Thread: So pretty!
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Old July 13, 2016   #5
NathanP
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: RI
Posts: 183
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With potatoes the fruit is inedible, but contains seeds. Every seed is genetically distinct from every other seed. There is no stabilization, but that is why potatoes are typically regrown from the tubers. When you save the tuber and replant it, the resulting plant is genetically identical to the one you harvested it from. So in that respect it is stable after one year, but the true seed (TPS) is never stable. The genes recombine even when they pollinate themselves.

It would take many, many generations to try to inbreed a potato that is true to type (never identical). There are twice as many genes involved with most potatoes as there are tomatoes (tetraploid vs diploid), so in theory it would take at least 4 times as long, if it were possible. In this case, highly inbred potato lines also tend to suffer inbreeding depression, so no one really breeds them to be like that.

The advantage to never having to inbreed them to stabilize them, is each generation has a chance to have unique traits.

Regarding the tuber colors for these two, I grew them last year from seed, so I know that both of them are blue/purple fingerlings. The one with the dark anthers has very high purple flesh. It probably has a pair of dominant purple genes. The other one with yellow anthers probably has mottled purple and white flesh. It probably has both dominant and recessive other color genes.
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