Ken Aslet is the most common and popular variety of mashua, although it has traditionally been sold as an ornamental rather than an edible. It has never looked quite right to me, but it tested negative for the most common viruses that infect mashua in the United States. I recently tested plants more widely out […]
2019 was the first year that I offered true potato seeds of individual varieties and controlled crosses in addition to our standard TPS mixes. I was curious to see if there would be much interest in these. Some of the top sellers were predictable, ranking as they have for years, but others surprised me. I […]
I start thousands of true potato seeds every year. You would think that I would be an expert by now, but my results suggest otherwise. One of the biggest problem areas for me is starting older TPS. I grow a lot of genebank accessions that are often decades old and they just don’t germinate as […]
This is the first of a series of short videos that will document the process of eliminating viruses from the ‘Purple Star’ potato variety. Purple Star was selected by Nathan Pierce of the Kenosha Potato Project in 2016 and has since shown the usual signs of running out due to virus burden. In this video, […]
I noticed some subtle but consistent leaf malformation in some yacon that I am propagating this year. (This is not a named or publicly available variety – I use it for breeding.) I wasn’t sure if this was an intrinsic trait or externally caused, but I don’t remember seeing this before, so I decided to […]
Periodically, I get lots of questions about true potato seeds as an insurance policy against some sort of failure of the agricultural or food delivery system. The reasoning is straightforward enough: potato tubers don’t keep indefinitely and they take up a lot of space. True potato seeds last much longer and require very little space. […]
There is a lot of information on this website about growing potatoes from true potato seed, but I often hear from people who are interested but who don’t have the time to read all of that material. If you have heard about TPS and are wondering if it is something that you would enjoy trying […]
Would taste just as sweet? Maybe not. But it probably would taste the same. There are about 30 blue fleshed heirloom potatoes that are common in North America and Europe, but it turns out that they are almost all synonymous. This is a big problem in potatoes and with heirloom vegetables in general. People forget […]
I do most of my plant breeding work in raised beds and I often get questions about them when I post pictures, so this article will hopefully answer those questions. I have about 250 concrete block beds, which is a pretty big endorsement of their advantages. Making all those beds was a considerable investment of […]
If I had to pick one indispensable personality trait for the plant breeder, it would be patience. It is one of the few areas of endeavor I can think of where doing something the same way, repeatedly, until it works, is a viable strategy. It is surprising how often I succeed with a plant at […]