My tps. GTS is bottom left, it’s sown 1 day later than the other’s on 19.4. Seems like germination is closer to 100% than 50% although some took longer. Mixed finnish tps in brown pot was fastest to germinate and grow so far. Not sure why, maybe they are more cold hardy? I did sow lot’s more of them and have been thinning few times. That’s why they are more even in size, but I don’t think it explains growth. Other’s aren’t that much behind in days that it might be just the emergence that was faster and after that they have grown at same speed. Doesn’t really matter that much. I’m going to choose fastest from each and have max 100 plants total.
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I planted a boring Finnish commercial variety ‘Challenger’ (two rows in foreground) I collected last year and, similarly, have very consistent germination (~100% at ~22C/72F) and growth.
I transplanted yesterday and root development seemed to be similar to the GTS (two rows in background). I guess none of this is indicative of future tuber production, but it was at least a little surprising to have my initial seedling tray turn into a Chia Pet.
Either way, I am looking more forward to the variety in the GTS mix.
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Yes, maybe little more boring, but there might be surprises. After all they are just about as staple as F2s. I think I had challenger in my mix as well. I remember there is atleast timo and I think there was some others as well. Didn’t pay that much attention as it really doesn’t matter that much. It could get interesting if those are crossed with some that have different origin.
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Finally got a chance to put 2022 TPS / 2023 Colorful Mix in soil blocks on Sunday. Nobody has sprouted yet (not surprising), but will keep y’all updated. They’re sitting on a shelf in our living room (50-70F) because nights are still swinging between 30s/40sF. Should have started them sooner, but ran out of shelf space with all the other trays of veg/herbs… 
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Hi all, first time posting here. I planted my TPS (probably too early) at the end of February when I finally got around to planting some onion seed (hopefully from crosses). I transplanted them 20-Mar into individual trays. The germination seemed pretty good however I didn’t count the number I planted (guess 50+ planted and about 40 transplanted). As they started to outgrow my trays, and still too early to go outside in my region (SE Michigan, USA), I ended up taking cuttings from most of them and I wanted to comment to the group two different things. First the original plants, after having the top half of them cut off, tending to branch (below soil level) and offer many new shoots within the tray (suggesting maybe should potatoes be cut back to encourage more below soil branching which might lead to more potatoes???) and also the cuttings were very quick to root and once rooted (literally only a few days) they seemed to grow on even stronger than the original plants (but with less branching than the ones cut back). I just this past weekend, 6-May, finally transplanted them into the garden so I will keep you posted as the season moves on.
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Forgot to mention, within my TPS seedlings was a stray tomato plant which must have been in the seed mix as I wasn’t planting tomatoes at the time. Anyway, recognizing it, I have kept it just to see what it becomes and with the late February start it is now in a pot and almost 24 inches tall (with a few small tomatoes already, guessing a “cherry” type). I’m guessing this must be from one of Joseph’s lines because the stems are very strong so it is a very upright growing plant (that could grow without support in the garden; unlike any of my tomatoes which I tend to weave up through a fence I have at the north side of my garden and all with very flexible stems. I had read that he was selecting for plants that would grow on the ground without support but (assuming the origin of the plant) I am very surprised to see how much stronger these stems are than any other tomato I’ve ever grown. I’ll get it in the ground soon and see what it becomes.
I decided to try direct seeding my tps from gts, and planted about a week ago. Some are in zone 3b and some are in zone 5. As i am direct seeding most things, i am not sure if i will be able to know which seedlings are potato, but i will be happy with anything that grows some potatoes and then goes to seed. I am really excited to see what grows!
Very interesting, thanks for sharing @otisjose777! I’ll try that too. I hope you get a lot of potatoes.
@Cultivariable curious if you’ve tried this or know anything more.
Thanks for taking care of the stray tomato seed and I’m looking forward to seeing how the tomatoes from it are!
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Got a sprout in High Dormany Diploid mix and one from Colorful mix today. Woo! It begins. 6 days isn’t bad. 
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3 more Colorful and one Low Dormancy today. Put them under lights yesterday for the tiny ones who sprouted. Maybe it woke up the others. 
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So… 7 Colorful total, and various others for a total of 14 sprouts in the tray at the end of today. A bunch got really excited apparently. I set the tray outside to give the tinies some real light overhead since it’s been beautiful during the day (mid to high 60s). They came inside this evening (and will all week) due to nearly, if not below, freezing temps tonight/all nights this week. Back to playing the seed tray shuffle every night… C’mon last frost date… let’s gooooo!
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Transplanted seedling to small modules couple days ago. Maybe 10 days till planting them out because it looks like it’s gonna be early summer. One gts seedling had little purple colouring. Interesting to see what it will produce. Those are now little under month from sowing.
