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Post by Tom Wagner on Jul 20, 2011 22:20:08 GMT -8
I will send an email to Philipp, thanks. Some of those Swiss Valley areas look beautiful but potatoes would be hard to find with the limited land for cultivation. I almost want to ask this fellow...What variety are you digging?....
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Post by potatolover on Jul 21, 2011 9:57:10 GMT -8
Hey Tom! Not when you see how some still farm: I wouln't want to farm like that
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 22, 2011 1:01:46 GMT -8
I tell you what, I covet that plow. The turnwrest style never became popular here. Probably because the people who farmed sloping hillsides who most would appreciate them moved west and abandoned those farms in the eastern mountains. I wouldn't want to farm on that mountain either.
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Post by potatolover on Jul 22, 2011 5:30:40 GMT -8
I've one of those but its only for show! would break my back using it
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Post by larryrider on Jul 23, 2011 15:21:56 GMT -8
Tom, Have you tried soil blocks? Recommended by Eliot coleman in New Organic Gardener, we use them here at Ananda. They don't require transplanting. Just wondering. Larry
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Post by Tom Wagner on Jul 23, 2011 21:00:44 GMT -8
Thanks, Larry, for reminding me of the soil blocks. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzHW4TfwTyIhas Eliot talking about the soil blocks and there is a follow up youtube by another fellow. I took a quick look at the Ananda garden where you live. I would like to see the garden. Sounds like you can provide up to 5% of your food from it. Let me know when you would like to visit one or more of my breeding plots. Any actual physical labor contribution is always welcomed when I am transplanting, weeding, harvesting, crossing, etc.
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Post by kevynbaker on Feb 20, 2012 8:54:54 GMT -8
Be sure to bury the cotyledon and maybe one of the true leaves...leaving just a bit of plant above the soil to finish growing taller. What about TPS from varieties that do not respond well to 'hilling'? Is it still important to bury the cotyledon? I grew Yukon Gold potato's for the first time last year and was disappointed to find out they they will not sprout tubers in the additional layers 'after' I had already hilled them up. Thanks
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Post by Tom Wagner on Feb 20, 2012 17:29:28 GMT -8
Thanks for signing up as a member just now. I need new members to ask questions as the TPS growout effort is poorly understood by new readers. A TPS seedling is near worthless if transplanted with the cotyledon above the soil line....no tubers!
The Yukon Gold variety you are talking about is from tuber cuts...not tps...as a tuber line never has a cotyledon again ever after the first seedling level.
Yukon Gold is a very determinant variety....it grows only so much and set very few tubers and early at that...therefore no amount of hilling will encourage new stolon/tuber growth.
Growers don't want a potato to have multiple sets of tubers....it interferes with the need to have uniformity in skin set
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 21, 2012 2:13:08 GMT -8
Whoa! I've never heard of this determinate thing. Are most commercial potato lines determinate in this way?
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Post by Tom Wagner on Feb 21, 2012 7:30:27 GMT -8
I don't know of anyone else besides myself who has spent his entire life breeding both potatoes and tomatoes. I guess my descriptions for tomatoes and potatoes has some rather unique word play.
In tomatoes....talking about indeterminate/determinate is a common thing whereas in potatoes the default type of potato is either determinate or strongly so....but no admission of such a description will occur. Very few potato varieties ever see the light of day if the vines are too tall....too late.....or never die down. Sometimes late maturity is related to taller vines....berry production is usually better in late varieties such as Desiree, Granola, Maris Piper, and Katahdin. Some early varieties such as Norland set berries but often do not because the vine is strongly undergoing senescence just as it is blooming.
When I was a potato buyer with Frito Lay....late 60's to early 70's ...I would go out to potato fields to observe the contract potatoes...and if a Frito-Lay variety like FL 162 was being grown...our recommendation would be to beat the vines down to hasten maturity and skin set. The Red River Vally area of Oklahoma was a case in point...the grower had several varieties but FL 162 was as tall as my waist during the hot part of summer....it was meant to take the heat....but the farmer applied more nitrogen to the field thinking the vines were a bit yellow green and thought they needed greening up....big mistake...it just increased the sugar content of the potato tubers and encouraged the vine to keep growing.....
