Seed berries

[graybell]

Tom I planted 50 lbs of seed potatoe this spring from Roninger potatoe. 10 of yellow finn 10 red pontiac and 20 golden yukon. I got 6 seed berries on the yukons. What to do? Can you explain or point me to some instruction on what to do. BTW Atash referred me to your site from another forum we both use. TX Gray

[tz]

Hi TX Gray,

I sent you a PM with links to the gathered information.

[Tom Wagner]

Graybell,

I have no idea why Atash would direct you to my site. I have little information about such subjects, but-----Oh, Well.

Nearly four years ago I wrote about Yukon Gold....

www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=2792 09-15-20064

My experience with OP Yukons give me mostly round progeny with very few oval/longs. I do see flesh colors of white, light yellow, and even a few darker yellow than Yukon Gold. A good part of the seedlings will have pink eyes like YG and one quarter will have white eyes. Take a look at the parental descriptions;


Female parent -Norgleam –
Primary tuber flesh color White
Tuber eye depth Shallow
Tuber shape Oval to round


Male parent-USW 5279-4

Yellow flesh
Oval to round
Upright foliage

This is interesting to some...OK, maybe just me, but then again I talked with Gary Johnston years ago and we talked mostly about Lenape and the experience Gary had eating the greenhouse produced tubers of Lenape and how he got sick. I am getting off the subject..

www.uoguelph.ca/plant/research/potato/history/yukongold.html
This is a copy of a letter Gary Johnston wrote to a colleague in 1998. It tells the story of Yukon Gold in his own words.

Re: Yukon Gold
A little bit about what led up to its “creation”. In this century and earlier many Dutch and Belgians came to Canada. Many settled in the Lake Erie area called the “Banana Belt”, the principal towns being Simcoe, Leamington and Harrow. Later many settled in the Bradford-Holland Marsh after it had been drained. These new Canadians became mainly vegetable growers – potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet corn etc.
Since I took over the potato work at O.A.C. in 1953 the CDA Station at Harrow became one of the Potato Regional Variety Trial Centres. Soon growers in the so-called Banana Belt (a species of banana actually grew on Point Pelee) began petitioning for the breeding and licensing of a yellow-fleshed potato variety like they had “over home”. Back then I wasn’t really sure that we needed a yellow-fleshed potato in Ontario. However in the late 1959’s we had a graduate student from Peru whose father had a large plantation in the Cuzo region of the Andes east of Lima. I had a couple of talks with him about potatoes in Peru. He told me that the natives (Indians) in his area grew some varieties, small in size and quite rough, that they sold in the open market in Lima. They had a deep yellow flesh and a distinct flavour. The shopper in Lima considered them a delicacy. On his next trip back to Guelph he brought me a few tubers. They were indeed quite “tasty” when cooked.
A year or so later at a PAA convention I met the late Roman Ross from Wisconsin Potato Introduction Station. I asked him if he know about these Peruvian potatoes and he replied that they had some a Sturgeon Bay, that they were know as amarillas and had manes like Careta, Yema de huevo, etc. He offered to send me some but suggested I use a couple of the 2x hybrids. One of those that I received was W5289-4 which was a 2x cross between Yema de huevo and 2x Katahdin, the former being of the S. phurja species. W5289-4 had quite rough tubers, smallish in size but deep yello fleshed. So the “sheels" began to turn in my brain. Why not try to create a potato variety with normal size, shallow eyes, globular shape and yellow flesh. To attempt this I chose Norgleam from North Dakota which had excellent shape and size, very early and had attractive appearance. This cross was made in 1966. To my surprise true seed was produced and G6666 was “born”. It was from the 66th cross that year. In the first field tests of the family of sibling # 4 was retained for further testing and multiplication. So G6666-4y moved into regional trials at six locations for 3 years. It came up for licensing in 1980. I suggested the name YUKON (for the Yukon River and gold rush country) and Charlie Bishop suggested we add the word Gold so it officially became YUKON GOLD. To succeed I believed that Yukon gold would require good publicity. Harowsmith, a national magazine published and article I wrote called “There’s Gold in these hills”. Shortly after I was asked to do several interviews for TV and radio. I did one for a radio station in Yellowknife, N.W.T. Later the magazine American Vegetable Grower did an article “Yukon Gold goes upstairs” with the front page coverage. The biggest boost came when 2 large Ontario growers printed YUKON GOLD in large letters on their very attractive 10 lb paper packages sold in many supermarkets. This enabled customers, if they like the product, to come back and ask for the same variety by name.
Last summer I was asked by the Horticultural Science Department at the University of Guelph to give an interview re: Yukon Gold to a free-lance reporter from California. She informed me that this new potato variety was rapidly increasing in popularity in CA especially in restaurants. Much of CA’s seed potatoes was grown in Oregon and B.C.
A number of years ago I received a request for some seed tubers from the Sakata Seed Co. of CA. I passed this request on to Bud Wright. He sent some tubers of Yukon Gold to Sakata. They indicated they would likely send some seed tubers to their home base in Yokohama, Japan. I have no word if Yukon Gold has been distributed in the Pacific rim or not. I recently worte to Sakata in CA but got no reply.
I am afraid I do not have listings, dates, etc. of where “my” varieties are now grown abroad. The exception is the Scandinavian countries. To save further writing I will send you a copy of my letter from Sweden from Prof. Jari Valkonen. I agree it would be very worthwhile to have a history of Canadian-bred potato varieties introduced and grown abroad. Contacting foreign embassies and the Agricultural Ataches might be helpful. I did have a letter from an Austrailian official re: Trent. A French fry company near Melboure was contracting it out for their French fry production.
I am sorry this is so rambling. This is the first time I have written about the situation etc. which prompted me to try and produce a useful, yellow-fleshed potato variety which at least would be welcomed by our new Canadians from Europe.
Gary Johnston
December 1998

This is a picture of the breeding log for Yukon Gold when it was still a numbered line.
www.uoguelph.ca/plant/research/potato/history/assets/yukgold_1_th.jpg
I like to see things like old documents - hand written reports, etc.