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I planted out my potatoes today. I got about 6 or 7 rows of 4 plants so hopefully there will be fun stuff. I also got some of Holly’s potatoes from last year and they’ve sprouted and are doing awesome, so hopefully they become full sized potatoes this year. I think my ultimate goal is to take most of the room replanting potatoes that did awesome, and then a few rows of new potatoes that will be smaller so that I can keep diversity in
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I note that seedlings in the same pockets have more or less the same growing-speed. They’re all tall with fat leaves, all tall with small leaves, all medium with fat leaves or all small with tiny leaves.
It’s like little families in their own garageboxes having their own kind of party. Some are raving wild , pumping tekno music, blowing crack cocaine in the backroom while other familles quietly nibble organic carrot fries studying the bible in the garagebox next to them
Don’t believe me of course…
I’ve had two sets of ten little pots like thèse, been staring at them for weeks and only just now this behavior dawned on me. Duh.
I should’ve known there was something fishy going on. They’re called Sarpo Surprise, they’re a mix of open pollinated varieties and crosses resistent to the potato disease the package says! What does that even mean, potato disease?? Couldn’t thèse plant breeders ne a bit more spécific??? How do these packages even get printed?
‘John, what’s that disease they’re supposed to ne résistant against get called again?’
John : " i don’t know! Just put potato disease and pass me the bong" mumbling " nobody even buys this shit anyway."
Some odd communist Romanian family has been breeding these for the USSR.
I’m growing a family of communist Dracula’s in my window sill under Chinese LED’s. What the hell was i thinking!
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Omg, you have me in stitches laughing over here! 
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I planted a 72 cell tray with about half the seed from the packet and it was pretty bad. This was back in January-ish when the weather was still cold. The seedlings were put under a makeshift warm tunnel and I was starting some tomato seedlings at the same time. Most of the seeds came up but they struggled. I used compost which is what I used for everything else but they were very slow. They were not showing any disease or signs of nutrient deficiency, besides slow growth. I eventually planted them in the ground after our last frost in the middle of March but they still did not grow much. Most did not make it. Only one got about 5 inches tall and produced pebbles of potatoes. I did not harvest them and left them in the ground. Our weather throughout this period was mostly in the high 70s and sometimes high 80s during the day, except when we would have cold fronts which would cool it down for a few days, after which it would swing back up. I did not water them but the soil remained moist. I plan on trying one more time next year with the remaining seed but this experience was similar to my attempts in the past to grow TPS. Any suggestions for next year?
I love seeing everyone’s beautiful plants and can’t wait to see the potatoes from them!
In my area in January they would do poorly because of lack of enough daylight hours and low light intensity. You probably get more, but maybe it’s not enough. Or did you have lights?
Do you have photos? And more details on temps would be useful. What were the cold temps in January, and what were temps in March when they were dying? Difference in day/night or from max to min during a difficult week?
Florida sounds like the very opposite of the Andes where potatoes are happiest. They like cool and fairly consistent temps and bright light better in higher elevations. Maybe it was your giant temperature swings? If you continue with TPS you might have to consider this like a generational project…
About halfway down this page has good information on light requirements. I’m at sea level and have never used lights and done fine without them, but I think the only way to do that might be to start seeds after March 1st, but then in hot climates you run into a different problem of a hot summer.
In any case, yours were probably trying to flower and tuberize far before their photosynthetic capacity could support such a thing, then they gave up and died. They should probably get to be at least 8" tall before going into flowering/tuber production mode.
“Keep seedlings under strong light. Potatoes evolved in the Andes, where light is intense due to the high elevation. At sea level, particularly during often cloudy spring conditions, it will be hard for them to get enough natural light. About five days after sowing, I put them under lights, so that the seedlings will have light as soon as they emerge. Standard fluorescent tubes must be kept about two to four inches (5 to 10 cm) off the tops of potato seedlings to provide sufficient light (the more bulbs per fixture, the higher they should be). Lights will increase the temperature around the plants, so you should keep a thermometer near the seedlings to check how much difference the lights make. Adjust your room temperature accordingly. More intense lights can be kept further from the seedlings. We use 8 bulb, 54 watt T5 fluorescent lamps, hung about 24 inches above the tops of the seedlings. Spacing for high intensity LED fixtures should be similar. The daily lighting period should be at least 14 hours; I prefer to use 16 hours on and 8 hours off, in most cases. In general, you can’t give potato seedlings too much light, but you can easily give them too much heat if you aren’t paying attention. When light drops below 14 hours, and particularly below 12 hours, you will start to see plants that tuberize early due to the short day photoperiod. That is generally not something that you want, since it will limit the growth of those plants.”
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I have some seedlings up, do y’all think there is any chance they would survive the summer here?
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Suns intensity shoudn’t be problem. When I started them in april sun gets here as high as it gets in mid winter in California or Florida. They don’t get the hours either in my balcony and it does get hot sometimes there. During midsummer sun gets as high as it gets in march in California or Florida. Can’t say I have lots of experience on tps and last year some of them failed for whatever reason, but I would think there are atleast some that do well even in lower light. Here traditional varieties are grown even in very shady spots because they don’t need as much light to produce as some other crops and do benefit having it a little bit cooler. Interesting to see how gts and other tps compare to Finnish tps.
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