Potatoes come in many colors. Tuber skin can be white, yellow, blue, or red and so can the flesh of the tuber. (I am referring here to the color of the pigments produced by the plant, so what you might describe as colors ranging from pink to magenta or powder blue to violet, I will […]
I have been a lucky potato grower for many years because, although I live in a climate that is favorable to light blight, it has never been more than a minor problem toward the growing season. That has now changed. Last year I rogued out a small number of plants spread around the field that […]
Several varieties of uniform true potato seeds are available from eastern Europe and these are commonly offered through online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. The names of these varieties include Asol, Diva, Empress, Fermer (Farmer), Ilona, Krasa (Beauty), Milena, Revansh (Revenge), and variations and translations of these names. These varieties are not legal to grow […]
Ten years ago, almost nobody was talking about indeterminate potatoes. Over the years, interest has crept up to the point where I now receive hundreds of inquiries each year about which of the varieties that I offer, or which potato varieties in general, are indeterminate. This is surprising, because it is a rather obscure topic […]
In part 1 of this post, I discussed the reasons for attempting to hybridize domesticated diploid potatoes with Solanum maglia. The major reason is simple exploration, but S. maglia also has some interesting traits that could be valuable. For one thing, the plants are large, with broad foliage, and might help to produce larger, higher […]
Solanum ajanhuiri is a native Andean potato, grown at the highest elevations suitable for cultivation (around 13,000 feet) in Bolivia and Peru, where it can survive due to its frost and drought resistance. There is a Bolivian folk song for the planting of this potato, given here from Huaman (1980), after translation from Aymara to […]
I grow a lot of potatoes. I like to evaluate new varieties and compare them to my own and I like to make crosses with them and use them for breeding. Unfortunately, every tuber I bring into my collection is a risk. I have spent years and quite a bit of money going through my […]
Solanum maglia is a wild potato from Chile. It is kind of an oddity, because it grows in a region of South America quite some distance from both other populations of wild potatoes and from the region where domesticated potatoes were originally grown in Chile. Unlike the vast majority of wild potatoes, it is a […]
The domesticated potato (Solanum tuberosum) is divided into two major groups based on the number of sets of chromosomes: tetraploids, with four sets of chromosomes, and diploids, with two sets of chromosomes. The common potato of commerce is tetraploid. There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of varieties of diploid potatoes, but they are mostly […]
Often, when people first learn about Andean potatoes, they get excited and decide that they want to load their bag with cool potatoes the next time they travel to South America. I understand being excited about potatoes, but we need to temper that enthusiasm with some knowledge. I probably get about one email a month […]