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 was recently interviewed for the Free the Seed podcast, where we discussed the selection of our new potato variety Rozette. This blog post is a companion to that podcast. The Pacific Northwest has a few heirloom potatoes that precede large scale settlement of the area by Europeans. The most famous of these potatoes is […]
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 […]
Overview All potatoes contain toxic compounds called glycoalkaloids, of which the most well-known is solanine. Potatoes accumulate glycoalkaloids primarily to deter pests. Glycoalkaloids are usually heavily concentrated in the foliage, but are also present in the tubers. A safety limit of 20 mg of total glycoalkaloids per 100 g of potato was established a century […]
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 […]