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Purchase seeds or tubers of Solanum brevicaule

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Description

Solanum brevicaule is a wild potato species found from southern Peru to central Bolivia.  Plants reach about two feet tall, occasionally up to three feet.  Stolons reach 3-4 feet long, perhaps as long as six feet in some cases (Ochoa 1990, as S. sparsipilum).  Tubers round to ovate, one to two inches long, larger in cultivation, mostly white to tan, but I ran across one accession that produces some blue tubers.  Flowers light blue to dark blue.  Berries round to ovate, typically speckled.  Found up to about the 13,000 foot elevation, but mostly lower.  Often grows in dry environments and has good drought resistance.

The specific epithet, brevicaule, means “short stemmed.”  It is formed from the Latin words “brevis,” for “short,” and “caulis,” for “stem.”  While there is no completely standardized pronunciation for scientific names, the most common way to pronounce this species is probably so-LAY-num brev-ih-KAW-lay.

Solanum brevicaule is a geographically and morphologically diverse species.  Boundaries between it and its nearest relatives are uncertain.  Twenty species, including diploids, tetraploids, and hexaploids, are often lumped together in a “Solanum brevicaule Complex.”  Van den Berg (1998) and Alvarez (2008) performed comprehensive morphological studies of the species in the S. brevicaule Complex and found little basis for division into more than three species, but inconclusive evidence even for that.  The future probably holds additional taxonomic consolidation of S. brevicaule and its closest relatives.

1650 seeds per gram.

This species has been tentatively classified as lower concern on the IUCN Red List (Cadima 2014).

Resistances

Bethke (2017) scored wild potato species as a composite of seven resistance studies and S. brevicaule (as S. tarijense) ranked in second place.

A survey of markers in this species (as S. alandiae) for the late blight resistance genes R2, R8, R9, and Rpi-blb2, revealed that some plants carry all of these genes (Muratova 2019).  This suggest that S. brevicaule should be a good source of late blight resistance.

This species carries a Potato Virus M resistance gene, Gm (Swiezynski 1981), on chromosome 9 (Marczewski 2006).

This species can survive frosts down to 26 degrees F (-3.5 C) (Li 1977, as S. fendleri).  Vega (1995) found that this species is more frost tolerant than domesticated potato.  It has a dormancy period lasting several months.

Condition	Type	Level of Resistance	Source
Alternaria solani (Early Blight)	Fungus	Somewhat resistant	Jansky 2008
Frost	Abiotic	Somewhat resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015
Fusarium sambucinum (Fusarium Wilt)	Fungus	Somewhat resistant	Lynch 2003 (as S. gourlayi)
Globodera pallida (Pale Cyst Nematode)	Invertebrate	Somewhat resistant	Bachmann-Pfabe 2019 (under various synonyms)
Globodera rostochiensis (Potato Cyst/Golden Nematode)	Invertebrate	Somewhat resistant	Jackson 1988
Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Colorado Potato Beetle)	Invertebrate	Somewhat resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015 (as S. gourlayi)
Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Potato Aphid)	Invertebrate	Not resistant to moderately resistant	Alvarez 2006 (as S. hondelmannii and S. spegazzinii)
Meloidogyne incognita (Root Knot Nematode)	Invertebrate	Resistant	Nirula 1967 (as S. spegazzinii)
Meloidogyne spp. (Root Knot Nematode)	Invertebrate	Somewhat resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015 (as S. gourlayi)
Myzus persicae (Green Peach Aphid)	Invertebrate	Resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015 (as S. palustre)
Pectobacterium carotovorum (Blackleg/Soft Rot)	Bacterium	Somewhat resistant	Chung 2011, Machida-Hirano 2015 (as S. leptophyes)
Phytophthora infestans (Late Blight)	Fungus	Not resistant	Gonzales 2002
Phytophthora infestans (Late Blight)	Fungus	Not resistant	Bachmann-Pfabe 2019
Phytophthora infestans (Late Blight)	Fungus	Somewhat resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015, Bachmann-Pfabe 2019 (under various synonyms)
Potato Leafroll Virus (PLRV)	Virus	Somewhat resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015 (as S. gourlayi)
Potato Virus M (PVM)	Virus	Somewhat resistant	Marczewski 2006 (as S. gourlayi), Dziewonska 1978 (as S. gourlayi and S. spegazzini)
Potato Virus X (PVX)	Virus	Resistant	Horvath 1989 (as S. alandiae)
Potato Virus X (PVX)	Virus	Somewhat resistant	Machida-Hirano 2015 (as S. leptophyes)
Potato Virus Y (PVY)	Virus	Resistant	Horvath 1989 (as S. alandiae)
Potato Virus Y (PVY)	Virus	Not resistant	Cai 2011
Rhizoctonia solani (Black Scurf)	Fungus	Somewhat resistant	Ochoa 1990 (as S. leptophyes)
Tobacco Rattle Virus (TRV)	Virus	Resistant	Horvath 1989 (as S. alandiae)

