Has anyone heard of potato "seeds" not seed potatoes

I was confused at first when I heard of potato seeds. I for sure thought this person was inexperienced and told him he meant seed potatoes. Boy was I wrong and someone else put me in my place not mean but quite condescending (not on the SFG forum). People here are kind and helpful!

Anyway, when the potatoes blossom that would that be the time to get the "seeds" like any other plant. I would think if they are small that it would be good to put something around the blossom (a very small bag) to catch the seeds. The person who gave the answer said that using seeds prevents the blight that created the potato famine in Ireland many years ago. Anyone else hear of this?

In 'Farmer Boy', by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Almanzo grows potatoes from the seeds as an experiment. Thus I wondered why my dad's potatoes never had fruit for me to try too.

I have heard rumors since the 80s of potato varieties available as seeds but never seen them. I think the problem might be that they are not OP so the results will be very variable? Do not know. Here is something I found. Trialing True Potato Seed

Thank you Turan! Do you know everything? What is "OP". I will check out what you suggested! The man that mentioned the seeds said that he used them in the UK, I think he said, but hadn't been able to find them in the US.

Heavens NO! I sure hope I don't sound like I do either!

OP is open pollinated. That means the seeds will grow true to the parents type. Not a hybrid.

I hope some one has heard something or finds something about preventing blight by using seeds. Does that work with Tomatoes? I never saved their seeds and don't know the procedure.

From Wikipedia:

After potato plants flower, some varieties produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes, each containing up to 300 true seeds. Potato fruit contains large amounts of the toxic alkaloid solanine and is therefore unsuitable for consumption. All new potato varieties are grown from seeds, also called "true seed" or "botanical seed" to distinguish it from seed tubers. By finely chopping the fruit and soaking it in water, the seeds separate from the flesh by sinking to the bottom after about a day (the remnants of the fruit float). Any potato variety can also be propagated vegetatively by planting tubers, pieces of tubers, cut to include at least one or two eyes, or also by cuttings, a practice used in greenhouses for the production of healthy seed tubers. Some commercial potato varieties do not produce seeds at all (they bear imperfect flowers) and are propagated only from tuber pieces. Confusingly, these tubers or tuber pieces are called "seed potatoes".

I purchased some potato seeds in early spring to just try them out. Unfortunately I spent all my time this spring building more beds and never got around to planting the potato seeds. I do not know how reliable this company is or wether the seeds will even grow and produce but I got the seeds from New World Seeds and Tubers, Emial help@newworldcrops.com. Web address www.Newworldcrops.com.

This would probably be a good post to ask how does one plan to get a fall crop of potatoes in? I never see "seed potatoes" in the stores like you do in the spring. If you are just doing a small amount do you just save some back or what is the procedure?

yolos wrote:I purchased some potato seeds in early spring to just try them out. Unfortunately I spent all my time this spring building more beds and never got around to planting the potato seeds. I do not know how reliable this company is or wether the seeds will even grow and produce but I got the seeds from New World Seeds and Tubers, Emial help@newworldcrops.com. Web address www.Newworldcrops.com.

What an amazing catalog! So this is how they get new potato varieties. Very interesting indeed.

Is there a growing guide? It sounds like an ideal way to grow potatoes if you have a long enough season. I book marked it, I want to try this... start the plants in March I am guessing and set out in late May for a fall harvest.

Turan - No there was no growing guide that I could find. No guide came with the seeds and I can't find any information on their website. That is probably another reason I have not planted the seeds. There was no information about when to plant or how deep to plant the seeds, nothing. This winter, when things slow down, I will probably get in contact with them via e-mail to try to get some planting instructions.

I poked around and found there is more info about growing potato seed on the forum connected to the New World Crops website.

http://tatermater.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=345

Tom (the guy who grows the seed for New World Crops) sows the seed at a depth of 1/8 inch five to eight weeks prior to the last frost.

He starts them in a greenhouse though.

Like tomatoes/eggplants/peppers. I am having a hard time believing they can become big and vigorous vines to put out a lot of tubers. I keep thinking it would be a 2 year process. First year would grow small tubers that would be seed potatoes for following year. But then look how big a pumpkin is from a little seed in a couple months. I just need to adjust my perspective.

I have seen these before, did not know what to do with them. I can take the rest of the day off, I have learned something...

What do you call this? It is on my Yukon Gold potato plant.

Potato fruit. Save the seeds! (I gather you ferment the pulp of the ripe fruit and save the seeds that sink) Let us see how diverse the hybridization is in a Yukon Gold! This could be sooooooo cooooool

Wow, I sure learned a lot and will have to check out the website(s). Thank you all for your input, discussions, etc.

Squat_Johnson, that's great that you have an example for us to see what the fruit of the potato looks like! So I am thinking from the gist of all this that you would cut up the fruit and soak it like getting seeds from tomatoes.

Good video about saving tomato seeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3eS5IyoBX4&feature=related. I have seen others and they were good also!

You would want to make sure your tomatoes are "heirloom" not "hybrids" I'm pretty sure.

Why not get your potato seeds started indoors in March and then plant in April or May or even plant the seeds outside in March or April. Seed potatoes are planted before Spring so why not try planting the seeds then? Since cool weather crops can be planted before Spring, why not potato seeds? Or you could cover the beds to warm them up a bit first and protect them.