A short history of Gary Johnston. I knew him when he had dark hair.. www.uoguelph.ca/plant/research/potato/history/johnston.html

www.scri.ac.uk/scri/image/Research/genetics/yema_de_huevo.png is a picture of Yema de Huevo, the purported grandfather of Yukon Gold.
I have grown Yema de Huevo, hybrids of it, etc., but I get confused with Y.d.H. associated with other Plant Introduction numbers. Besides, the phureja line 13 is a seedling of the original collection of 1951 by Dodds.

The male parent of Yukon Gold....

USW 5279-4 a cross of USW 1 x PI 195198.13 (phu)

I have grown the haploid Katahdin USW 1 but it did not have much vigor for me and I could not keep it too many years...

The grandfather, actually g. grandfather line....

PI 195198 - Solanum phureja subsp. phureja - CPC 979 - Narino, Colombia -- rank: 1000
PI 195198 Solanum phureja subsp. phureja SOLANACEAE Collected in: Narino, Colombia Maintained by the Potato Germplasm Introduction Station ...
www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/acchtml.pl?1165591 - 2120 bytes – Accession was donated. Apr-1951. England, United Kingdom.
Donors:
1. Dodds, K., OinC Commonwealth Potato Collection.

I don't know how the .13 came about since....see below. Likely the orinial seed was used without knowledge of how it was pollinated. So much of the phureja material has to be sent out as WRF seed...ie, hybrid seed of two accessions.

The S genotype for 195198.13 was identified as S3 .4 (Self incompatible)

Other accessions with Yema de Huevo names...

PI 320366 - Solanum phureja subsp. phureja - CCC 1344 - Norte de Santander, Colombia -- rank: 1000
... 320366 Solanum phureja subsp. phureja SOLANACEAE Collected in: Norte de Santander, Colombia Maintained by the Potato Germplasm Introduction ... site. Accession names and identifiers CCC 1344 Idtype: DONOR. YEMA DE HUEVO Idtype: LOCALNAME. Availability Material is available for distribution ... Request this germplasm Source History Accession was collected. Norte de Santander, Colombia. Locality: Presidente. In the local market ... Colombiano Agropecuario. Comment: Seeds from the Coleccion Central Colombiana de Papa (CCC). Observations Vouchers for accession Herbarium specimen ...
www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/acchtml.pl?1238196 - 2501 bytes -

PI 283137 - Solanum phureja subsp. phureja - OCH 1370 - Colombia -- rank: 625
... site. Accession names and identifiers OCH 1370 Idtype: COLLECTOR. YEMA DE HUEVO Idtype: LOCALNAME. Availability Material is available for distribution ... Accession was donated. 26-Sep-1962. Peru. Donors: Ministerio de Agriculture. Observations Vouchers for accession Herbarium specimen. Located ...
www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/acchtml.pl?1210268 - 2119 bytes -

PI 225707 - Solanum phureja subsp. phureja - CCC 81 - Boyaca, Colombia -- rank: 526
... site. Accession names and identifiers CCC 81 Idtype: DONOR. YEMA DE HUEVO Idtype: LOCALNAME. Availability Material is available for distribution ...
www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/acchtml.pl?1181431 - 2403 bytes –

Interestingly...here is a blurb about the growth habits of phureja vs, tuberosum
------------

20 November 1966
Summary The performance of 15 diploid clones and their vegetatively doubled counterparts was evaluated in the field for 2 years. The diploid clones produced more stems and were taller 4 weeks after planting, flowered earlier, and produced more total tuber yield. The significantly greater total tuber production of the diploids was due mainly to having more tubers less than 2.5 inches in diameter. The tetraploid clones usually produced more and heavier tubers over 2.5 inches in diameter, but not enough to offset the higher total tuber number of the diploids. Male and female fertility were evaluated in the greenhouse and although tetraploid seed set was 50% less than for the diploids, the doubled clones were sufficiently fertile for use in genetic and breeding programs. The results indicate that vegetative chromosome doubling of selected diploid clones generally will not produce high yielding tetraploid clones. These materials will be very useful in breeding and for genetic investigations.

What to expect from the seedlings from Yukon Gold???

Expect a lot of Katahdin type potatoes. The pedigree of Yukon Gold is close to 3/4 Katahdin by ancestry and type. There was a lot of selfing of lines in the background and sib matings. Berry production will be there but rather sparsely, but certainly more than the other two varieties you have.

What I would look for are tubers with pronounced red splashes around the eyes, not just pink eyes. The next thing is to select for yellower flesh than Yukon Gold, and that will be something less than 1/4 of the seedlings, it should be 1/4, but it just doesn't work out that way. Hopefully, you can improve on the flavor little by little.

Tom Wagner
Again, I don't know why Atash sent you here. Did I help any?