Glykoalkaloid content

S. brevicaule is probably not safe to eat, other than in very small amounts and perhaps not even then.  The lines that we have grown here and tasted have dry flesh and thick, chewy skin with a strong flavor characteristic of baking potatoes, but an intensely bitter aftertaste or even a burning sensation.

Johns (1990) found glycoalkaloid levels of 23mg/100g to 164mg/100g for eight accessions of S. brevicaule (some as S. sparsipilum).  The primary glycoalkaloids were solanine and chaconine. Van Gelder (1988) found TGA levels ranging from 95 to 175 mg / 100 g for S. brevicaule, 113 to 163 as S. gourlayi, 71 to 135 mg / 100g as S. leptophyes, 40 to 60 mg / 100 g as S. oplocense, 17 to 220 as S. spegazzinii, and 77 to 156 as S. sucrense.  Collapsing all the synonyms gives a total range of 17 to 220 mg / 100 g.  This is is a large range, with some flirting with edibility but many clearly in the danger zone.

Images

Cultivation

I have found seeds of this species easy to germinate using the standard conditions for S. tuberosum, although sometimes slow.

Due to the length of the stolons, most growers will want to contain the plants in some way.  We grow wild potatoes with long stolons in buried fabric pots, which prevents them from getting out of control.  A 5 gallon fabric pot works well for most wild potatoes.

The USDA Potato Genebank has observed that some accessions of this species are dependent upon GA3 for germination (Bamberg 1999).

Bamberg (2017) found a 86% increase in seed set in this species with supplemental applications of liquid fertilizer at four and seven weeks after potting.

Trapero-Mozos (2018) determined that this species will tolerate a temperature of 40 C even without prior acclimatization to warm temperatures (as S. leptophyes).

Breeding

Crosses with S. tuberosum

S. brevicaule was used in the breeding of the varieties Krantz (Plaisted 1989), Itasca, and Russet Nugget (Love 1999).

Female	Male	Berry Set	Seed Set	Germ	Ploidy	Source
S. brevicaule	S. tuberosum 2x	Moderate	Moderate			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule	S. tuberosum 4x	None	None			Jackson (1999)
S. tuberosum	S. brevicaule	Low	Minimal			Jackson (1999)

Crosses with other species

Jackson (1999) found 4-12% 2n pollen in varieties of this species.

Female	Male	Berry Set	Seed Set	Germ	Ploidy	Source
S. acaule	S. brevicaule	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. berthaultii (as S. tarijense)	S. brevicaule (as S. leptophyes)	Low	Low			Ochoa 1990
S. boliviense (as S. megistacrolobum)	S. brevicaule (as S. leptophyes)	Yes	No			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. acaule	Moderate	Moderate			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. berthaultii	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. boliviense	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule	S. candolleanum	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. chacoense	Yes	Yes			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. huancabambense	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule	S. infundibuliforme	Low	Low			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. microdontum	Low	Low			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. leptophyes)	S. neovavilovii	Moderate	Moderate			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule	S. raphanifolium	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	S. raquialatum	High	High			Ochoa 1990
S. commersonii	S. brevicaule (as S. spegazzini)	Yes	Yes	Yes		von Olah 1938
S. commersonii	S. brevicaule (as S. spegazzini)	Yes	Yes	Yes	2x	Propach 1940
S. infundibuliforme	S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	Low	Low			Ochoa 1990
S. microdontum	S. brevicaule (as S. alandiae)	Low	Low			Ochoa 1990

References

Solanum brevicaule at Solanaceae Source

Solanum brevicaule at GRIN Taxonomy

Solanum brevicaule at CIP