GTS Colorful Mix + Cultivariable Potatoes - Jen's Grow Out

[jens (Jensigne)]

Growing out 2yo Cultivariable seed: High/Low Dormancy mixes, All Domesticated mix, Red/Yellow/Blue Tetraploids, Diploid mixes, Wide mixes. Also growing out the GTS Colorful Mix. Figured I’d put all these kids in the same thread since they’re growing nearby each other in the house here.

Planted them all in snail rolls, no heat, windowsill, it’s ~50+ish in the house usually, lower at night since we let the fire die out. Occasionally above mid 60s during the day. The rolls are all standing in a tray and have a dome lid with vents to keep the humidity/temps more stable.

We tried growing the Cult. TPS two years ago in soil blocks, but didn’t have dome lids and they ended up being pretty fussy. We didn’t successfully grow a single plant that year.

This year I’m trying the snail rolls for stable soil humidity, space saving, and experimentation’s sake. I’m able to put ~20 different varieties of seed in the same tray without losing quantity of each variety. Meaning, if I was doing soil blocks, I’d only be able to get a couple blocks/seeds for each variety, where the snails allow me so much more growing space per variety.

On to the potate pics!

Initial planting of potato varieties (High Dormancy, Low Dormancy, All Domesticated, and GTS Colorful) with peppers, eggplant, and parsley. Eggplants are the three at the bottom, the rest of the light seeds are pepper varieties. The top left corner is parsley. The big one outside the tray is HD/LD/AD potato mixes. The four on the left are the individual rolls of HD/LD/AD/GTS.
2024-03-18

2024-03-26
This one was one of the first to come up - this big roll has a combo of the Domesticated, High/Low Dormancy mixes.

Then later that day - High Dormancy Mix:

Today: 2024-03-27
Big Roll:

GTS in front:

GTS:

The size of the High Dormancy Mix (HDM) in its individual roll and the appearance of the larger sprout in the big roll make me think that they are both HDM sprouts, but the leaf shapes are slightly different. The smaller ones I don’t know yet. Neither the Low Dormancy Mix (LDM) or All Domesticated Mix (ADM) rolls have sprouted yet.

[Hugo (Hugo Morvan)]

Never heard of this technique. So the roots are forced down and you roll it open and easy to transplant. Is that it?

[mbcoll (Matt)]

Yeah interesting method, first I have seen it as well.

[jens (Jensigne)]

I only recently found out about it and it intrigued me, so I’m giving it a try. The roots will grow downward, occasionally I’ll need to open the roll and add more dirt, but otherwise they stay in there until they’re ready to plant out.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

This is the stragest Seed Sowing Container I’ve ever seen. WOW just WOW, This intrigues me for sure! Snail rolls, I love it! This is genius since you can save so much space, so more seeds & after they are ready for transplant, just unroll it! The only thing is, do Potato Seedling Transplant well? Or is this why you went with Snail Rolls?

[jens (Jensigne)]

From what I’ve heard, you can transplant potato seedlings. I hope to transplant them before they get upset that they’re smushed between layers in these rolls. It’s a bit of an experiment for them this year. We have tried them in soil blocks two years in a row and haven’t had much success, so I’m trying something different.

[VeggieSavage (Professor Porcupine)]

Good Luck, I’m excited! Can’t wait to see how it works! Keep us posted!

[jens (Jensigne)]

One of the GTS seeds from my 2024-03-14 planting finally germinated. These guys are in a bay window that is often much colder than the rest of the house. I considered moving them this morning to join their other potato bretheren, but figure maybe they’ll develop a little cold resistance being over there. At the very least, they’ll germinate slightly slower but probably still grow. Probably…

[jens (Jensigne)]

Today’s Report:

High Dormancy Mix in foreground:

H/L Dormancy/All Domestic Mix:

Wide Mix:

Low Dormancy:

GTS Colorful:

Red/Blue/Yellow Tetraploids:

[stephane_rave]

yes the tps must be transplanted, because in a few days you will end up with thin high. If you put them in the garden the slightest gust of wind or snail will break them.
I had done so 2 years ago transplanting in small pot to put them in half pencil diameter in the garden floor.
Now I plant without seedlings because my plants are not yet made of fruit while I had selected on cultivables seeds of varieties with high fertility. If someone knows why it never makes fruit?

[jens (Jensigne)]

It would seem like if you grew them originally from seed, the resulting plants should be able to provide seed. If they were from tubers, then that variety might be so inbred or have lost its ability to reproduce sexually.

@julia.dakin Do you know why potato plants grown from TPS might not produce berries?

