I promised to report about my tps 2011,so here I am.
I'm a bit late,but I lifted the last potatoes only beginning of november.
And I feel somewhatlike my student time,nothing so horrible as making reports.
But,you know, I'm working for the global seedcompany, and can not get around it.
And I know how good it feels when it's done.
So there we go
varieties:
oregon coast
oran utang
tollocan fiesta
lumpers gold
In a preceeding post I gave the germination rates but I owe some fotos of the greenhouse setup.
I planted them in 2"x2" cels,filled to 2/3 with dirt after pressing gently.
when they were big enough,I filled the cel to the edge.
The plants of the 3 varieties looked much the same for me,except oran utang that with a close look were of a what darker green,and more hairy
apri-mai they went to the field when they looked like this.
The field looked like this when I was planting out(the jiffypots don't have anything to do with the potatoes)
About a week before planting I prepared the site by kind of tilling,very superficial,with a small handtool to kill the grass,I can not handle machines because I'm in a wheelchair,but I think working without machines is cool.
The double row is a bit less then 20m long 'a bit more then 30' with the rows about 60cm apart(2')
On the area I spreaded(well,my old father did it for me one bucket of fresh chicken manure(with much straw)three wheelbarrows of very old manure(probably very poor in nitrogen),one bucked of (wet)feathers and half a bucket woodashes.That's just what I had at hand.
This garden is new for me,it hasn't been cultivated for years and the soil structure is great.
The good structure made me underestimate the need for amendment and tilling.
Later I found out that many treeroots were running through the field.I should have dealt with them first.
About 100 plants went in,half oregon coast,half oran utang.
I had very few plants of tolocan fiesta and even fewer lumpers gold that I planted in another place.
one or two weeks after planting
about 6weeks later,after a timid hilling up.
I wanted to hill up more, but I couldn't get it done,except for a very small portion.
I watered after planting and maybe 2 times in may-june,this period we had hardly some rain
The potatoes seemed to suffer less from drought,then the corn,the amaranth and sunflower I planted in the same garden.
July ,august we had some good rain what gave them a good boost.
22july the field looked like this.
the performance of this field was poor,although most plants looked rather good,with a good vigor.
July and august colorado beetles showed up ,up to a few per plant.But I had the impession they didn't very much harm.
Also a very few anomalies showed up,like this(maybe 2 like this)
and this
the second affection seemed somewhat blightish to me but I really don't know.
this is what it looked like just before lifting
the yield,about half september was poor
average roughly 100-200 gram/plant.
I kept the tubers of 5 oregon coast that yielded 400-500gram/plant and of 3 oran utang that yielded around 600 gram.
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In the garden at my house I planted a plot with 12 plants,3 of each variety.
The soil over here is not so good as in my new garden.
I started this garden some years ago on almost sterile stony clay.
It's improved a lot over the years,but below a few inches deep it's still the stony poteryclay.
The place of the plot is in the shade for most of the morning.
They had more chickenmanure though.
And they were hilled up quite good.
The young plants were planted 9 mai
and lifted end october
18 mai the plot looked like this
10 juin like this
24 july like this
Development of some of the plants was impressive,nearly 60cm(=2') high and spreading out 1meter(over 3')
flowers violet for oran utang,white for the others.
I noted the yield for each plant individually
oregon coast: 870g 630g 370g
oran utang 1400g 700g 260g
tolocan fiesta 800g 240g 140g
lumpers gold 860g 740g 340g
note the remarkeble yield of one of the oran utang(1400g)
from the oc,ou,tf I kept the tubers of the best plant,for lumpers gold I kept them from the two best yielding plants.
3 spare tolocan fiesta I planted apart in this garden.
planted first half of mai,lifted end october
they yielded 800g 430g 350g.
here they are
For oregon coast,oran utang and tollocan fiesta some berries were formed.
Mostly on a few very vigorous plants.This were in general the best yielding plants(that's fine!)I didn'tfind any berries on lumpers gold.
here some fresh berries.
this what they looked like, a few days ago(1-4 months old)
about the berries I have a few question
-what numbers in the last pic are likely to contain good seed.
-what's the best stage(according to the number)
-how should proceed to extract the seed.Is it ok like I do for tomatoes,extracting the pulp,let it ferment a bit in a cup and washing with water?
-are they more likely to be self pollinisation or crosses between different plants?
-tatermater(or someone else),do you want some of the berries or the cleaned seed?
Finally,the most exciting part,maters pics,although these maters don't have much fancy colors,that's ok for me.
They don't have pigmentations of the skin or the flesh except the red skin of oran utang.
the flesh is yellowish white tolocan fiesta a bit closer to white.
oregon coast,
regular oval shape,unpigmented skin ,white-yellow flesh,biggest around 60g
oran utang,more global shape,skin red pigmented to unpigmented,white-yellow flesh,biggest around 90g
tollocan fiesta,some of them had a skin slightly affected(by what?) skin unpigmented,white yellow flesh biggest around 60 gram
and finally lumpers gold, skin unpigmented,white yellow flesh, somewhat "lumpy",biggest over 100g
so now I have clones from 6 oregon coast,4 oran utang,2 tollocan fiesta and 2 lumpers gold.
Of course I kept the varieties separated but I didn't keep the individual clones separated(sometimes you want to simplify the things,but maybe that's wrong)
I can share berries or clean seed, if I know how to clean.
and I can send some tubers to who want it.
let me know if you're interested.
don't hesitate to do remarks or ask questions
