a bit over two months in

the potato storage project has been going on since early august when the yema de huevos were brought in ( more on them in the proceeding post ) and is going pretty well...with the inevitable issues cropping up...the potatoes came in in a variety of sizes and this is an issue for some...the small early blue in the top photo had badly dehydrated, softened, and shriveled...and so had to be discarded...a routine and thorough inspection of tubers is an important part of the traditional andean storage methodology for obvious reasons..softened potatoes on the verge of rotting aren't going to do the healthy tubers any good so they must be discarded...we also placed the smaller potatoes in separate boxes since they are more prone to going bad because they have less moisture to lose...the large early blue are solid and doing just fine...i brought in the last of the narino roja and they are all small( fourth photo )...a bit dis appointing since it lessens their chances of surviving storage until a replant....they hail from columbia and were out there all summer form late april until yesterday...they had just started dying back...a long season and i am wondering about day length issues since their native range is closer to he equator...these are certainly smaller than the tubers i planted...on the plus side they did set tubers and there is always hope they will survive...the ollala potatoes form spain are native to a lattitude much closer to northwest indiana than columbia and they did well and seem to be holding their own in the basement...april is sitll half a year away...the micro-climates that the andes provide through altitude ( odd that many vavilov centers are in mountainous regions? ) allow shorter storage times of around four months...there may be continuing issues as time passes and we may see some considerable attrition in our seed stock...hope has a significant role in all this but it strikes me that gardening and agriculture as a whole are hopeful projects rather than assured ones....more as this goes on.