and I guess cooking should kill any vole germs, so we will eat those. Sweet potatoes have a remarkable ability to tolerate poor conditions and recover from damage. Rabbits can chew the vines to the ground twice, and they will grow back and still produce nice roots, assuming you put up a fence or get rid of the rabbits.

I have always selected against giant vines, but they still show up now and then. I think that is probably because of the hexaploid nature of the species. There are just too many possible gene combinations so phenotypes you don't like can hide in there, for years. I suspect the opposite is also true. I bet that if I devoted a season to growing just seeds from my ornamental line that a few nicely rooted ones would show up, I may do that someday, just for fun.

Both of the two giant vines made lots of small but very nice roots but as giant vines will do the roots were scattered along the vines wherever they touched the ground, as far as eight feet away from the main stem. I don't like that trait so am glad that although these vines were blooming nicely, they didn't start blooming till much later than most, so they didn't contribute much pollen to the others. Any seeds I get from them will be saved separately for the others.
I also found two of what I'll call super-seeders. Neither one of these made nice roots and in years past I generally just discarded them. A super-seeder has clusters of flowers, each penuckle can have as many as twenty pedicles, maybe even more and half or more of them set seed. I decided this might be a valuable archive of genetics and am keeping these separately from the others. With so many successfully maturing seeds, I think it's possible they are self-compatible. Another little, sometime in the future, experiment like with the ornamentals. These super-seeders don't fit with the ornamentals though because all of those hundreds of flowers were completely hidden under the leaves. I didn't even know they were there until I dug out the neighboring vines. I'm keeping all of these seeds separately and also keeping clippings to clone, I'll find a spot on the patio or somewhere next year far from my culinary breeding group(s). I also have the ugly, woody little roots. I'd kind of like to keep them but doubt they would store well so would have to be kept as houseplants and I don't have room for that. I'd like to keep them because I have reason to suspect they are more likely to throw mutations than most. Another future project, I suppose.

Now to the good part. I found three that have strong potential to add to the culinary groups! They all have a bit larger vine than I really like but I've decided to lighten up on that some. A lot of people may have more space than I do plus they are easy to trellis if you want to. Also, although I don't really like them the greens are good to eat and like the rabbits proved you could eat quite a lot of them without badly decreasing the root harvest.

Discovering the true percentages of what phenotypes will show up in newly sprouted plants is a big priority for me and I'm pretty happy with three out of twenty-three making the cut to go on to the breeding groups next year. On a scale of one to ten I'm giving two of them a 7.5 and the other 6.5. I'm hopeful that after curing and coming out of the oven, I can increase those scores. I only have one for now (plant # 10) that scores a 9.5, it isn't a 10 because you always need to leave room for improvement. I tasted small uncured roots of the higher scored ones and they were a bit sweet already, plus they are both yellow inside. My favorite one ever was yellow. 

Plant #10 came up in 2022 and will be central to one or more of the culinary breeding groups. It is moderately seedy with four or five flowers per cluster and reliably matures seeds. It's bushy with purplish leaves and has orange / orange roots that form in my preferred clump root configuration eliminating the need to dig big holes to find them.

Plant V-25-1, because it came up volunteer in 2025 is also already in breeding group #1. It is close to super-seedy and makes nice roots. That combination doesn't happen very often. Super-seedy isn't a required criterion. A good root producer is fine even if it only has as few as one flower per peduncle. Most that have just very few per, tend to have more of them, sometimes at nearly every leaf joint.   

So, like I said, I'm happy with the 3 out of 23 percentage and there are fifty more yet to be harvested! To pin that percentage down more precisely I'm planning in 2027 to grow my culinary breeding groups in semi-isolation and in 2028 growing out the resulting seeds. I had in mind that if I found a 10% (with all preferred traits) in 2028 I'd consider it pretty successful, but it looks like I may have already exceeded that. I can test it some just next year with breeding group #1 except that too many others were blooming nearby, including one of those giant ones to include it in the final analysis.

Seed collection has been going very well too. I already have more than enough collected to ensure continuation of the project. It's damp and warm right now and that can cause seeds even in still green capsules to sprout so I may have to go out and clip off a lot of stems and bring them in to finish maturing and drying. That's easy to do and works very well, I've already done that from a lot of those I already harvested. If they have long peduncles that's all that's needed. If they have short ones, I just clip a section of vine, the leaves aren't needed so I cut them off.   Some seeds, still out there on the discarded vines will probably volunteer next year. 

Congratulations for getting three more vegetative clones you can add to your premiere cullinary lines!

The idea of developing small groups of vegetative lines that all have the desired variety-defining characteristics and that, when planted together, can be depended on to give seed a high proportion of which will also have the variety-defining characteristics is really interesting. It expands the concept of 'variety' a good bit. But nothing we can't deal with in terms of OSSI-Pledging.

I wonder if potato breeders have thought of that. I know Tom Wagner bred a lot of potato varieties. But he lost them all because of virus or other disease problems. And that tends to be the inevitable result when independent plant breeders who do not have sterile setups and ability to tissue culture growing tips to minimize virus problems try to maintain potato varieties long term.

