Sunday, February 19, 2012

wild potatoes

it occurred to me that i had never seen a wild potato plant beyond photos of mature ones in books ( i have no faith in photos of plants i pull off the web anymore...so many mislabeled ones...it is one of the reasons i started including photos in this blog...at least i know what i grew )and that i would not recognize a seedling if it bit me...so i put some potting mix and mushroom mulch in a peat pot...added water...got out the envelope of wild potato seeds ( tiny things ) from the potato introduction station in sturgeon bay wisconsin...placed two ( carefully ) in the newly combined soil...and put them downstairs under the grow light with the apple trees...i germinated the apple trees in a damp paper towel in a baggie and if i don't see some sort of substantive movement in the peat pot over the next few weeks i will try that method ( although how i will ever see those seeds against a damp paper towel as a backdrop eludes me )...since i plan on growing them for a morphological comparison with domesticated potatoes ( and maybe get some gene flow going...although how i would measure that eludes me as well...no scientist...just an amateur ) i really do need to know what they look like when they sprout...inductive and empirical is the way to proceed i think...more as it comes along.

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