This year's TPS lines
 

Having secured some more space for growing I decided to diversify into potatoes this year. In particular I'm looking for new blue/black or red fleshed lines, which is reflected in the varieties I started from Tom Wagner's TPS. I've ended up with 65 vigorous seedlings out of 7 different lines. Two, Mt St Helens and Redder Blood were slow to germinate so those aren't pictured, they're about two weeks behind these.

Here are pictures of a representative plant from each line.

Skagit Beets

[IMG]http://www.onthemarksolutions.net/images/peppers/SkagitBeets.jpg[/IMG]

Blue Rose

[IMG]http://www.onthemarksolutions.net/images/peppers/BlueRoseSeedling.jpg[/IMG]

Diamond Toro

[IMG]http://www.onthemarksolutions.net/images/peppers/DiamondToroSeedling.jpg[/IMG]


Hedge Rose

[IMG]http://www.onthemarksolutions.net/images/peppers/HedgeRoseSeedling.jpg[/IMG]

Negate

[IMG]http://www.onthemarksolutions.net/images/peppers/NegateSeedling.jpg[/IMG]

This was my first year growing from TPS and I found it less intimidating than I expected. The seedlings are a little more delicate than tomatoes or peppers but with a little extra care separating and transplanting them they were not much different.

These plants are all a little past the point they should have been transplanted, but with last weekend's frost forecast I couldn't make myself put them out and risk it. They should go in the ground tonight!

Looks great! I am wanting to get into these but afraid what I might do...considering what happened when I started with toms and peppers. Hope they do well for you! Keep us posted.


How old are these plants? Thanks

They're about 6 or 7 weeks old.

I'm a little worried too, we'll see how thin I get stretched this year. At least potatoes don't require as much attention once they're established.

My seedlings do not look that good........until I plant them out in the garden. What is the soil mix You are useing if I may ask.

Mark, great seeing your seedlings doing as well as they are. I am especially pleased to see the coloration in the leaves of the Skagit Beets seedling with signs of it having red flesh. Blue will show up in the Diamond Toro seedling. Keep up the good work.

[QUOTE=wingnut;348011]My seedlings do not look that good........until I plant them out in the garden. What is the soil mix You are useing if I may ask.[/QUOTE]

They're in Pro-Mix All Purpose, which is what I use for pretty much everything these days. They germinated in the house and stayed inside for 3-5 days after transplanting before moving to the unheated garage. The garage stays between 50 and 60 most of April here and both locations have shop lights on chains for each shelf so I can move them up and down as needed. The lights stay on 16 hour cycles.

They got hit with 1/2 strength fish emulsion with a shot of SeaCom PGR added after about a week in the garage and again two weeks later. Any sunny day over 50 I carry all the plants out and put them on the driveway, but we didn't have that many of those this spring...

Basically I treated them like my tomato transplants, with the cool early growing conditions and light nutrients. I think this helps keep all my transplants from getting too leggy and the outside time with our spring winds is enough to toughen up the stems.

More than you asked, but in case someone else is thinking about trying TPS I figured I'd toss my method out there where they can find it.;)

[QUOTE=Tom Wagner;348028]Mark, great seeing your seedlings doing as well as they are. I am especially pleased to see the coloration in the leaves of the Skagit Beets seedling with signs of it having red flesh. Blue will show up in the Diamond Toro seedling. Keep up the good work.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Tom. I thought I had read you post somewhere that the leaf coloration was indicative of flesh color, so I'm hopeful I will get something interesting as I have a fair amount of color in some of the plants.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/z0OPX6z.jpg?1[/IMG]

The photo above shows a blue skin/blue flesh clone with the telltale coloration in the center of the leaves. You can see it more vividly when looking down on the plants. At one or two O'clock...is a clone with a slight red coloration....probably just light pink flesh.

Well they look strong and healthy! I think I may get some promix to try out next year.

[QUOTE=Tom Wagner;348080][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/z0OPX6z.jpg?1[/IMG]

The photo above shows a blue skin/blue flesh clone with the telltale coloration in the center of the leaves. You can see it more vividly when looking down on the plants. At one or two O'clock...is a clone with a slight red coloration....probably just light pink flesh.[/QUOTE]

Do some not show up like this? I'm curious, most of the lines have some plants with strong color, but none of the negate seedlings do.

@Marktutt
Those TPS seedlings look so healthy and vigorous you've done a really good job!

Those seedlings look very nice!

Compared to mine they are outstanding!
What kind of light are you using, give us some pointers :)

Just 4ft fluorescent shop lights with daylight bulbs, 6 tubes per shelf, each shelf holds 4 trays of 32 plants. The light fixtures are on chains so that I can keep them no more than 2 inches from the tops of the plants.

