diversity

"...the potato and andean culture have co-evolved in their mountainous homeland for at least six thousand years...some five thousand morphologically distinct varieties have been identified out of more than thirteen thousand andean accessions held at the international potato center." stephen b. brush. farmers' bounty: locating crop diversity in the contemporary world._______________ these fifteen seedlings are something of am empirical proof of that genetic diversity...different leaf shapes...different branching patterns...different heights...different coloration...and doubtlessly some differences a more trained and subtle eye could pick out...dissimilar plants and yet they were all germinated from seed from the same potato fruit from one of the early blue plants in last season's garden...i have kept the seed from each fruit separate and will document morphological differences as i germinate them...five thousand varieties and seed as genetically diverse as apples...it will be interesting to see how these differences develop as they mature...there will no doubt be more posts.

fifth leaf

this may be of interest mostly to me but this is my blog so here we go...the wild potato plant ( salanum acule ) in the top three photos is twenty-three days old and the fifth leaf it has developed ( with a nascent sixth one )finally begins to look like like an ancestor of the nordland red plant that is pushing its way out of the bed in the community garden last may...about three weeks after it was planted...certainly the wild potato has a more vine-like appearance but it was grown form seed, not a tuber...if it were just emerging form the soil i wonder what it would look like...perhaps another reason to hope for successful tuber production...if there is a definite zea family resemblance between teosinte and maize ( odd how the annual teosinte produces the ears and the perennial looks so much more like maize in its leaf structure )one can hope for an at least passing resemblance in the solanum family...and i wonder how closely quinoa and lambs quarters will look alike...stay tuned...we may find out