Kern Toro TPS Did it really go out as a commercial crop?
Jan 21, 2015 9:13:55 GMT -8
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Post by Tom Wagner on Jan 21, 2015 9:13:55 GMT -8
Kern Toro: A Tom Wagner potato clone and the story about the TPS from it reaching the markets.
I almost dropped Kern Toro since it looked too much like a Red LaSoda potato variety. The well established potato grower near Edison, CA liked it enough to say he wanted me to plant more of that one. In fact, he called it a well grown Red LaSoda!
The parents of this seedling hill were NorDonna and Fontenot At the time I made the cross they were just numbers… ND 1871-3R later named NorDonna out of North Dakota….it has Pontiac in the pedigree. Nordonna – Dark red skin with oval tuber. Scab resistant. Medium organic yields
Fontenot was La 12-59 a fully selfed LA 42-38 x La 42-38 mated TPS and the pedigree includes the sibling clones Pontiac and yeah…Red LaSoda. The presence of the USDA 96-56 makes it an all around… hot weather potato bred down in Louisiana.
Crossing a northern variety with a southern variety makes for good adaptation to diverse growing conditions. Even though the lines are somewhat inbred…that very inbred nature rids it of some bad genes that pop up. Crossing them was a fine mix of inbreeding and reconstituting some hybrid vigor. Naturally I was favoring the Red LaSoda lookalike since the market in Bakersfield, CA was for that red potato which was by default what any red potato was sold as generically. Kern Toro was sent up to Whatcom County, WA for producing certified seed potatoes and was grown as a commercial crop in California for a number of years and over the years was on at least a hundred acres or more. I think I got about a half cent royalty per given unit of weight.
I left California in 2004 and went to live in Washington state and grew potatoes in Skagit Country WA, and the grower I was with there turned out to be the number two competitor for red potato sales of the grower in Edison! Among the 100,000 TPS sown that year were about 1,000 seedlings of the F-2 Kern Toro…and by F-2 it was OP seed and likely selfed since the TPS was from a full field of Kern Toro’s near Lamont, CA. When the transplants were taken to the field by hand transplanting there were multiple seedlings in each clump and there was probably only 350 hills or so. When the seedlings were mature, I used a one row digger to lift the tubers and quickly picked up the best red tubers among the row and left the slightly off types on the ground. I think I picked up about three hundred pounds of tubers and planted the best ones the following year for the first year tuber season. Just one and a half years later from that initial transplanting from spring 2004 to fall 2005 I had produced nearly 6,000 lbs. of tubers. Spring 2006 and I brought the potatoes out of the shed on a conveyor and discarded off types and whichever ones I didn't like and as they were cut I eliminated anything that looked like hollow heart or necrosis. The 2006 crop produced several field truck loads…I don’t remember off hand…. and were dug fresh from the field to the grading shed. Some of the red tubers skinned easily and were discarded by the sorting lines after the washing and brushing of the tubers. They were sent to the wholesale trade as simply ‘red’ potatoes. I pulled out many 50 lb. boxes of graded sizes for replanting in 2007…I had the little ‘B’ potatoes, the next size up and the jumbos. I had fun with that experience and experience in TPS is what my life is all about.
I almost dropped Kern Toro since it looked too much like a Red LaSoda potato variety. The well established potato grower near Edison, CA liked it enough to say he wanted me to plant more of that one. In fact, he called it a well grown Red LaSoda!
The parents of this seedling hill were NorDonna and Fontenot At the time I made the cross they were just numbers… ND 1871-3R later named NorDonna out of North Dakota….it has Pontiac in the pedigree. Nordonna – Dark red skin with oval tuber. Scab resistant. Medium organic yields
Fontenot was La 12-59 a fully selfed LA 42-38 x La 42-38 mated TPS and the pedigree includes the sibling clones Pontiac and yeah…Red LaSoda. The presence of the USDA 96-56 makes it an all around… hot weather potato bred down in Louisiana.
Crossing a northern variety with a southern variety makes for good adaptation to diverse growing conditions. Even though the lines are somewhat inbred…that very inbred nature rids it of some bad genes that pop up. Crossing them was a fine mix of inbreeding and reconstituting some hybrid vigor. Naturally I was favoring the Red LaSoda lookalike since the market in Bakersfield, CA was for that red potato which was by default what any red potato was sold as generically. Kern Toro was sent up to Whatcom County, WA for producing certified seed potatoes and was grown as a commercial crop in California for a number of years and over the years was on at least a hundred acres or more. I think I got about a half cent royalty per given unit of weight.
I left California in 2004 and went to live in Washington state and grew potatoes in Skagit Country WA, and the grower I was with there turned out to be the number two competitor for red potato sales of the grower in Edison! Among the 100,000 TPS sown that year were about 1,000 seedlings of the F-2 Kern Toro…and by F-2 it was OP seed and likely selfed since the TPS was from a full field of Kern Toro’s near Lamont, CA. When the transplants were taken to the field by hand transplanting there were multiple seedlings in each clump and there was probably only 350 hills or so. When the seedlings were mature, I used a one row digger to lift the tubers and quickly picked up the best red tubers among the row and left the slightly off types on the ground. I think I picked up about three hundred pounds of tubers and planted the best ones the following year for the first year tuber season. Just one and a half years later from that initial transplanting from spring 2004 to fall 2005 I had produced nearly 6,000 lbs. of tubers. Spring 2006 and I brought the potatoes out of the shed on a conveyor and discarded off types and whichever ones I didn't like and as they were cut I eliminated anything that looked like hollow heart or necrosis. The 2006 crop produced several field truck loads…I don’t remember off hand…. and were dug fresh from the field to the grading shed. Some of the red tubers skinned easily and were discarded by the sorting lines after the washing and brushing of the tubers. They were sent to the wholesale trade as simply ‘red’ potatoes. I pulled out many 50 lb. boxes of graded sizes for replanting in 2007…I had the little ‘B’ potatoes, the next size up and the jumbos. I had fun with that experience and experience in TPS is what my life is all about.