Frito's best varieties were early varieties...and would be very determinate since they died down naturally....FL 1533, FL 282, FL 2 even was early since it tuberized early and could be beat back before digging.
My breeding work has been to collect, breed and select...over and over again...thus I have had varieties that would grow and grow...never die down ....bloom til frost. Negro Y Azul could spread 12 feet across the field. The problem with late maturity and indeterminate vines is that they are anathema to commercial growers. They could not take me seriously some times. When my contract grower in California would grow a field of Negro Y Azul...he would mow the vines down once the first set of tubers were big enough...he did not care about the second set, third set...etc., which would follow if left in the field long enough.
Growing potatoes in tires almost requires a indeterminate type potato and those are rare indeed with established varieties.
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Post by kevynbaker on Feb 21, 2012 17:37:36 GMT -8
Tom,
Thanks for the clarification, and the quick reply. I'm fairly new to gardening in general (it's technically my third year at it), and a lot of these ideas/terms are very new to me. I'm sure that I'll be posting some more questions as I go along.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Feb 21, 2012 22:02:46 GMT -8
Kevyn,
I don't expect everything I state to be understood or even appreciated on this forum....although it is a forum devoted to my taters and maters research. If anyone learns something ...that is a great by product.
Seeing that you live out Calgary in Alberta....what is the extent of gardening in your area...or is is mostly farming and ranching?
I suppose I could ask my soon-to-be daughter-in-law Erin what she knows of gardening in Alberta....but I am afraid her mind is on marriage plans for this August.
Tom
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Post by kevynbaker on Feb 25, 2012 9:32:28 GMT -8
Kevyn, Seeing that you live out Calgary in Alberta....what is the extent of gardening in your area...or is is mostly farming and ranching? Tom I'm not sure about gardening. I hear that it is getting more and more popular. I play hockey with a guy who is very interested in gardening. He's given me quite a few tips on general gardening, but has not grown TPS before. I grew up in Calgary, but moved out to Strathmore about 2 years ago (aprox 1/2 hour from Calgary). I'd say it is a farming community that has expanded in the last few years. Just from driving around I know that the local farms just outside of town grow corn and canola (I think). We are zone 3A, so we have a pretty short season (110 frost free days I believe). The Yukon Gold potatoes I grew last year seemed to do fairly well. I got 2 seed pods and harvested about 50 seeds from them. I planted 11 at the beginning of Feb, mostly to see if I could get them to germinate. Right now I am sitting @ 6 seedlings, one is ready for transplant, 4 are on their way, and one looks like it won't make it. I've got a question about what a good 'indeterminate' variety would be for 3A, but I'll post it in another forum.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Feb 25, 2012 10:10:33 GMT -8
110 frost free days? That puts a damper on the clonal varieties that could be grown well. I would imagine Kameraz of the far north Russian would be a good candidate as a tuber line, but I can't send tubers to Canada. The best I could do would be to point out TPS of Kameraz, and/or some of the TPS of varieties from Sweden and Estonia. However, many of my TPS lines are likely crossed to whatever is blooming near by...and the diversity of germplasm is the issue ....selecting for earliness is easy. It can be done by selecting the seedlings in the trays...the earliest ones will tuberize before you can even set them out in the garden.....just select those that tuberized already and put those in a special row by themselves. Harvest the tubers and plant out for the next season. This would be a multi year project that could be valuable for screening for earliness.
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Post by Tom Wagner on Aug 26, 2012 13:53:00 GMT -8
The topic...Sowing TPS-True Potato Seed....needed a bump. Here is a tray I had sown Aug 15...today is 11 days later....and if you can see the seedlings emerging...those are the 14 lines out of 18 that have shown some germination. This tray has daytimes temps near warm enough outdoors but the nights are down to near 49 to 57 and that must slow up some TPS quite a bit. Those with a fair germination are: !. F-1 Joe Kaighin x Tollocan 2. F-1 PI 320373 x PI97H32-6 4. Papa Cacho 5. Freckled Adora 6. LT-7 8. Karina Wagner 10. Diamond Toro 15. Summitter 16, Gold Thumbs I am going to bring the flat in at night to hope the warmer temps inside hasten germination. On the left are the cubes of F-1 Joe Kaighin x Tollocan and on the right are the hybrids of 320373 x 97H32-6
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