Lateral branching, long stolons etc in potatoes-Pictures
 

First attempt to take pictorial evidence of potatoes varieties with potential of setting potatoes along the main stem and sending stolons away from it's original base. My motivation is no other that "Just because" I do see potential that this sort of information will benefit many more people that have curiosity and better themselves at this wonderful hobby of growing delicious food that are not available to the masses or your typical supermarket varieties.

I want to express my gratitude to a fellow gardener in this forum: NathanP for helping to replicate this in his Rhode Island garden. Also want to thank Durgan for inspiring me more (regardless of the perceived attitude of other people in this forum might have of his take on our TPS potato growing). Without questions there are no answers, right?

Reference Diagram (from Thomas Wagner)
[URL="http://i.imgur.com/eX2yysa.jpg"]http://i.imgur.com/eX2yysa.jpg[/URL]

Quote from Fusion_Power post #52 [url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=27289&page=4[/url]
[I]"Virtually all commercial potatoes are genetically incapable of producing multiple shoots with multiple spuds on the stolons. Tom has tried to show that there is a different type of potato that grows with a strong branching habit. I would refer to it as lateral branch fruitful because each new lateral branch that forms also has the ability to set new stolons with more spuds."[/I]

If the plant is not buried instead of stolons and new potatoes, Will the plant just branch out and get big?

I planted 3 seeds left side of the picture. The plants only get water when it rains. No supplemental or irrigation.

[IMG]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Fd3_qedQlOU/UlAsL0I0ibI/AAAAAAAAJww/hwXMUXMcIE8/w927-h695-no/CIP1.jpg[/IMG]

Plant#1
[IMG]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y7Q_iGf0Cjs/Uk2HO3uHIVI/AAAAAAAAJvo/FAw0RPB_JLY/w927-h695-no/IMG_0047.JPG[/IMG]

I see stolons originating from the base and emerge as a new plant and also making more new potatoes (bottom part of the picture)

[IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-XZp6LEgqs-U/UlAsUjfcoUI/AAAAAAAAJxA/rTWuihLO7_4/w927-h695-no/depthCIP.JPG[/IMG]

Plant#2
[IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_PjbaqEppK4/UlAsUGMGTqI/AAAAAAAAJxE/yKfeKZfPtFU/w521-h695-no/cip+stolons.JPG[/IMG]

Closer look at the section that broke off while digging the plant, note the length of stolons forming new potatoes....

[IMG]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-54-wN2OxZg0/UlAsFV9p70I/AAAAAAAAJwo/ZvGNulzQ7aA/w521-h695-no/Stolon-lateral.JPG[/IMG]


With all this above I wish it does not start another thread hijacking and that we focus on the pictures presented above and the main point of this thread. To share information about "Lateral branching, long stolons etc in potatoes".

This variety CIP366256 had some small stolons starting to form above the seed piece but not clear if I let it die down would it continue to send more stolons nor develop new potatoes. More evidence is needed to convince myself that this variety has that potential illustrated in Tom's diagram above, the total hilling was ~12in.

I'll be posting mine shortly ... I have some of Papa Chonca that I took today that show tubers forming on the buried stem, not just on stolons.

Here is one I took earlier today. This is a non commercial potato called Papa chonca. This is the first year I have grown it and this is the first of the 3 plants I have that I am harvesting. The others will wait until after a frost. I am told it is a near perennial due to the huge numbers of tubers (mostly small).

If you look at this picture, the top yellow line was the soil level at harvest. The middle yellow line is the height of the buried stem that has tubers growing on the stem. There are two mini tubers growing within the rectangle. Not on roots, not on stolons off the roots. The bottom yellow line is the original soil height before hilling. The middle rectangle also show another slightly further down the stem, but it is harder to see. The bottom rectangle shows minitubers growing on stolons that were below soil level.

I have not weighed the yield, but there were at least 45 tubers large enough to eat. I reburied anything smaller than a half inch to see if they come up again in the spring.

[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/6yeatc.jpg[/IMG]

Here is a closeup of the tubers forming on the stem.


[IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/2mzbn7p.jpg[/IMG]

Here is a medium range shot


[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/24ln3f4.jpg[/IMG]

And one last one showing about half the yield. I hadn't dug out half the plant but I forgot to take another one after I dug the rest of it out.
[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/akbmvo.jpg[/IMG]

I also dug 7 Purple Peruvian fingerling plants today. I'll post this picture as well even though it isn't very clear, but there are tubers growing along the stolons on this one too.
[IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/30dh06t.jpg[/IMG]

And here's one I pulled off Facebook someone posted the other day of YEMA DE HUEVO. You can see the tubers forming and bulking up the length of the stolons. This makes total sense when you think about the fact that potato tubers are not really tubers at all, but are merely modified stems.

[IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/2nq6r2w.png[/IMG]

I have made several mistakes this year trying the potato bin experiment that I will mention. I buried the stems too deep, too quickly and they rotted for both CIP396256 and Purple Peruvian. I have both plants grown in my garden as well as in the bin, so I can compare habit when I retry this in a bin next year. Based on the pictures above, I believe I will try CIP396256 and Papa chonca grown in bins next year.

I was able to reroot one of the Purple Peruvian potato plants in the top of the bin but am not sure what to expect when I dig it.

I started documenting my efforts in a thread over at this address

[URL]http://tatermater.★★★★★★★★★.com/thread/946/potato-bins-2013[/URL]

tater mater. pro boards . com / thread / 946 / potato -bins -2013

I expect my link won't work so delete the spaces above for the web address.

Thanks, Wendy, for the contribution...and especially the following request....
[QUOTE]With all this above I wish it does not start another thread hijacking and that we focus on the pictures presented above and the main point of this thread. To share information about "Lateral branching, long stolons etc in potatoes".


[/QUOTE]

I am using my moderator duties to make sure the topic is not hijacked and will delete any posts not directly related to the facts that we do have potato varieties not yet popularized that express great lateral branching...long stolons...etc., that support the research so poorly documented on the internet.

I like the use the Papa Chonca...derived from

Archipielago Los Chonos in Chile.....

as it is from the far south of Chile and not at all like varieties from Peru. It is a tuberosum level species and that is an important distinction from many of my lateral/long stolon diploids that exhibit those traits.

So many of my diploid lines don't show tall growth at all but just keep shooting up side branches far from the main stem. Some varieties just grow and grow like the near perennial Papa Chonca. I have had potato varieties spread over a twelve foot wide row with not underground branching but those also had long stolons so that the potato tubers would escape harvest since the tubers would be up to four feet away from the main stem.

I wish I spent more time with my potatoes this year but I hijacked myself to perform the hundreds and hundreds of tomato crosses to expand my research there. I did not make any potato crosses this year...so tightly linked was I to crossing tomatoes.

Looking at my better potato plots yesterday...I have far fewer berries than any year in the past 10 years in Washington.

Papa Chonca in the location I dug this morning was approximately 2' high and a 3' diameter circle.

The two plants I have in my backyard were planted 30" apart, 18" from a fence. They two are now spread across 10.5', and 5.5' across. These two are only 18" high. Shorter but spreading further.

My Pleasure Tom. I am also eager to see shared information. Yema de Huevo potato like that setting tubers attached on the stem is something I've seen before in some of your TPS lines lines. I remember LaPan but of course failed to take pictures at the time.

@Nathan, excellent pictures.

I found some potatoes that has horizontal growth. Late varieties mostly.

More pictures

Variety-Mystery Red TPS
[IMG]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--a5XmczlW7Q/UmwxJysLTJI/AAAAAAAAKI4/4rgz2mtTRvU/s512/IMG_0068.JPG[/IMG]

closer look
[IMG]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-BWzVBIyy4hg/UmwxAeDnvQI/AAAAAAAAKII/qKCr97YSO9c/s512/IMG_0069.JPG[/IMG]

[IMG]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-HjctqmJeyv8/UmwxC4BRASI/AAAAAAAAKIU/IqMI9w_Lis0/s512/IMG_0070.JPG[/IMG]

Variety-Red Ox
[IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qJvI-7MVkqE/UmwxBTJknBI/AAAAAAAAKIQ/-XoocxkFyjk/s640/IMG_0073.JPG[/IMG]

Variety-Muru
[IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iQtcB0Ye9QQ/UmwxLFsd7OI/AAAAAAAAKI8/IjNoSnaSnuM/s640/Muru.JPG[/IMG]