[KadenceLunemann]

Potatoes are harder to get inbred, as I understand it, partly because of ploidy. Diploids may have more trouble with it than tetraploids etc. And modern commercial potatoes are all tetraploids. Plus people haven’t been widely inbreeding them for ever and ever like tomatoes have been.

Let’s say A is dominant and a is recessive. It’s easy to get aa in three generations from a cross of say…
AA x Aa = 50% AA, 50% Aa
Do a bunch of crosses between the offspring and half of them will be siblings that are
Aa x Aa = 25% AA, 50% Aa, 25% aa
Ta-da full recessive in three generations.

Now imagine AAAA x AAAa… It takes much longer to get to the full recessive plants. Even if you self it suspecting it to have the recessive you’re looking for…
AAAa x AAAa =
9 of 16 will be AAAA
6 of 16 will be AAAa
1 of 16 will be AAaa
Now you have to play the numbers game and grow out many offspring. Until you get lucky and keep the right offspring to get one that is AAaa to self it. Because you can’t see which ones have however many recessives, or even the right recessive that you’re trying to find.
AAaa x AAaa=
25% AAAA
50% AAaa
25% aaaa

As far as infertility there is at least one sterility gene and one or more genes that seem to be able to restore fertility.

Short season potatoes are less likely to flower and/or produce berries because the shorter the season plant, the more it’s pushing hard to grow plant and make tubers. The plant will go into senescence before it can produce berries, even if it does flower and is fertile.

[julia.dakin]

@stephane_rave

If someone knows why it never makes fruit?

What are you summer time high temperatures?

[stephane_rave]

my 3 TPS types are tetraploids, which tend to start late in spring and stay in vegetation for a long time until frosts in November.
They grow from May, bloom a lot, but I noticed that in the summer they were resting and growing again at the end of September.
Indeed here the summer is dry, I do not water and it is very hot several weeks above 30°C in the day (86°F) with peaks at 39/42°C (102/108°F). At night some periods are above 23°C (73°F).

[julia.dakin]

It might be the heat.
From this page True Potato Seeds (TPS) - The Cultivariable Growing Guide
Climate Tolerance:
Potato plants flower and set seed most readily in cool, humid conditions. This is a commonality of Andean crops, which originated in cool, tropical highlands. In potato, higher temperatures reduce or completely suppress flowering and pollen production. The viability of whatever pollen that is produced is also reduced at higher temperatures. Some varieties will set seed even in hot, dry conditions, but the widest range of varieties will flower and fruit in maritime climates.

In many climates, it will be much easier to start with TPS produced by someone growing in more favorable conditions. Once you have seedlings with a wide range of characteristics, you are likely to find a few that set seed in your climate more readily than the commodity varieties. You can then save seeds from those plants and you will be on your way to a better adapted potato for your location.

[stephane_rave]

I will therefore collect new strains of TPS seeds more varied type mix, and look for what grows best here. Indeed the cultivation of potatoes becomes more and more difficult here with the climate change, but I find that the interest of tps is higher with this facility to return in summer pose and to start again with the new rain, rather than the classic varieties here that die and therefore have nothing to harvest.

[jens (Jensigne)]

12th April:

H/L Dormancy/All Domestic Mix:

LDM:

HDM:

GTS CM:

Wide:

Tetraploids:

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14th April:

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4th May:

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25th May:

I also may have dropped a potato seed in with these overwintering peppers… gods only know what variety/cultivar/whatever it is. I had seen it growing in there this winter, but the foliage died off at some point so I thought maybe it was dead. He assured me it’s doing rather well. I told him he should plant it out somewhere and get those peppers in the ground as well.

Fun thing about that container of peppers is that they didn’t produce fruit early enough last year for us to save seed, so we overwintered them in the house in a very cold window box (~30-50F, being mostly on the cold side during winter). The peppers got a bit unhappy, but continued to grow and keep their leaves on, produced fruit, and stayed alive. I’m hoping that we can get actual fruit from them this season, and that they might consider imparting some cold-hardiness onto their offspring.

[jens (Jensigne)]

He planted them out and sent me pictures… not the clearest.
Domestic:

GTS and Tetraploids

LDM / HDM / Wide mixes:

[jens (Jensigne)]

It’s been a while. I’ve been out of town. Let’s see what plants hubs can find!

GTS:
This one starting to flower. it creates a berry soon because winter is coming!

He wasn’t able to find the flowering plant again. I think it was on the GTS side. Hopeful our potato harvest leaves us with more potatoes than we started with. I know for sure we won’t get as many tubers as seeds we started with, but that’s okay and to be expected.

[jens (Jensigne)]

Oh… a couple more pics came in…

GTS:

Tetraploids:

Domestic:
This bed didn’t get a whole lot of sun this season.

LDM/HDM/Wide mix bed: