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

[Richard Watson]

This plant is one of the latest to start flowering, has a good number to come on

[Richard Watson]

This plant has grown better and has flowers yet to start opening, its marked because this was the first seed to germinate   

[Richard Watson]

This seeding is the smallest but second to open a flower, it didnt like the cool early summer

[Richard Watson]

This one is growing well but is one of two of the outside clones with no sign of flowers

[Richard Watson]

BB's cousin - my favourite, truck loads of flower buds coming on

This clone is the other clone not to flower, but is growing very well.


Last one- moderate grower third to open a flower


And the two inside clones, no flowers but super charged growth, these were the two that germinated once the weather warmed and were outside.

[Richard Watson]

This morning at 'sparrow fart' a bubble bee were seen flying about and down into the flowers, great news, I'm sure now news will be spreading amoung its colleges.

[Chris Morrison]

Nice one Richard!
I sacrificed one flowering runner today to pot up about 18 cuttings, 3 with own roots, others showing some rootlets. Covered with plastic bags to retain moisture. Fingers crossed. Pics too large to post here, apparently

[Richard Watson]

The way the bubble bee was flying it was like, 'oh whats this flower? did a fly by first then went back for a closer look. I'm still using the cotton bud two of three times a day though, now I'm getting more flowers I think my chances of seed should be increasing.

Fingers crossed Chris

[reed]

It should be pretty easy to tell if pollination has occurred as the style is still there after the rest of the flower drops off. Not in good focus but like the recently pollinated one top right in the picture. It's even still there as a little point on the mature capsules. If the flower is completely gone like the one in middle it either wasn't pollinated or it aborted.

Plants like the BB family that have many flowers per peduncle make more seeds over all but also have a much higher rate of aborted ones. I'm starting to prefer those with just two or three flowers per. They are generally larger vines with longer internodes, they have many fewer abortions and much higher % of capsules have a full four seeds and seeds are larger. The longer space between also makes the capsules easier to find and these seeds tend to sprout faster and stronger at cooler temperatures.  BB related are still the ones that I think have the ability to unlock flowering in other clones assuming you can coax a few flowers on the others to get the initial crosses.

[Richard Watson]

I noticed a style yesterday from a flower that fall off a week ago, its purple in colour where that one in your photo reed is quite green, i was thinking at the time could be the start of a seed capsule.

[Richard Watson]

The number of flowers this morning seen on this clone is pleasing, its the one tagged because it was my first germinated seed, strong seed and strong flower grower outside of the BB type.

[Richard Watson]

reed - is that photo of grandad BB?

[Raymondo]

It's great to see sweet potato being worked on. They are not an easy crop here. Even though the summers can be pretty warm (the current one has had plenty of days in the mid 30s, around 95F), it's not usually long enough to get decent tubers, at least for the yellow and orange fleshed cultivars. The white fleshed ones do better but I don't like them as much.
Following with interest.

[reed]

reed - is that photo of grandad BB?

The bushy, purple one looks most like the one I called BB. The original BB only had stringy roots, I dropped it when two more very similar ones showed up with much better roots. They are both white with purple skin. The generation of your seeds is the same as that that produced the improved BB(s) so fingers crossed that plant will have good roots.

Your green ones look most likely to have the orange/orange roots that I like best. I'm waiting anxiously to see what roots you end up with. Your one picture definitely looks like you've had some pollination going on.

[Richard Watson]

Your one picture definitely looks like you've had some pollination going on.

And that was when there was only the one clone with a flower and one flower only, so does that mean that 'BB cuzzie' is self compatible