I read that to get a Fall crop you would plant the seed potatoes 110 days before first frost. www.ehow.com/info_8132038_should-plant-fall-potatoes.html. Since potatoes don't like the heat I would think make a bit of shade maybe using shade
fabric or the light fabric used for row covers. That would give a little shade to cool things off but not block the sun too much.

If you go to http://tatermater.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=345 as Daniel recommends, they tell how to grow from seed. Interesting thing is seeds can last for 2-50 years from what they say and the seeds produce better during that time period than if the seeds are just one year old.

I saved all this to my computer because it is so interesting and I know for me I wouldn't remember all these details. Any more ideas and suggestions are welcome!

True Potato Seed...TPS, for short, is not well known save outside of specialists in University, federal or private potato breeding circles. I would by some to be semi-professional but mostly, I am a hobbyist. That I have been messing around with true potato seed for 59 seasons now is one of the reasons I list TPS on the website newworldcrops.com. My specialty is to offer things that virtually no one else would have.

I occasionally offer tubers from my TPS work but this past winter/spring I have too busy sending out TPS to find time to pack tubers. My hope is to get more folks involved in growing potatoes from true seed in order to expand the diversity of potatoes and to allow folks some autonomy in producing local potatoes.

My listings of TPS may include TPS that focus on:
Land Races from South America
International varieties...modern and heirloom
Special colors...orange, blue, red, bi-colored flesh.
Frost...freezing resistance
Late Blight resistance
Potatoes that can be left in the ground all winter
Potatoes that are self fertile for potato berries
Etc.

Anyone can call me on my cell...I invite it actually...at 425 894-1123 for answers to this fascinating hobby. And if that is not you...just go to my forum that is dedicated to my Tater Mater research mentioned elsewhere on this topic thread.

Thanks,
Tom Wagner

What an interesting discussion!! I don't think I have ever heard of potato seeds but may try this sometime. I will also keep a close lookout for potato fruit on my reds and yukon gold potatoes growing this season.

Welcome to the Squarefoot Gardening Forum and thanks a bunch for taking the time to explain potato seeds. As you can tell we here on the forum follow the gardening method in the ALL NEW SQUARFOOT GARDENING book. But we are always on the lookout for information on new topics.

Kay

Tom Wagner. That is very interesting about TPS.

I would imagine that if you had a large area to plant, and little money for seed potatoes, potato seeds would be a good way to expand your inventory very quickly even if it took a couple of seasons.

Thanks for coming on the forum Tom and talking about TPS for us.

Daniel9999 wrote:Thanks for coming on the forum Tom and talking about TPS for us.

+1

Squat_Johnson wrote:I have seen these before, did not know what to do with them. I can take the rest of the day off, I have learned something...

What do you call this? It is on my Yukon Gold potato plant.

This Yukon Gold potato fruit is in the same bed as some red and purple varieties. They are four squares over. From reading Tom Wagner's site, it seems possible that some of the seeds might be hybrids. Very interesting.

Squat_Johnson wrote:

This Yukon Gold potato fruit is in the same bed as some red and purple varieties. They are four squares over. From reading Tom Wagner's site, it seems possible that some of the seeds might be hybrids. Very interesting.

For all we know the Yukon Gold is a hybrid as well. When we propagate with tubers and not seeds we do not see the diversity of genetics that a hybrid is.

Such a fun discussion and I sure appreciate all your knowledge! Thank you all, I never expected to learn so much! I will have to check out your site Tom and read it at a time when my brain is not half asleep. I can't believe I am on here again at this hour, but it's so fun to read all these posts.

So far I spotted one potato fruit on my Yukon golds.
Looked up the history of them. It was developed during the 1960's at a Canadian University. It took 66 crossings to get what we call Yukon Gold potatoes and it was ready for mass marketing by the 1980's. Part of the crossing comes from a dark flesh potato that originates in Peru.

Kelejan wrote: Tom Wagner. That is very interesting about TPS.

I would imagine that if you had a large area to plant, and little money for seed potatoes, potato seeds would be a good way to expand your inventory very quickly even if it took a couple of seasons.

It can take years to get a decent spud from " tatey apples "

Because of one of my other hobbies called " miristem propagtion " , what I understand happens now adays is for potato apple seeds to be grown in lab conditions , once workable tubers are produced it is propagated from chits .

Once these chits are up as sound plants " miristem propagation " is used to grow minute parts of the plants in test tubes to produce micro rooted plants , these are done by the thousand and then grown on in near sterile conditions in pots in ideal growing conditions in protective poly tunnels to produce the initial seed stock potatoes .

From then on it is trials in lab conditions and see how well it all works out for , quantity , hardiness in stores ,disease resistance and the local weather conditions where it will be grown .

Sometimes there will be hand pollenation of the initial plants grown from the potato apple seeds , this often includes cross pollenation to try and get better features for the new plants such as resistance to blight, less prone to slug attack or scab etc.

It can take many many cross pollinations over several generations to get the required plants and then it is a repeat of the miristem propagation to get the new species to the seed potato stage & out into the market place as soon as possible so the labs can start getting a return on their investments.