Community breeding of sweet potato within EU for flowering and seed production

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This comes a bit late for this year, but gotta start sometime. There is still time to put the idea forward and make notes this year to help for the years to come. I have now 3 years tried to get seeds from sweet potatoes without success. Partially that is because of my short season and short period to make pollination, but at same time there is lack of varieties that would flower in the first place. I have heard from several sources that some of the varieties that have not even flowered for me over the last 3 years haven’t done so in more favourable climates either. I still have had some flower quite extensively so it seems like it’s just having a bit of luck.

What I’m now suggesting is gathering people that can and want to contribute in some ways. This could be just just taking advantage of varieties that are available locally that might not be available widely and planting them to see if they flower. Then sharing tubers to those that have collected more flowering varieties to grow together. If someone wants to try getting seeds themselves, I have some varieties that at least flower regularly. Few of them are varieties that aren’t widely available. If someone is still interested to try this year, I suppose it’s still not too late for central and southern EU.

I’ll put here list of varieties that I have that I have tried and whether they have flowered. Then you can add information of the varieties that you have and this way we can make a list of varieties that are avaible within the community.

Flowered, available:

Golden eye (heavy flowering both years I have grown it)
Molokai improved (flowered extensively one year, but not after that. Needs more heat?)
Purple 2 (some flowers)
19008 (flowered better first than second year)
21004 (very few flowers)
19002 (if my memory servers my right, also just few flowers)

No flowering, available:

T-65
Witte van de ecohoeve
Erato white
Erato purple
Scandinavian purple
Beauregard improved
Orange queen

Might have missed flowers or they might flower in some other climate.

What I have had, but have lost.

Carolina ruby (flowered quite well, but not very productive here)
Marjorke (no flowering and didn’t make tubers in my climate)
One variety that I grew from store bought tubers flowered quite regularly, might have been covington.

I’m getting this year (if post deliveres it :sweat_smile: ) one variety and seeds from @Tanjaeskildsen that for her has flowered and produced seeds. Could be someting to start from, but still would be nice to have as many varieties that, if nothing else, to could contribute pollen and that way increase variance.

For people who live in Belgium or travel there https://www.denoudekastanje.be/ has quite a good selection. Many of the ones that I have have come from there, but right now there aren’t that many that would do well in my climate and cost of shipping is quite high. Transplants themselves aren’t too expensive if someone goes by this spring or coming years.

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Lubera has a flowering variety on offer:

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Yes, this is the also the kind of help I was thinking. I have earlier tried googling for sweet potatoes in different languages, and maybe even came across this site, but don’t remember that if there was any available at the time. It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Can you check what it says about delivery to other countries?

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They send potted plants, not tubers. Finland is not listed in the shipping cost overview, but Sweden is.

Belgien € 9,90

Bulgarien € 49,90

Dänemark € 34,90

Frankreich € 9,90

Irland € 19,90

Italien € 19,90

Kroation € 44,90

Luxemburg € 9,90

Monaco € 9,90

Niederlande € 9,90

Polen € 14,99

Portugal € 19,90

Rumänien € 44,90

Schweden € 34,90

Slowakei € 34,90

Slowenien € 19,90

Spanien € 19,90

Tschechische Republik € 19,90

Ungarn € 34,90

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Thank you. Seems a little excessive as is ordering plants in big pots to here. It seems like a place to go for someone in the area that is interested in sweet potatoes. There seem to be quite a number of varieties that I haven’t heard of (unless they are other variety with different name), but whether the others are flowering is another matter. No sign in the pictures, but you never know.

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I just ordered three different ones to check them out. They list the sweet potatoes among their own products. Usually their own products come from their own breeding programs. I will dig for more info.

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I would love to take part in this effort. Sweet potato would be a great companion to my Taro plants, which have successfully overwintered indoors two years in a row.

I used to grow many SP varieties in both Hawaii and in Taiwan. Some were excellent used as leafy greens in soups or sautéed. Adapting this species for colder climates, and for seed production, is something id love to assist with.

Im in zone 7 Poland.

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That’s good to know. Always get little suspicious when variety name is just simple colour. Some of the ones did look like quite different from the varieties that I have seen, which is quite a lot said of sweet potatoes that generally have quite limited range of expression of traits. Interested to hear how it goes for you.

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Great. Do you want me to send you some for this season? At this point slips might be the most certain way. Only problem is that this year I have had aphids in them. Outdoors there will be aphids in any case, but just to give you a heads up. In case you have indoor plants etc.

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Yes, i would gladly accept, and have some spots all ready for them. I know people in much colder climates have successfully overwintered them indoors, too.

Ill send you a message with my mailing info.

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It’s fairly easy to keep them over winter as tubers if you have somewhat suitable temps indoors. Udeal would be 13-16C, but anything above 10C up to 20C is ok. High temperatures will only make them sprout and dry faster so it’s recommended to keep them as close to ideal temps as possible.

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I’m linking up some info/reports on the Lubera breeding program for sweet potato, that has been going on since 2014. It’s a big effort. In case you want to contact their breeder for more info: moritz.koehle@lubera.com

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Thank you. have to look into that sometime. Pictures of the rows where every plant looks different look interesting.

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For me these flower every year:

All the trademarked varieties from treasure island, particularly the red leaved variety

Okinawa purple sweet potato (white skin, purple flesh) this is the most reliable seed producer for me and the mother of most of my seedling varieties. It requires a really long season. Surprisingly it’s the most cold tolerant of all the varieties in my garden. Akways the last one to die from frost and the first one to sprout in spring.

All in the sugarroot series from lubera.com

I have more that flowers but I dont know the names of them.

I have a seedling I call lavender as the skin and flesh is lavender coloured. It produces tubers in less than 4 months and lots of seeds. Unfortunately the tubers had zero dormancy last year, so didn’t store well.
But I have cuttings if anyone needs.

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