Minnie's Pig

[aheksel]

Hello!

I thought i put some notes i made of my tubers of Minnie's pig here. I grew some clones from TPS in the fall of 2011, luckily that autumn was not so cold so i could keep growing for mini-tubers well into november.

I kept the small tubers in a pot with dry soil in my cold-storage through the winter (around 7 Celcius) & grew one clone this summer at my garden-plot. It produced a few small knobbly tubers with light-red streaks.

But when i cleaned out my cold-storage this fall (2012) i found the pot with dry soil and saw to my amazement that i missed a tuber. This tuber had kept in the storage through the entire summer and just now (in november) sprouted.
Temperatures depend on outside but during the summer usually keeps around 20 C.

I potted the tuber and grow it now inside, under fluorescent light, where it already produced tubers. The leaf is colored red underneath, really nice.

[Tom Wagner]

Looking at the upper side of a potato leaf and the underneath side is a fun thing to do, especially to determine skin color of potato tubers and sometimes even flesh colors. Adaxial -upper and Abaxial - lower, are very technical terms but sometimes you have to use them.



The pedigree of Minnie's Pig is rather complicated...suffice to say it originated between an experimental red potato derived from the Minnesota potato breeding program crossed with a sib of my Skagit Valley Gold which is primarily S. phureja in the pedigree. Just how the colors recombine when these species are crossed and selfed is a little known enterprise when comparing leaf colors....both upper and lower. The red that you see in the first post of this thread means that the skin is red or pinkish. The easy visualization of pigment is likely due to less dominance by the chlorophyll due to indoor lighting? Often the stems will be linked to the leaf color.

Thanks for posting the picture...maybe it will incite more lurkers to chime in. Perhaps I should document varieties by adaxial/abaxial coloration.

[Tom Wagner]

Photoprotective function of abaxial anthocyanin



My reading research connects occasionally with my observation...

Red abaxial surfaces were not more reflective of red light than non-red abaxial surfaces, and the presence of a red abaxial layer did not result in increased mesophyll absorption of red light, or an increase in photosynthetic gas exchange. However, these results do appear consistent with a photoprotective function of abaxial anthocyanin

[aheksel]

Thanks for your answer!
It very fascinating to be able to read the skin color by the leaf.
The lamp i use is with red-blue-green color waves, very cheap but effective in the winterdarkness.

I was thinking of the pedigree of the Boy & Pig-tps of yours. Are they all of the cross between "8-12 high orange pigmented" and "MN 19298", as "Minnie's Pig"?
I read (in an old tomatoville-post) that the pedigree of "Pig Knuckles" should look like this:


And also that it was a cross between "Boy Pig" & "Red Thumb". Are they all very close to each other in heritage?

I get more and more interested in the pedigrees of mixed diploids, as with the diploid X tetraploid for example.
Especially with the eventual resistance of frost & blight & long storability. We need it all here in Northern europe.
I'm happy you sent me the free seedbag of Minnie's Pig 2 years ago, it has become the most interesting TPS i have.

[Tom Wagner]

Very good pedigree drawing....very accurate

No, Red Thumb and Pig's Eye are not related. Pig Knuckles TPS may be selfed or crossed out....but my observation is that it is selfed.

I need to know how you made those boxes...I could use that to explain my crosses better.

[aheksel]

I used to program called paint, i think it comes with the windows-software. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_%28software%29
Just write text and put a box around it.

Highly recomended for pedigreebox-inspiration: www.plantbreeding.wur.nl/potatopedigree/index.html

It would be very interesting to see your tps pedigrees in these boxes!

[aheksel]

These are from my oldest clone of Minnie's Pig (sown in 2011).
The potatoes were huge and shaped like a pumpkin with the heel being very deep and wide.

Skincolor intensity were different even of the same clone the most beautiful looking like this


Very yellow flesh and very good tasting!

[Tom Wagner]

"Very Good Tasting" "Very Yellow Flesh"

I like those simple but descriptive terms. Testimony, testimony!

[aheksel]

[/URL]

So here is second generation of redskinned Minnie's Pig.
I've grown Minnie's Pig TPS since 2011 and two years ago i grew one redskinned variety that bloomed and set some berrie's in the same year as sown. I sowed these TPS following year.
I lost most of my TPS grown varieties because of theft from my growing plot including the mother of these redskinned Pigs.

In the picture there is about 4 clones, on which was clearly a good one with beatiful shiny wax pinkred skin and prolific in setting tubers. I haven't gotten around to taste one yet though.

[Tom Wagner]

The few that are still on this forum will be interested in the flavor, I am sure.

Thanks..