Smaller potato forming high on the buried stem
[IMG]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h3eZ9W9BjEc/UmwzJ7jHILI/AAAAAAAAKKM/WrO-xZBy4rg/s640/IMG_0078.JPG[/IMG]

I am planning on doing TPS research and development this winter in the greenhouse....not where I live though, and the lateral branching trait is something I am going to demonstrate with selected TPS and special treatment on behalf of potential sales of ready to plant TPS starts. I will likely take the proto-types to the field later in pots above the ground with drip watering devices. The soil media will be added to the growing highly branched seedlings a couple of times. The goal is to have dozens if not hundreds of small tubers througout the container.

There is a potato grower/researcher in Zimbabwe that is discussing one of his plans for research is to show that stems that turn green do not produce tubers.

That makes some sense, and it will be interesting to see the results and documentation. If so, it means making sure the stem is buried before turning green is necessary, and that might be the most helpful piece of information to have when growing in bags. Looking back in the photos above, the tubers really have only formed on the stems when the stems are still brown.

Unless the stem color can change from green back to brown when buried under the soil?

[QUOTE=Tom Wagner;379755]I am planning on doing TPS research and development this winter in the greenhouse....not where I live though, and the lateral branching trait is something I am going to demonstrate with selected TPS and special treatment on behalf of potential sales of ready to plant TPS starts. I will likely take the proto-types to the field later in pots above the ground with drip watering devices. The soil media will be added to the growing highly branched seedlings a couple of times. The goal is to have dozens if not hundreds of small tubers througout the container.[/QUOTE]

Reminder. This is what thou are trying to dispute. In other words new tubers hanging all along the main stem.
[url]http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QHBIN[/url] 21 August 2009 How a Potato Plant Grows

Here are more pictures of some potatoes left over in the basement since fall 2012, they are still trying to survive, but some show tubers along the stem at different lengths. Enjoy~

I know this phenomenon regarding tuberosum types quite good.

Some of my phureja types go one step further. They produce doughter tubers without sprouting. Looks like a tick which sucks the old tuber. I kept some of these tubers for spring 2014. All other phureja types still started sprouting and I am not sure if they survive till the End of March. Maybe this doughter tubers will.

[QUOTE=Durgan;382778]Reminder. This is what thou are trying to dispute. In other words new tubers hanging all along the main stem.
[url]http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QHBIN[/url] 21 August 2009 How a Potato Plant Grows[/QUOTE]


Can I ask why the debate, clearly there are potato varieties that produce tubers along the stem. Probably just different varieties you never grew. I find your use of garden ingredients fascinating. I never would think of making "corn juice". I find, we can all learn from each other so let us learn about the lateral branching, and welcome it instead of taking the position to prove others wrong or right, life is way to short.

As a reminder,

Please let's not start another thread hijacking.

I will like that if can just focus presenting pictures about the the main point of this thread : "Lateral branching, long stolons etc in potatoes"

If someone want to contribute with pictorial evidence or personal experiences about that is most welcome!

If someone want to have a debate, let's open another thread for it...but of course w/o being rude to anyone~

This year I had some cultivars which had very long Stolones and a lot of lateral branches too. I'm sure I will find some pictures on my computer if you are interested to see them..

That would be fantastic Aletheia! Thanks for sharing~
I've seen your many post at tatermater.pro-boards I post there as well.

Let me ask a question. If I understand this right a potato that exhibits this trait will grow out side ways forming potatoes along the way. Does such a plant send out stolons, send up shoots and grow potatoes and keep repeating until frost kills it? It would seem to be a great trait for grewing large quanities of potatoes from a limited number of seed tubers.

[QUOTE]Does such a plant send out stolons, send up shoots and grow potatoes and keep repeating until frost kills it[/QUOTE]Yes, yes and yes. The potential is there, but so far, potatoes have not really been bred selectively for these traits. Commercial varieties select [I]against[/I] these traits. They want potatoes to be at uniform depth, stay put instead of crawling, and all set tubers at the same time (like a determinate tomato). The traits are present in 'wilder' type potatoes, older breeding lines, and in some people's crosses, such as those Tom Wagner has bred. Traits to identify appear to be long season, spreading and tubers forming on stolons and buried stems.

