Other Online TPS Resources

[thefuture]

This is a space to post links to other items of interest online. If another such item has already been created, feel free to delete this and redirect me...

[thefuture]

Here is a 44 page book that can be read online called True potato seed: past and present uses, Volume 3.

[thefuture]

Here is a link to a site with images, descriptions and even the ones that are prime candidates to meet the challenge of growing 99 pounds of potatoes in 9 square feet.

[thefuture]

Here is a link from the IPC showing how just 3 plants can produce enoug tubers to plant 1 hectare of potatoes. Am I reading this right that each seed would produce on average 30 seedling tubers once planted out?

[thefuture]

Here is a 20 minute video highlighting work done with TPS via the IPC in Peru, bringing control to "peasants" and yields comparable to any hybrid.

[Tom Wagner]

Thanks, Future, for making this topic on TPS resources as a library search of sorts. I clicked on the links and there is much to learn. I read many TPS articles that I find through the Google Alerts that come to me once a day. I may as well start commenting on them. The link below was limited until I went to the completd PDF file. I started to read all the links and it made me think about my own work with TPS.

www.nepjol.info/index.php/NARJ/article/view/3341

Performance of Different Size True Potato Seed Seedling Tubers at Khumaltar
Ram C Adhikari

Abstract

A field study was carried out at Khumaltar-Lalitpur, during 2002-2004 to evaluate and compare
the performance of different sizes of seedling tubers (1-5 g, 5-10 g, 10-20 g and 20-40 g) of true
potato seed (TPS) with whole and half cut seed tubers of Desiree of 20-40 g size at 60- × 25-cm
spacing. Percent emergence, plant height, ground cover by foliage, stems/plant, number of tubers
per plant, marketable and total yields were significantly increased with the increase in seedling
tubers weight as compared to whole and half cut seed tubers of Desiree. Late blight
(Phytophthora infestans L.) disease was quite low in the TPS crops than Desiree. Both whole
and half cut seed tubers of Desiree produced significantly higher average per tuber weight.
Uniformity of the tubers harvested from different sizes of seedling tubers was statistically
similar and tubers from Desiree were statistically uniform as compared to seedling tubers. The
three years result suggests that more than 1 g size seedling tubers can be successfully used for
potato production as from the seed tubers of any standard variety.
Key words: Desiree; seedling tuber; tuber size; tuber yield

DOI: 10.3126/narj.v6i0.3341

Nepal Agriculture Research Journal Vol.6 2005 pp.28-34

Full Text: PDF or www.nepjol.info/index.php/NARJ/article/view/3341/2894

Wow! Pretty small tubers. The research shows that fields of potatoes can be planted with whole tubers as small as one gram. Being an American, I have little idea of the wt. of a gram...so I did a conversion...

[/li][li]1 g = 0.035273 oz
[/li][li]One oz of tubers would be about 30 mini tubers
[/li][li]16 oz to the lb so 16 x 30 = 480 mini tubers
[/li][li]100 lbs of these one gram potato tubers would number 48,000


I thought about how much acreage that 100 lbs. of potatoes would plant...so I went to this table to find out....

varietytrials.tennessee.edu/weightsmeasures/pdfdocs/conversions.pdf

The corn planting chart above shows that the 100 lbs of mini tubers could plant 2 acres or more depending on the plant population per acre

The ideal size for the seedling tuber is 20 times bigger, namely about 2/3 of an oz.

The amazing part of the findings in the full PDF is that the stands, size of plants at maturity and numbers of stems, numbers of tubers is not bad even with the one gram potato tubers. The Late Blight was less because of the variation among the tubers lines kept the over all infection rather low.

Anyway, there is a lot of information that with a bit of juxtaposition to my own work could be of definite synergism.

Tom Wagner

[thefuture]

No problem. If I wanted to grow TPS entirely in a container to replant the tubers later, what do you think the minimum container size would be. a tall 4 inch pot?

[Tom Wagner]

I like smaller containers since it forces the plant into a benign neglect phenomenon. It requires a bit more frequent waterings in a small container but the early tuberization is enhanced by the stress. I would start out small and maybe pot up an inch size large later one.

BTW, TZ posted some pictures of seedling TPS plant that he pulled since they were runts. The post is over at TVille. I probably should re-post interesting links for TPS resources here. Here is my response to TZ,

What you have in tubers (size is of some irrelevance) is exactly what I have been proposing for some time now; namely growing the seedlings to about 12 weeks, allowing the soil to dry down a bit during the senescence, but allowing the plant vine to totally die down for a few days to several weeks before harvesting the tiny tubers. It does not matter how small they are, I harvest tubers the size that can be laid out 8 to the inch and they willl still grow a few months later.

