Common flowering cultivars

[Chance]

Of the "common" sweet potatoes are there any particularly good mothers?  I'm going to try to hand pollinate with pandurata pollen and want to make sure that the space I devote to batatas will flower.

[reed]

Georgia Jet is reported by several people to bloom. I think it was a primary parent that some folks in Canada used. I think there may be multiple strains of it and I just didn't have the right one.

Beauregard also is supposed to bloom sometimes but only very sparsely for me. Concerning it, what blooms I have seen occurred very late in the season, I wonder if it it is day length sensitive and would bloom more in a longer season area.

Puerto Rico blooms a little bit but has never set seed even when pollen from lots of others was available.

My pandurata roots that I had buried under some compost survived and are sprouting new shoots right now. I'm gonna try the grafting thing again as soon as my batata slips get going.  Do you know how many years it takes pandurata to bloom?

[whwoz]

Beaurgard is the main orange SP in Oz and most likely the one I have been growing here for the last 3 years.  It finally flowered for me this year,  but like Reed mentions above,  not many flowers and late in season.

[Steve1]

Evangeline seems to be the standout for me this year. Lots of flowers, probably day length neutral and have had a few seedpods develop but no mature seeds. It is Beauregard's successor in terms of orange fleshed SP but sweeter I believe. One flower spike on Okinawan out of three large plants. Northern Star was in bloom today, but was planted late and are relatively small plants. And the two purple ornamentals which flower all season it seems are also seem daylength neutral. The other one thats about to flower is Matt's Purple Flesh from Fon, leaf type is Okinawan but I'm not sure they are exactly the same yet.
Kumera mad huge running vines but I haven't seen a flower on it. Wanmun is huge but no joy, and the rest are a bit small due to being planted late. I will get them in earlier this year and hope for some more heat.

[Steve1]

Beaurgard is the main orange SP in Oz and most likely the one I have been growing here for the last 3 years.  It finally flowered for me this year,  but like Reed mentions above,  not many flowers and late in season.

Whwoz, what's your Beauregard leaf look like? Just want to make sure it's different to the one aI'm calling Evangeline.

[Chance]

What about the purple flesh one from the grocery stores, I think I've seen it called molokai purple?  Using an ornamental one is a great idea, I seem to remember Joseph saying they make better mothers.

Reed, nice!  I will try the same.  I divided my pandurata last fall to see if you can propagate that way.  Pandurata blooms second year from seed. 

[nathanp]

It is probably worth a listen to the Cultivariable podcast with Telsing Andrews.

https://www.cultivariable.com/podcast-9-telsing-andrews-of-aster-lane-edibles/

[reed]

She kinda, sorta has it figured out.  Interesting she mentioned Covington, the fellow that developed it also mentioned it as a parent of the one he called Hatteras which was never released because of some flaw in storage.

It's interesting because the patent documents for Covington say it is both male and female sterile.  Except that it has made an extremely few seeds so I guess not 100% female sterile. One of those must have become Hatteras. I've never grown Covington because it is patented and because the patent says that.

They both seem to some degree to consider "ornamental" types as some how different, I believe that is just not the case. Whether or not one makes large storage roots is just another trait than can be selected for or against and a seed from either type may or may not be the same as the parent. So, if you want a new variety to clone from then on and you want it in just a generation or two it might be better not to use one that doesn't make roots. Otherwise I'd say if it blooms, use it.

I'v seen most of  the Carolina series  ornamentals growing in pots in the town near by but never  a bloom. I think that's weird, my ornamentals bloom a lot.

It's hard to resist developing a line of pure ornamental that would put theirs to shame but I want to stay focused on sweet potatoes as a seed grown annual food crop, although the greens are good food too. I saw one in a flower bed on the campus of Indiana University unlike any other I'v seen. It had huge leaves with long fingers at least 6 inches, not more than 1/2 inch wide and color was so dark it looked black, traits way more exaggerated than any of the Carolinas I've seen. I have found no clue of it's origin, it didn't have any flowers or I might have swiped a little stem.

[AndrewB]

I'm gonna try the grafting thing again as soon as my batata slips get going.

Is the grafting meant to be in michurin style? If so, that could be a nifty way to increase seed set. Graft variety 1 on variety 2 and also vice versa and then maybe they will accept the pollen more easily between varieties.

[UnicornEmily]

It's hard to resist developing a line of pure ornamental that would put theirs to shame but I want to stay focused on sweet potatoes as a seed grown annual food crop, although the greens are good food too.

Ha ha ha!  Well, do you have ornamental sweet potatoes in your wife's garden, right?  (If I'm recalling correctly.)  You or she could always save seeds from her favorites, and she could always share them around with anyone in your area who's interested.

[UnicornEmily]

I bought some Jewel sweet potatoes at the grocery store a few days ago.  Can those flower?  I haven't found anything saying yea or nay about that.  If they even have an off chance of flowering, I'll save some to plant next year.