EDIT – I have updated this list by striking out the varieties that are no longer available. We have limited seed, and some requests have already come in. If we are out of something you wanted to try – leave a comment and we will do our best to make sure we have it next year!

I am excited to tell you about the varieties we have available to trial in 2014. These are all varieties that we are maintaining as disease-free tissue culture plants. For many of them, 2013 was the first year we had seen them in field trials. We are looking forward to sending them out to organic farms and finding out what you think of them.

Since our project goals are to select and breed potatoes for the Upper Midwest, we are looking for participants who farm or garden in this region. We ask that farmers interested in trialing these potatoes agree to provide some observations of plant health during the growing season, yield data at harvest, and some basic information on how the crop was managed. We will provide seed potatoes of standard varieties for comparison. If you are interested in trialing potatoes, please contact us. If you are outside the Upper Midwest, also feel free to contact us, and we may be able to put you in contact with potato trialing efforts in your region.

The seed potatoes we have available were grown from disease-free minitubers on certified organic land at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station. Although these potatoes are certified organic, it’s important to note that they are not certified seed potatoes.

For most of these varieties, this is the first year we have grown them in the field. For a few varieties, we had field-grown seed potatoes to plant in our 2013 trial,  and in those cases I’ve added a brief description of our yield results. There are 27 varieties total, in the market categories below.

Market class	Number of varieties
Red skin, yellow/white/pink flesh	6 2
Yellow skin, yellow/white flesh	3 1
Multicolored skin, yellow/white flesh	3 1
Blue skin, blue flesh	4 3
Blue skin, yellow/white flesh	2
Fingerling, red or blue skin	6
Fingerling, yellow skin	3 1

 Picture credits: Rebecca Shay, a hard-working undergraduate who just joined us!

Red skin; white, yellow or pink flesh (6 varieties):

Candy Stripe – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. May be synonymous with Candy Cane, a diploid cultivar.

Durango Red – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Early Bangor – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. High yields in 2013 trial with field year 1 seed tubers.

Poorlander – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

 

Purple Majesty x Chieftain cross – an experimental line from our crossing program. Pretty pink flesh.

 

 Red Dutch – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Red Gold – we obtained this clone from a field trial at the Sturgeon Bay Potato Introduction Station. We have grown Red Gold before from commercial seed and been unimpressed; however this clone looked very good!

 

Yellow skin, yellow/white flesh (3 varieties):

Epicure Banana – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. When we obtained this, it was named “Epicure Red Banana”. Either it was mis-named or has changed in culture. In any case, it’s a very attractive potato with very smooth yellow skin. Mostly small tubers in 2013 trial with field year 1 seed tubers.

 

Iker – no picture. From the United States Potato Genebank.

GBxAG – no picture. We obtained this clone from a field trial at the Sturgeon Bay Potato Introduction Station.

Multi-colored skin, yellow/white flesh (3 varieties):

Early Epicure – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. Red splashes on buff skin. Medium yields of blocky tubers in 2013 trial with field year 1 seed tubers.

Mark Warshaw – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. A Quebec heirloom!

 

Barbara – no picture; yellow and purple skin. From the United States Potato Genebank. 

Blue skin, blue flesh (4 varieties):

Black Russian – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Fenton Blue – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. Good yields in 2013 trial with field year 1 seed tubers.

Nova Scotia Blue – from the Canadian collection. We obtained this as a comparison to Scotia Blue, below, which is from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. As you can see from the pictures, they are quite different.

Peruvian Blue – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Blue skin, white/yellow flesh (2 varieties):

Early Blue – no picture. From the United States Potato Genebank. See description at Kenosha Potato Project.

Purple Chief – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

 

Scotia Blue – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. Good yields in 2013 trial with field year 1 seed tubers.

 Fingerling – red or purple skin:

Black Toes – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Blue Tom Cat – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Elmer’s Blue – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. A true fingerling.

Cowhorn – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

 

Nosebag – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. Commonly considered to be synonymous with French Fingerling.

Papa Cacho – an indigenous variety from Peru. Long red tubers, white and pink flesh. Always an excellent yielder in our trials.

Fingerling – yellow skin:

Corne de Mouton – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection.

Peanut – from the Seed Savers Exchange collection. Very russeted. Low yields in 2013 trial with field year 1 seed tubers.

Makah – from the Canadian collection. Makah Nation heirloom variety. Also known as Ozette and Anna Cheeka’s Ozette. Read its history here!

If you are interested in trialing potatoes, our contact form is here.

 

This article was posted in Blog Posts, Opportunities, Research News and tagged heirloom, seed potatoes, Seed Savers Exchange, variety trials.