Growing new varieties of potatoes from true potato seeds is a lot of fun, but there is definitely a learning curve. This post covers some of the most common mistakes that I have seen beginners make (and, in many cases, once made myself). 1. Starting too early This is probably the cardinal sin of growing […]
Overview Potato towers are a form of extreme hilling that uses a structure to add a foot or more of soil above the seed tuber. Towers are not a new idea, but they have only become popular in recent years. Potatoes are normally hilled up about six inches, whether they are grown in the ground […]
The majority of modern potato cultivars suffer from male sterility; they either produce little to no pollen or the pollen that they produce is not viable. Male sterility is part of a complex of traits that makes life difficult for potato breeders. Some varieties rarely flower at all, others will flower but rarely form berries […]
This post is not really meant to be read start to finish. The intent is that it will be picked up by search engines so that breeders and researchers working with these accessions in the future can find this information. We use accessions supplied by the USDA in some of our breeding work. This report […]
Last year, I put together a summary of potato color genetics and ever since I have been getting emails asking questions. A lot of those questions center on how to use the information. I’m happy to try to answer those questions to the best of my ability, because I think potato genetics are fun. This […]
Being a fundamentally lazy person, I always prefer to search for work that has already been done by somebody else. That can be frustrating in the world of plant breeding, where information tends to come in two forms: highly technical or excessively simplified. There isn’t much middle ground. My search for a chart showing the […]
Introduction All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison. -Paracelsus Potatoes are poisonous. You probably knew that if you are reading this blog, but it would be understandable if you had missed this fact throughout the years that you have been shoveling […]
This post is not really meant to be read start to finish. The intent is that it will be picked up by search engines so that breeders and researchers working with these accessions in the future can find this information. We use accessions supplied by the USDA in some of our breeding work. This report […]
If it has been a long time since high school biology and you are rusty on the concept of cytoplasm, you can be forgiven. It’s not something that most of us think about very often, but it is important to potato breeding, so let’s review. Cytoplasm is everything that is inside a cell but outside […]
In 2017, many areas of the US have experienced unusually wet and cool weather. As a consequence, a lot of people have reported seeing something unusual: potato berries. They usually look like small, green tomatoes growing on your potato plants. These are known variously as seed balls, potato apples, potato tomatoes, or simply as berries, […]