Potato, Maco Reina

Maco Reina is a selection made from a Peruvian potato named Maco.  The first generation produced several varieties that had good long day tuberization.  I crossed those and then selected this from the best performers of the next generation.  I look at this as valuable breeding material, with a pure Andean potato background but good performance under long day conditions.  It would make a good female parent in crosses with modern potatoes to combine high production with high sexual fertility.  The amusing name was suggested by a customer.

Culinary Traits

Maco Reina has light, floury flesh and excellent flavor.  It bakes, mashes, and fries well.  The flesh is white and the skin is moderately thick.

Agronomic Traits

Maturity is mid season.  Yields have averaged just over three pounds per plant.  Tubers are mostly in the 2-4 inch range.  Short stolons to about eight inches.  Dormancy is on the short side, about three months.  It looks like it might have some resistance to powdery scab.  Among its less desirable traits are tendency toward secondary growth (smaller tubers forming at the eyes) and internal rust spotting.  Maco Reina descended maternally from a variety with type A cytoplasm, so will have that as well.  It is tetraploid and self fertile.  It is not a heavy pollen producer, so it benefits from hand pollination to get a good set of berries.

Fertility:  MF7, FF6

True Seed (TPS)

TPS of Maco Reina is open pollinated, with a lot of hand pollination, so it will be a mix of self-pollinated and outcrossed.  The nearest neighbor was Muru.  The results should be extremely diverse, but I expect to see a lot of high yielding progeny and probably a lot of reds and blues.

Germination

2024