It would also be great with respect to breeding garlic from true seed. Right now, if you save seed from a garlic that was bred from true seed you probably get a garlic that can make true seed. But the seed just gives you a breeding project. Not a way of maintain a given type.

If you run your sweet potato seed through a dehydrator so it is dry enough for frozen storage, can you freeze sweet potato seed and store it essentially indefinitely?

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-12, 11:49:09 AMCongratulations for getting three more vegetative clones you can add to your premiere cullinary lines!

Thank you! Now to see if they rate in flavor and store well, so I can up their scores.

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-12, 11:49:09 AMThe idea of developing small groups of vegetative lines that all have the desired variety-defining characteristics and that, when planted together, can be depended on to give seed a high proportion of which will also have the variety-defining characteristics is really interesting. It expands the concept of 'variety' a good bit. But nothing we can't deal with in terms of OSSI-Pledging.

I scratched my brain for a long time and couldn't think of another way to do it. The seeds from a single plant might work to produce the next generation but I don't know that so to be safe I went with the group idea. I'm pretty confident of that but won't really know 100% for sure until 2028. I like the "variety-defining characteristics" phrasing.  I can see expanding on that in a number of ways for example in naming.

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-12, 11:49:09 AMI wonder if potato breeders have thought of that. I know Tom Wagner bred a lot of potato varieties. But he lost them all because of virus or other disease problems. And that tends to be the inevitable result when independent plant breeders who do not have sterile setups and ability to tissue culture growing tips to minimize virus problems try to maintain potato varieties long term.

I've never seen any issues with disease, but I have always been careful about not reusing old soil and things like that. I've also never kept the same clone for more than a few years. I know disease can be a problem, the first thing the researchers at UNC do is inoculate theirs's with disease. Suzanne Ashworth said in her book to let slips get long and cut them a few inches away from the root they sprouted from. I do that but for a different reason. If you just pull a slip off it often has an overabundance of roots. A freshly cut stem has no roots, or maybe just a few little bumps that will turn into roots. Making them sprout brand new roots leads to better production, a few excellent roots instead of bunches of smaller ones. The folks at Sandhill Preservation thought me that. My hope, without my own evidence is that if disease ever shows up, I can treat it the same as any other possible crop failure, just get out some seeds and start over.

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-12, 11:49:09 AMIf you run your sweet potato seed through a dehydrator so it is dry enough for frozen storage, can you freeze sweet potato seed and store it essentially indefinitely?

I remember in the research somewhere it said that the seeds have an extremely long life span just stored at room temperature and for decades if frozen, but I don't know that myself. I hope so because I have lots of seeds as much as ten years old, some in the fridge and some in the ground in stainless steel canisters.  I've planted five-year-old seeds that were just stored upstairs, and they sprouted fine and I've had volunteers come up in places I had not grown them for almost that long, so I think the seeds really are pretty durable.

Been meaning to make another video but got lots of other stuff to do and get done. Got half of the garden cleaned up and planted a bunch of stuff in case it rains before it snows or if it rains or snows. Anyway, here are the roots I've found so far that may make the cut to be in a breeding group next year. Three at the top are ones I already had and now found two more out of fourteen. I don't think the new ones are as nice, I'll give the long pink one a 5.5 and the other one a 5. They could go up or down in score after taste test. If they go down, their probably out.

Down to just the pots, BG#1 and a couple interesting volunteers, yet to harvest. They can hold off a bit longer, as they are fast and easy.

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Not much happening with the sweet potatoes right now. It's been too hot for the last several days to do much in the garden. I did make a new video of current conditions of the plants.
 

It's getting quite chilly here in the early mornings and I'm about done harvesting sweet potatoes. Still need to take cuttings of the non-rooting ornamentals to grow as house plants over winter and still two volunteers yet to harvest.

I only found three more breeding group candidates from the pot grown plants. That is a bit disappointing and surprising since I got five from the inground patch and they all came from the same batch of seeds. I kept them watered good I thought, but apparently not good enough as the ground under the pots was still very dry so the feeder roots had not exited the drain holes on most plants. Also, even though each one had its own pot they were still overcrowded and a half dozen oversized vines were crowding the others. The leaves mostly looked so much alike that once they merged into together, I couldn't tell that just a few were dominating and hogging up all the sunshine. Some smaller plants with a nice clump root and compact growth habits produced very little.

All that has me thinking that I have a lot to learn about growing sweet potatoes. Always focusing largely on the genetic ability to make roots and seeds I've overlooked environmental factors of root production. You get the seeds anyway, but I think better conditions would make for better roots, and I think I have probably unnecessarily discarded a lot of good ones over the years. I'll be changing that next year with better soil mix and much more attention to making sure it is consistent for all plants. Also, less overcrowding and more attention to watering. 