What I have seen is there are some that form potatoes on the stems, stolons and spread quite far from the planting location, but yields from these tend to be low and mostly small potatoes (marble size or smaller).

There could be some out there that just have not been allowed to grow like this, or have not been tested in a potato bin/bag situation that may thrive and produce more.

There's a challenge in there for those who want to take this up, whether as a hobby gardener or breeder. Developing varieties that yield well in small places or vertical situations could develop into a niche.

Not one photo has ever been produced of vertical growing potatoes. Lots of babble but no photos.

[url]https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=CNN&btnG=Google+Search&meta=#hl=en&q=vertical+potato+growing[/url]


They don't exist.

Breeding potatoes with long stolones and lateral branches is one of my major goals too. I am also expecting high yields and another reason is the ability to regenerate once the major branch is damaged in case of a hailstorm or what ever. I also gained the experience that this cultivars are usually very late ones but some of them grew quite big tubers.

Here is one phureja type. A dark purple one with deep yellow flesh and some purple spots in it. Tubers are fingerling shape with deep eyes. I grew them in a 5l (1,3 gallon) container and there was not really enough place to hill the plants. So nearly all leteral branches appear above the soil and also some tubers saw daylight ;) The plant was 1,6m (5,25foot) high when I harvested it at the End of November. Next year this cultivar will get a place in my test field to see its full potential.

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn3037kleinj3ogf.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn3037kleinj3ogf.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn3038kleinndqhp.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn3038kleinndqhp.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn3041kleinkmqqp.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn3041kleinkmqqp.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

My second cultivar is one of my best this year. Its mother was "Blaue Elise" It had a very thick major branch and lots of lateral branches. At the end it reaches about 1,4m (4,6feet) and I had to attach it to some wooden sticks to prevent the plant from falling down. This single plant produced 2800g (98,8oz)of potatoes with a very juicy and deeply purple colored flesh. Very good you can see that the tubers grew very long distance apart from the plant and you also can see the stolones which crawl very close to the surface and produce tubers in huge amounts.

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn2712klein98qer.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn2712klein98qer.jpg[/IMG][/URL]


[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn2957klein60q9f.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn2957klein60q9f.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn2971klein0mp7t.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn2971klein0mp7t.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn2967kleinu1pd0.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn2967kleinu1pd0.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL="http://abload.de/image.php?img=dscn2974klein8hrcl.jpg"][IMG]http://abload.de/img/dscn2974klein8hrcl.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Now I have to go to bed. I will show you some more of my cultivars in the next days.

Very nice Aletheia! Thanks so much for introducing me to that variety. Nearly black inside.

[QUOTE]If I understand this right a potato that exhibits this trait will grow out side ways forming potatoes along the way. Does such a plant send out stolons, send up shoots and grow potatoes and keep repeating until frost kills it? It would seem to be a great trait for grewing large quanities of potatoes from a limited number of seed tubers.[/QUOTE]

Hi Doug
As Nathan also said, there is POTENTIAL for this, so far those that have the traits to send out stolons, and grow somewhat along the main stems are long variety potatoes(180days ) and also has direct tie to peruvian origin.

The commercial bred potatoes are bred for machine harvest so they are most likely behave like Yukon gold. Uniform size tubes, close to the base etc. Easier to harvest.
Therefore those wild ones that sprawl etc and set tubers at different times (not at once) are not considered good for mass production but as a backyard gardener, we can benefit from it.

My opinion on this is that Durgan is correct that there are now no commercial varieties that will grow well and produce the 99 or 100 pounds in towers or bins as purported on the internet. Durgan is probably correct that the 99 or 100 pounds is entirely unrealistic.

Nevertheless, there are potato lines that do grow tubers off buried stems and stolons, as depicted in the images above from multiple people.

I hope to better documentation of this this next year by growing several potato lines in bins and providing pictures along the way.

It's a little bit OT but I gained the same experience.
There are several discussions and documentations about potatoe towers in the net. They all claiming huge amounts of potatoes but never show the results. My opinion is that the mentioned yields are completely unrealistic.

