# Potato breeding experiments **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 6, 2001, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524 "2001-07-06T20:30:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/1 "2001-07-06T20:30:44Z")
Right, I have two varieties of potato, one is an ordinary waxy yellow early potato (Variety ‘Nicola’), the other is something special (an ancient Variety called ‘Congo’); it has small salad-potato sized tubers, but they are PURPLE! skin and flesh of the spud is a beautiful lilac colour. So, what I’d like to do is to cross the two varieties in the hope that some of the offspring will inherit the size of Nicola with the colour of Congo. Both varieties are flowering at the moment, so in theory it should just be a case of pollinating the flowers on one variety with the pollen of the other (perhaps emasculating the recieving flower and covering it after pollination to ensure that only the desired interaction takes place, then I wait for the small tomato-like fruits to develop and save the seeds from them to grow on next year. The problem is that neither variety seems to want to release it’s pollen; I can see the stamens very clearly, but they remain hard and waxy until the flower fades and shrivels. What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/2 "2001-07-06T20:56:20Z")
My first guess: The varieties you’re growing are already hybrids, and like so many other hybrids, are sterile. When the seed companies need more seeds, they cross-breed some more of the parent stock (grandparent stock, for what you have in mind). If this is the case, then you’ll probably need to get ahold of the grandparent stock yourself, to do your experiments. Of course, this is just a guess… You need to move one state over to get the real potato experts. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2001, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/3 "2001-07-07T02:42:05Z")
Congo Blue is evidently not a sterile hybrid. [http://www.ireland.com/dublin/living/food/mckenna.htm](http://www.ireland.com/dublin/living/food/mckenna.htm) > [@](#): > > The challenge then was to find the seed for the Blue Congo, a task in which Hamilton was assisted by Josie Osborne, a food technologist who works for the Glens of Antrim potato company. It was Osborne who eventually tracked down the seed in Finland. Doesn’t look like Nicola is, either. [http://www.arbor.com.au/unusual\_veggies.htm](http://www.arbor.com.au/unusual_veggies.htm) > [@](#): > > But now the range of seeds or seedlings from the local nursery or garden centre is ever increasing. > > Among varieties of potatoes are: two Dutch varieties with waxy flesh, “Spunta” and “Nicola”; Okay. Google. “Potatoes pollinate”. Read this and see if it makes any sense. [http://www.potato.net/Breeding/page2.htm](http://www.potato.net/Breeding/page2.htm) Variations on “potato/pollen” etc. brings up mainly biotech websites. However, “potato breeding” seems to be the magic words to get to where Google is hiding the serious info. OTOH, I don’t see a lot of information geared towards the home gardener. Most of these websites are for serious potato breeders. I’ve tried different combinations of “potato/gardener/hybrid” and no luck. [http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2001, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/4 "2001-07-07T20:40:41Z")
Thanks for that, but the term ‘seed’ may also refer to seed potato tubers, i.e. propagated vegetatively, not reproductively. I’m wondering if it might be a question of climate; I’m on the south coast of England, we often get very hot summers, but this one has been a little late to start, maybe the plants aren’t going to waste the resources in starting to develop seeds if the conditions aren’t likely to be warm enough to allow full ripening. The other possibility, I suppose, is that the varieties have been reproduced vegetatively for so long in cultivation that the ability to reproduce sexually has been lost through some random mutation a long way back, that was not disadvantageous simply because potatoes are always propagated from tubers in cultivation (this sort of thing can happen; it’s true in the case of garlic, which can never produce seed) ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/5 "2001-07-08T02:40:26Z")
Hmm. Okay. We’ll try “potato stamens”. [http://www.uga.edu/vegetable/potato.html](http://www.uga.edu/vegetable/potato.html) > [@](#): > > A significant amount of potato cultivars are either pollen sterile or fail to set fruit because of some other means. > > \ > > “True Seed”: Cross-pollination is manipulated for crop improvement in quality and insect or disease resistance. However, many potato cultivars are pollen sterile, which creates difficulty in breeding programs. The initial crop from such cross results in tubers of less than commercial size. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/6 "2001-07-09T09:01:40Z")
Aha, that’s it then, thanks for that DDG. Actually this is a good thing; It means I don’t have to emasculate the flower that I want to pollinate. So all I need now is a variety with viable pollen to cross with Congo as the female parent. > [@](#): > > The initial crop from such cross results in tubers of less than commercial size. I’m unsure as to whether this refers to all tubers of the first generation strain, or whether it just means the first year’s crop from seed (I suspect the latter, as, growing from seed tubers, the plant makes a much faster start and will produce a heavier crop) Thanks once again for you help. ---