To see such small potatoes, and I am glad you used a dime for comparison...I do too and a tape measure to boot. Here is my avatar at a different forum...
mutuallyassuredsurvival.com/smforums/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=829;type=avatar
Notice how small some of those tubers are? I put these into 160 cell trays to start the plants and then transplanted to the field a weed ago. I have planted these tubers to the field directly but with the horsetail so bad in one plot the weeding is a burden. Horsetail for those who don't know what it is...http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/assets/organicweeds/field_horsetail1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicweeds/weed_information/weed.php%3Fid%3D10&h=332&w=295&sz=28&tbnid=hk4uL3p-2bQKqM:&tbnh=119&tbnw=106&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhorse%2Btail%2Bweed&hl=en&usg=__e4ie2fmvi383N77jH85-PpagrOY=&sa=X&ei=ICMmTKzXI9OLnQew1MC8Bg&ved=0CDMQ9QEwBA

The problem is with these tiny tubers is that they don't store as well as larger tubers and like any potato ...the tubers should not be harvested off of green plants....as they shrivel fast otherwise.
Therefore the tubers harvested now won't grow until Sept at the earliest, but could be planted in 3 inch pots or smaller to grow another plant out, stunt it a bit and harvest the tubers say in December.

I may be starting 100,000 to a million seedlings later this summer for producing plants that will eventually look like yours, TZ...one or two tubers per plant, bulked or selected one tuber per plant and put into family unit bags for planting out to the field next year. I will likely seed most of the TSP around the first of August and harvest in November, all in the greenhouse.

The optimum first year seed tubers is about 3/4 of an oz, but tubers as small as one gram (.03573 oz) will grow a fairly decent vine. To give you an idea of a one gram potato look at my avatar linked here and you will see the tiniest tubers as a treasure. One gram potato tubers in a hundred lb. sack would number 48,000 tubers! The reality of growing tubers from true seed will give you a range of tubers size...obviously the 20 gram sized tubers would number about 2,400 per hundred lb. bag. Imagine a hundred lb. bag of regular potatoes of say...8 oz. tubers...that would only be 200 tubers! Ane furthermore, those 8 oz. tubers cut into 6 pieces each would only allow 1200 sets per bag.

In perspective it would take about one ton of conventional potatoes to plant an acre of potatoes, but with only 50 lbs of one gram potatoes I could plant the same acre! How small can the tubers be and still grow? I am getting ahead of myself..

The picture I have included has potato tubers weighing in at less than 1 gram. Compare a hunded lb. sack of wheat....it would have about 1,500,000 grains of seed. Some of my viable tubers are no bigger than a grain of wheat, and that means that a one gram tuber is 31 times the size of a wheat seed.

What I am saying is...it does not matter what the size of the tuber...it will grow but perhaps better sown like grain in trays and then transplanted to the field, greenhouse, etc. The tubers slightly larger than grain of wheat will grow and the tiniest potatoes could be transplanted to an acre with only two pounds of these tiny tubers.

In my picture there is a pea seed of a Super Sugar Snap. According to stats, a dry pea weighs about 1/5 of a gram
There are about 2,400 pea seeds per lb. Since one gram potatoes would be numbered at 480 per lb, the tuber size is much bigger than the pea. but I have viable tubers that look 1/5 the size/weight of a pea. That means that the smaller tubers could count around 12,000 per lb. just under the count for wheat at 15,000 grains per lb. Imagine again the two lbs of tiny potatoes planting an acra and the necessity of 87 lbs to plant an acre of wheat.

I double checked my math and it seems accurate.

An important thing to remember about potatoes grown from TPS, one needs high numbers to find the "Needle in the Haystack" type potato clone. By selecting out the top 10 % each year it is rather easy to find the best clones. One acre of 24,000 population TPS seedling tubers can be whittled down to 2400...the next year down to 240...and another year down to 24 at which point you may have included here the best russet, the best fingerling, the best red, the best blue flesh, the best yellow, the best orange, the best bi-color, the best diploid, the best Late Blight res., the best yielder, the best for earliness, the best for mashing, the best for baking, the best for storage and have enough left over for the best in 10 other categories.


Tom Wagner

www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=15013
for the messages and topic

and for a picture of the potato seedlings
www.tomatoville.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=13698&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1277565880

[tz]

I grew those in 8 oz styrofoam coffee cups. The plants that went into the garden were a healthy 10" tall, similar to my tomatoes. Seeds were mass planted in little 1"x1.5" cells because I didn't know what germination would be, and the biggest plants were transfered to the cups while quite small and spindly (3"-4" tall). I put a little mix in the bottom of the cup, put the bare root seedling in and and then filled the cup to the top leaves. The runt with the blue tuber was itty bitty from the time it germinated, but because the stem was bluish I kept it. As you can see didn't get planted deeply like the others and it never did much.

I think using deep white cups is probably good for starting indoors under shop lights because the seedlings are so spindly the extra reflected light from the inside of the cup would help. It will be interesting finding out what does and doesn't work growing on a small scale starting them with two shoplights in a spare bedroom while there is still snow outside.


Here is my Flickr page with the pics. I'll add more later. I'm growing about a dozen varieties from Tom, sent as minitubers, in addition to a half dozen TPS plants each from Katahdin and All Blue.

www.flickr.com/photos/51251503@N03/tags/potato/

[DarJones]

the minitubers mentioned in the articles are about the size of a pea.

The tubers Tom normally sends out are probably better called small tubers.

I found the article on TPS in China very enlightening. They must have a lot of experience growing from seed to produce the thousands of acres involved.

DarJones