Potato seedlings from true potato seed Australia

I was transplanting my seed grown potatoes the other day.  I have a few different breeding lines, some diploid, some tetraploid, some wild ancestors of modern potatoes, all grown from true potato seed.  

Growing from true botanical potato seed yields interesting results, and allows me to breed and create new varieties.  As the parent stock is usually quite heterozygous, each seedling is genetically unique.

Most of my potato seedlings looked much the same, some had a few stolons, others did not.  At this tiny size neither is unexpected.  One of my seedlings is producing tiny little tubers.

I can hardly wait to see what these turn into.

Potato seedling with tiny tubers

I didn't break this off, there is soil covering the stolon

This little seedling really wants to live!  It had 3 tiny little tubers (not all of them are in my photos) and a few other stolons.  It has since been planted in its own pot so I can evaluate it at the end of the season.

I mostly try to grow diploid potatoes as I find they taste better.  Unfortunately they tend to yield lower than tetraploids.  

These seedlings are from tetraploid potatoes, their parentage is far superior to anything you can get from the shops so I decided to try a few seedlings and see what I could produce.  It is far too early to tell, but hopefully something great comes out of this line.

I sell a small number of seed potatoes each year through my for sale page.  These are from lines that I have developed myself and grown from true potato seeds.  I can only do this in their correct season, some lines harvest several times per year, other lines only harvest once per year.  If you are interested keep an eye on my for sale page.

Solanum acroscopicum - wild potato relative

I have a few potatoes grown from true potato seed.  Tetraploid potatoes are ok, I really like some of my diploids because their taste is vastly superior to any tetraploid potato I have ever tasted and their colouration can be spectacular.

As well as domestic potatoes, I have a few wild relatives of potatoes, or crosses of domestic x wild potatoes.  Being wild plants they tend not to have the highest yields, but they do contain a lot of genes that are not found in domestic potatoes, so hold potential for breeding something spectacular.  Some species can be crossed with domestic potatoes, others cannot.

One wild potato that I am particularly fond of is Solanum acroscopicum.  I am not sure why, there is just something about this species that I like.

I grew some from seed planted August/September last year, and they started flowering mid February.  I have a few domestic diploids flowering near it, but this plant is reluctant to set seed for now.  Hopefully conditions are just right and it produces seed for me one day.  

The flowers tend to be large, unfortunately I didn't think to take any photos until most had dropped off and only the tired looking flowers were left.

Solanum acroscopicum

The tubers produced by my S acroscopicum are smallish, kind of round, have lovely smooth skin, white skin and white flesh.  It has short stolons so the potatoes form nice and close to the plant.  It has a short dormancy, so is not well suited to my winters, but hopefully I work out a system to keep it going.  This certainly isn't the only plant I grow that is not suited to my climate.

The taste is not particularly impressive, it tastes a little better than a store bought potato but really nothing spectacular.  I am told that (unlike modern domestic potatoes) you can eat partly green tubers safely, but haven't tried that myself.  The yield is not huge by any standards.  Like any seed grown potato, first year plants produce smaller yields and subsequent year plants produce larger yields.

Nothing really stands out as being spectacular.  Yet for some reason, I really like these little guys.

The leaves are noticeably different from domestic potato leaves, they are a bit more pointy shaped and are held more upright.  The flowers are usually pretty and often very large, probably not as pretty as the flowers on some of my diploids, and so far it has produced less flowers than my diploids, but they are still rather nice.  I really need to take a photo of the nicer looking flowers.

When grown from seed the plants show a lot of vigour early on, and the seedlings quickly surpassed my other seed grown potatoes.  Once the first year seedlings get more established the acroscopicum survives but didn't really take off.  I tried taking cuttings, but forgot about them and they died.

Solanum acroscopicum at top, tetraploid potato in middle, diploid potatoes lower left

Seedling potatoes and other seedlings

Seedling S acroscopicum on left is stout and sending out stolons, seedling tetraploid potato on right is spindly and weak

At this stage I don't really have any plans for my acroscopicum.  If any survive winter, next year I should try to cross with with various domestic potatoes to see what they can produce. 

I do have some micro tubers that I am willing to trade if someone has another potato that is interesting, or I sell tubers through my for sale page after I harvest them.

Amiah Potatoes - diploid potatoes Australia

I have been growing potatoes from true potato seed for a while now.  I grow a few diploid potatoes, some tetraploids, and I have a wild relative of the modern potato.  When grown from true seed, each and every plant is genetically unique.

Most diploid potatoes have really low yields, and produce small potatoes, but the taste of diploids is vastly superior to any variety of potato that you will have ever eaten.  Modern domestic potatoes are big and bland, even the tastiest modern potato is nothing compared to a diploid.

I have been messing around with breeding diploid potatoes.  I mostly grow as many as I have space to grow, cull everything substandard, each winter everything with low/no dormancy die, and I allow them to open pollinate before collecting true potato seed to plant.  