Everything else I do is a couple of posts up. I just generally have good luck with raising transplants, it's once I have to deal with mother nature that things get hard.

Here is a shot I took for a friend, this is on the shelves in my office where I germinate everything before it goes out in the garage. He posted a picture of some leggy seedlings and I was trying to show him what I mean by lots of light.

[IMG]http://www.onthemarksolutions.net/images/peppers/Seedlings.jpg[/IMG]

I use similar lights mine are T8 4ft fluorescent lights with 6500K bulbs.

Very nice setup! And excellent results. I would think you could grow an excellent potato crop in your neck of the woods. How do you do with late blight?

I don't have significant disease problems here. In the past my problems have been due to my heavy clay soil and excessive rainfall, the last year I tried potatoes at least half the summer I couldn't walk in the potatoes without sinking in past my ankles in sticky mud. Of course most of them rotted in the ground.

This year I'm growing around 850 tomato plants and all of my peppers at another location and am taking part of my raised gardens at the house to grow potatoes in so that shouldn't be an issue even if we have a wet summer. The plan is to try to find a number of candidates for larger scale growing here and then grow those selections at my 'farm' location next year.

Could I start TPS seedlings in the spring and then plant their tubers in the fall? I'd like to try some potatoes but my one experiment last year showed me that our spring is too short. It's really hard to find any tubers at the right time of year for fall planting, since that's not normally done.
I would so love to grow my own potatoes of various tastes and colors.
I'm excited that we are probably moving next summer, hopefully to a cooler climate.

From what I understand you can start TPS in smaller containers and just leave them there to get minitubers, then plant the minitubers.

Marktutt
I did that but don't take the tubers early ..... you must wait until the TPS plant dies down and the tuber breaks dormancy. I tricked them by placing in cold storage for 4 weeks and then let them sprout but still takes like 2 months. Still some made it!

So, how would I time it to be planting some tubers around Sept/October time frame?
I'd really like to try some potatoes this fall if I can figure this out.

For me, it is more practical to start TPS with my tomatoes in the spring and grow the plants out in the garden. By the end of the season each plant has enough tubers to seed a short row the next season, and I get some idea of stolon length, tuber size, productivity etc. I've even gotten some berries off of them the first year.

I don't think potatoes will survive past June here. It's just too hot. Which is why I'd like to try TPS and transplant in the fall.

My suggestion would be to try starting some TPS indoors about mid July so they could be put out in the garden mid September.

Beings I lived in hot climates before...I started TPS in September and transplanted to single cells in October to allow them to mature through November. I know how hot September can be but by October you should have two months to finish off the cell plants or garden transplants. If you are lucky you may have a few weeks in December that is frost free. The resulting tubers...from pea size to larger can then be put into a storage area (ambient) for allowing the tubers to break dormancy for a Feb. 1 planing.

Looking good. Hope I'll be able to grow some from TPS now and plant the tubers next year.

[QUOTE=wmontanez;348648]Marktutt
I did that but don't take the tubers early ..... you must wait until the TPS plant dies down and the tuber breaks dormancy. I tricked them by placing in cold storage for 4 weeks and then let them sprout but still takes like 2 months. Still some made it![/QUOTE]

I seem to remember reading the thread you wrote about this.

[QUOTE=Tom Wagner;348902]Beings I lived in hot climates before...I started TPS in September and transplanted to single cells in October to allow them to mature through November. I know how hot September can be but by October you should have two months to finish off the cell plants or garden transplants. If you are lucky you may have a few weeks in December that is frost free. The resulting tubers...from pea size to larger can then be put into a storage area (ambient) for allowing the tubers to break dormancy for a Feb. 1 planing.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Tom!
Is Feb 1 early enough? We're 100 degrees now and have been for two weeks.
My one experiment with Yukon Gold and Kennebecs, they started wilting badly by May 1. I finally had to harvest them early, despite putting up shade for them.
I did get lots of little new potatoes, which was great.

Would the tropical varieties be more heat tolerant?

When I was a potato buyer for Frito-Lay I remember it being very hot in the Arizona harvest...May 15 through July 4. Yes, the potatoes would wilt but in the Queen Creek area they compensated by using lots of sulphide products and lots of water. Early potatoes seemed to do better but late varieties such Kennebec were available in the latter harvest. And yes, an earlier planting time in January could be done and early December if you don't mind a freak frost or two.

Back in 1970 FL-2 was a major variety...it bulked early and had a low tuber set....same as for Yukon Gold.