I also gained the experience that plants which produce long stolones and lateral branches are not the best choice for potatoe towers. (before my attempts I thought the same like you) But I made the experience that this cultivars grow outside sideways the bins and also the tubers. So what you get is a huge quantity on green tubers on the outside of the bin and less tubers in the center of the tower. The next problem with bins is the pressure of the soil on the bottom of the bin. It leads to a damage on the Root system and the primary shoots and the plant starts rotting. This year I will start another tower experiment again with some adjustments. But my experience is that conventional plants also in bins produced higher amounts of tubers than this cultivars which produce long stolons do.

Btw. I got a crop of about 20 to 30 pounds each tower and this was quite good. With other cultivars like my blue wonder on the last post maybe you can rise the yield up to 50 or 60 but never 100 pounds.

So my result is that cultivars with long stolons and many secondary branches are a good choice in the field but they do not really good perform in towers. Some quite good results with such cultivars I got in wooden boxes which were more wide than deep

Aletheia, same here, those long stolons plants love my wide wood boxes.

The height of my wood boxes are only 25cm (12in) but long so each plant has the chance to sprawl. I added 5-10cm (2-4in) of wood chip mulch (fall leaves also work but decay fast, pine needles was great for preventing weeds!). I did get ~0.5lb (227g.) increase per plant than the control (w/o mulch). Your pictures of the soil seem not dry so you might not need this but I will for sure continue to do mulching after the second hilling since I "dry farm" only using rain as irrigation (not supplemental, whatever rains...I collect just 55gal (about 200L) of rain water for extreme cases) it did prevent moisture evaporation and prevent those green tubers on the surface....plus overall pretty effect on my potato patch that looked like a flower garden all manicured.

The yields you report are impressive for "Blaue Elise", if you do the potato tower would be great information. Some people like Curzio might like to get that variety for his Potato Project. [url]http://www.curzio.com/N/PotatoProject.htm[/url]

I hope to learn from you and hopefully there is something you could learn from me as well. I evaluated 70 potatoes the year before and last year reduced it 35 varieties and only 1% of them has this trait of sending long stolons and/or potential vertical tuber set.

This is a sample of my evaluation of 2012 (attached) this year results I am still compiling....

Most of my 2014 efforts will be dedicated to TPS growing again, I did a big growout in 2011 with 100's of plants and even thou only created 6 good keepers it was so much fun!

[url]http://www.durgan.org/URL/?BKWAI[/url] 11 September 2010 Yukon Gold Test Box Potatoes

Yukon Gold Potatoes were harvested today. A total weight of 23.5 pounds was harvested from the 4 by 4 foot test area. The quality is excellent. Another plant could probably be placed in the center of the area without crowding. The average weight per plant was 5.9 pounds. From my experience anything over 4 pounds is acceptable.

For reference.
[url]http://www.durgan.org/URL/?XWWLI[/url] 19 May 2010. Test to determine quantity by weight of four Yukon Gold potatoes.

A box 4 by 4 feet by 11 inches high was made in ideal soil and location to determine the quantity of potatoes by weight that can be produced. Each plant has about a foot on each side to insure minimum crowding of the root system. The seed potato was planted just below ground level and covered with soil about two inches on top.

Soil was placed in the corners for the first hilling. After the first hilling the growing plant will be covered adequately with bedding wood chips until the end of the season.

This test is to establish by weight the quantity, and size quality of potatoes that can be grown in a small space.

[url]http://www.durgan.org/URL/?CZJZE[/url] 26 June 2010 Yukon Gold Potato Growth in 4 by 4 foot Test Box
The potatoes were hilled once and heavily mulched. A string was tied around the vegetation to keep upright. The premise being that the more vegetation exposed to the sun feeds the new tubers. This opposed to deep hilling and hiding the vegetation.

Durgan,
Yukon gold does not show this trait, but is a great potato. I read your site and liked how you mulched them, so I did learn something there.
I am sure in Canada must exist different types of potato and perhaps one or two would have the potential for lateral growth. If you grow one as experimental feel free to post your results here. I am sure your techniques will make excellent yields, but so far those varieties you have been growing, and posting here several times, are just the commercial type behavior.

NathanP,
I will follow your posts next year. I probably grow just one box for the sprawlers but most of my time will be dedicated to new TPS potatoes. I am reducing my 35 varieties to 15 varieties, a painful task to let go some.....so I will offer them to you if you are interested! I let you know by PM in Feb. when I make the final list~