Often, when people first learn about Andean potatoes, they get excited and decide that they want to load their bag with cool potatoes the next time they travel to South America. I understand being excited about potatoes, but we need to temper that enthusiasm with some knowledge. I probably get about one email a month […]
Ken Aslet is the most common and popular variety of mashua, although it has traditionally been sold as an ornamental rather than an edible. It has never looked quite right to me, but it tested negative for the most common viruses that infect mashua in the United States. I recently tested plants more widely out […]
2019 was the first year that I offered true potato seeds of individual varieties and controlled crosses in addition to our standard TPS mixes. I was curious to see if there would be much interest in these. Some of the top sellers were predictable, ranking as they have for years, but others surprised me. I […]
I start thousands of true potato seeds every year. You would think that I would be an expert by now, but my results suggest otherwise. One of the biggest problem areas for me is starting older TPS. I grow a lot of genebank accessions that are often decades old and they just don’t germinate as […]
This is the first of a series of short videos that will document the process of eliminating viruses from the ‘Purple Star’ potato variety. Purple Star was selected by Nathan Pierce of the Kenosha Potato Project in 2016 and has since shown the usual signs of running out due to virus burden. In this video, […]