Next year should be easier overall as I will just have my breeding groups instead of a hundred new sprouts to mess with. I figure on having just four or five of them spaced here and there with two or three plants together in one of my large tubs. I have them already emptied and rinsed out and piles of tomato and bean vines and corn stalks ready to turn into soil. I have three more tubs that grew successive crops of bush beans and okra, I'll dump them and mix that up with the vines and stalks along with some grass clippings and leaves. I also have the nitrogen nodules from a bunch of peanuts buried in some compost, I'll put that in the bottom of each tub and let it all sit and compost a bit over winter. I don't want the corn stalks and tomato vines to completely compost as they provide the stuff to keep the soil loose and fluffy, which I think is good for root production. I also keep the stems of some big ornamental grasses to chop up and add if I think more fluffy stuff is needed but I won't do that until spring.

 

I think focusing on the breeding groups for a while is a good strategy. The groups would allow those who want to grow your most established material to start growing it. If they started from vegetative material, they could just grow your groups without needing to do any breeding at all. And could just start collecting seed themselves as a backup/resilience plan. However fascinating we find traveling into the unknown and breeding new varieties, most farmers and gardeners just want to grow an established variety they really like.

The practicality of the breeding groups as a way of distributing finished "varieties" depends a lot on how many members are in the group. Once you have a breeding group of three or four clones that work,it might be worth while to figure out whether there is a combination of just two of the four that would work just as well.

The approach you are exploring should work equally well for potatoes.

Quote from: Carol Deppe on 2026-09-28, 01:16:12 PMThe approach you are exploring should work equally well for potatoes

I've wondered that and why, to my knowledge no one has done it already. I still grow some potatoes, but my climate isn't the best for them, and I don't have a good place to store them so the fact that they don't really make anything to eat or really even much to evaluate (from seed) makes working with them really hard. I remember seeing a video one time from a grower in coastal California that got some not huge, but pretty nice potatoes, from seed. I wondered if they could do the same as I did with sweet potatoes and just grow clones of those nice ones and keep backcrossing and selecting until they had a line that really did have good chances of making a harvest again, from seed. I don't think that grower followed up. Patience is critical in such matters, I think.

I'm rethinking my plans for my sweet potatoes next year; I'll get back to that later. Below are plants I'm keeping as houseplants this winter because they didn't make large storable roots but are very seedy. I've always mostly just discarded plants such as these but decided it might be a good idea to make a "super seedy" side project away from the others. I'll keep them on the patio or in the back garden.

These are four very seedy new plants ready to come into the kitchen window when it gets cold. The two not in line in the tray are just the old Miss Bloom and Likes to Climb. The six cell pack on the right is Bean Patch Volunteer. It is very seedy, nicely bushy and has potential to be a root producer. The six in the middle are two that came from seeds I planted and that are both very seedy, although poor rooting. The six pack on the left are another volunteer, again with potential for better rooting than it did this year.

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As far as rethinking my plans, it's more rethinking my technique. You can see in the photos they have seed capsules in development, as well as flowers and flower buds in various stages of development. I know from years past that that will likely continue even after they go inside and light and temperatures decrease. The reason I know for sure that the plant Miss Bloom is self-compatible is because it fully matured seeds in January a couple years ago when I hand pollinated it.

As I looked at these, I realized without bees to interfere I can do the same thing with all of these and find out which is self-compatible and which is compatible with which else. I can easily do that in the patch next year too, either by taking individual cuttings inside or by bagging stems with lots of flowers. (I already bought some soft mesh bags)

I'll still do my breeding groups, but I don't have to wait to find out compatibility preferences of each plant. It won't be all that much trouble to identify for sure any self-compatible plants as well as compatible pairs just by isolating cuttings or bagging branches. If I find any self-compatible plants especially in my culinary group(s)it will be very interesting in 2028 to see how they turn out.

The first seeds I ever saw came from a self-pollinated plant and I've always wondered about the potential involved with it how often it occurs and so on. I of course don't know but I suspect inbreeding depression is not a big concern with sweet potatoes. I suspect it's more likely that multiple phenotypes will still result even from self-pollination.

It would be really cool if you can figure out which plants are self-compatible. Especially if any of your culinary lines are. And selfing such a line would certainly give you a greater percent of seed that give offspring similar to the parent than crossing to something else.

I agree that even with recurrent selfing a sweet potato plant would likely be nowhere near breeding true for very much for a long time if ever. Not with six copies of each chromosome.

I've mentioned before that one important trait I look for is clump root. That's where you get a cluster of nice roots all right together directly under the main stem. I think the only environmental thing that can affect this is if vines are allowed to trail and root down, if that happens though you still get clump root growth just scattered around and none get as big as desired.

The picture is of some clump root plants from this year's seedlings. The two still connected together on the left and right of the picture have got my interest. The clump root architecture is excellent in these plants. The roots however are subpar, so why is that? Root architecture is not environmentally sensitive, but root size certainly is and these plants came from the end of the patch that was terribly smothered by a low drooping peach tree for the first half of the season and probably even missed out on some watering too. The roots are small enough that only two or three look likely to survive storage, but I want these plants.  I'll keep a close eye on them and if I notice any shriveling at all, I'll go ahead and sprout them as houseplants.

 
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