**Author:** ![Adithya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e99b99/32.png) [@Adithya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adithya)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/7 "2001-07-09T10:23:40Z")
Brings George.B.Shaw to my mind. What if you get something the _size_ of Congo and the ordinary yellow colour of another variety?;).I am not an expert on genetics so I don’t know which is dominant(purple or yellow,big or small) but you might want to check on that. Even if the small purple and big yellow potato cross yields a small yellow potato,save the seeds of _that_ generation and cross them between themselves and odds are that you’ll get the one you want among some of the seeds of the F2-purple and big. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/8 "2001-07-09T10:42:47Z")
I had imagined that I will get a variety of seedlings which display various combinations of the properties of either parent, but it’s ben a while since I studied heredity. I think that backcrossing the offspring with one of the parents can also be useful. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/9 "2001-07-09T13:37:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose \* > \*\*Congo Blue is evidently not a sterile hybrid. > \*\* Well, why should it be? All potatoes we grow all over the World are varieties of one and the same species. ---
**Author:** ![Adithya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e99b99/32.png) [@Adithya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adithya)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/10 "2001-07-09T13:57:07Z")
Floater,it _is_ possible for some hybrids to be sterile,even if they are of the same species.In fact,hybrids can only be of varieties within the same species or at the very most,two different species in the same genus. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/11 "2001-07-09T14:12:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Adithya \* > \*\*Floater,it _is_ possible for some hybrids to be sterile,even if they are of the same species.In fact,hybrids can only be of varieties within the same species or at the very most,two different species in the same genus. > \*\* In my biology textbook from high school (or the equivalent of it anyway) a hybrid is a mix of two different plant species in the same way that a bastard is a mix between two animal species, e.g. a mule. The English language has perhaps a broader meaning of the worth than Swedish. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/12 "2001-07-09T14:19:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Floater \* > \*\*Well, why should it be? All potatoes we grow all over the World are varieties of one and the same species. \*\* I don’t think this is correct; the common cultivated potato _Solanum Tuberosum_ is believed to be a stabilised form of a naturally occuring hybrid with three or more wild species in it’s parentage, some older varieties (probably including Congo) are cultivated forms of a single wild species; there are breeding experiments going on today that have involved hybridisation with other species. (Last I heard, there were high hopes for _Solanum Demissum_. ---
**Author:** ![Adithya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e99b99/32.png) [@Adithya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adithya)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/13 "2001-07-09T15:00:36Z")
You’re Swedish?Cool.Nice to meet you.You live there? Well,I concede,the word hybrid does have a broader definition,but its use to describe the offsprings of seperate species is declining,especially in the plant kingdom.Tomatoes and potatoes,for example,can never be sexually crossed(the pomato is vegetatively produced).There are altogether 4000+ original and hybrid tomato varieties,some of which haven’t yet been named,and lots more unkown hybrids.Yet they are all tomatoes.There are also 9 varieties of currant toms from South America,7 of which are toxic. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/potato-breeding-experiments/71524/14 "2001-07-10T03:44:52Z")
In the world of the American backyard gardener, “hybrid” is frequently used to mean “a packet of seeds that are the results of careful hand-pollination by Japanese women, that cost about 3 times as much as open-pollinated seeds, and that will only be good for that year’s planting–there’s no point trying to save them for next year, because they won’t come true to type.” Here’s a perfect example of this colloquial usage. [http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07602.html](http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07602.html) > [@](#): > > Saving Seed > by J.E. Ells1 > > Quick Facts… > Home Gardeners were perpetuating and improving vegetable varieties through seed selection before there were commercial seed producers. > Garden plants are wind, insect or self-pollinated. > Seed saved from self-pollinated Crops are most likely to come true to variety. > Biennial Crops do not bear seed the first year. > Hybrids do not come true from seed. > > \ > > Hybrids > Hybrids result from a deliberate cross between two inbred lines. They are becoming increasingly popular among vegetables because they usually are more vigorous and uniform than open-pollinated varieties. They afford built-in protection for the seed producer, because they do not come true from seed. Seed saved from hybrids produces many different plant types and is a disappointment for any Gardener who has unknowingly saved and planted hybrid seed. Only the person who controls the original parents can produce this hybrid seed. Nearly all corn varieties are hybrid. Other vegetables may be. To be sure, check the package to see if it says “F1 hybrid.” F2 plants are not hybrids and lend themselves to seed savings.