Some years one variety will do better, other years another variety will do better.  I am starting to get some really nice seed grown potatoes.

Amiah diploid potato compared to a modern tetraploid potato

 

One of my seed grown potatoes is yielding quite well for a diploid, and produces two crops per year in my garden.  It looks pretty similar to another high yielding diploid called 'toffee apple' which was bred by Garden Larder.  As I originally got some true potato seed from Garden Larder my variety (named Amiah) may be closely related.  

Interestingly someone recently sent me a few tubers of Toffee Apple Potato, it is yet to produce a crop for me because I planted it a bit late.  It carries good genes and is flowering well so I assume some of the true potato seeds I am currently harvesting will carry some of its genetics.

Amiah potato compared to pumpkin

Amiah diploid potato produces gorgeous looking potatoes, with rich yellow flesh, it yields surprisingly well and produces multiple crops per year, it flowers well and can produce berries and true potato seed if pollinated by a different clone.  

The only real down sides to this diploid are its low dormancy and its relatively long stolons.  Most of its tubers are produced under the plant but a few will spread out and be found further from the plant.  To get the most out of it this plant likes a little space to run!  

Compared to a modern potato, Amiah potatoes taste incredible when baked.  I am bad at describing taste, all I can say is this is how a potato should taste.  If I had my way I would never eat a modern domestic potato again.

I love rich yellow flesh potatoes

We roasted this diploid potato along with some modern potatoes for comparison.  The diploid looked like it was already buttered, much the same colour as pumpkin, indicating it is very high in beta carotene vitamin.

I really like the look of yellow flesh potatoes.  That being said I also grow some blue flesh potatoes and some whites that are worth keeping.  Hopefully a nice red flesh potato pops up soon.  

When grown from rather diverse and heterozygous seed it is difficult to know what they will produce!

Amiah potatoes and the white modern tetraploid ready for roasting

Diploid potatoes can sometimes produce small tubers.  Small potatoes are frustrating to clean and difficult to use.  Normally the diploids aren't too tiny, but at the start I had a couple of lines that produced pea sized tubers, needless to say I culled them from my breeding efforts pretty quickly. 

Any potato grown from true seed can produce tubers with deep eyes.  These are difficult to clean.  Some can produce really long stolons.  I have heard that some produce tubers on stolons that can be 6 foot long, making them unrealistic to grow.  Luckily I have never come across anything like that.

This diploid potato produces reasonable sized tubers, nothing huge but certainly a size that is usable in the kitchen.  The eyes are not very deep.  The stolons are a bit longer than most varieties, but not too bad.

Amiah potatoes are a reasonable size for a diploid potato

Amiah potatoes look nice

There were some potatoes that got a little sun and turned a little green, rather than risk eating them these were replanted.  

I have a few extra tubers, if you are interested I should list them for sale on my for sale page along with the other perennial vegetables and things I have for sale.

Overwintering diploid potatoes

Last year I grew some diploid potatoes from true potato seed.  I really enjoyed it.  Every single plant produced different potatoes.  Each of them tasted far superior to anything you can get from the markets.  They were quite remarkable.

Unfortunately these diploid potatoes lack any real dormancy and start to grow not long after producing tubers, so it was unlikely that they would survive winter without help.

Being seed grown meant that each plant was unique, and I would love to keep the best new varieties alive.  Unfortunately I lack the time and space required to grow them via tissue culture, which means I had to think of a way to keep them alive through winter.

I attempted three methods of overwintering potatoes, putting them in the crisper of the fridge, leaving them in the garden, and putting them in a pot in a protected position.  Read more and I will explain what worked for me and what didn't.

Diploid potato grown from True Potato Seed

Growing potatoes from True Potato Seed

Usually in Australia potatoes are grown from clones.  Sometimes these are pieces of existing potatoes or small potatoes.  Confusingly people sell 'seed potatoes' which are just small potatoes that are used for planting.  Every plant that is grown from 'seed potatoes' are genetically identical clones.

True Potato Seed is different, they are actual botanical seeds.  These are made in the same way that any plant makes seeds.  Every plant that arises from true potato seed is genetically different.  If you plant a dozen true potato seeds you will get a dozen different varieties of potato.  If you find one you like you can grow them vegetatively from there.  This is how plant breeders have come up with the different varieties of potatoes you can buy.

This year I got some True Potato Seed and grew some potatoes from those true botanical seeds.  Each and every plant that grows from true potato seed is genetically unique.

This year the ones I grew were diploid potatoes, which are different from the usual tetraploid potatoes.  They are more of a wild variety of potato and have not had polyploidy induced in them.  They also had a huge amount of genetic diversity which I love.  The seed grown potato plants looked nice and on some plants the flowers were stunningly beautiful.

Yield from one true potato seed grown plant, not huge the first year