On Sun, 20 Jul 2003, Rick McGreal wrote:

My potato plants have just finished flowering....
I removed the flowers from some and left them on others to see if it made
any real difference to the crops....

And now they have produced 'Fruit'
They are very much like a thick-skinned grape only much darker...
About an inch ling and a half-inch in diameter..And very firm

Are they worth keeping?

Can I use them as seeds for future plants?

Yes, I've done it, but you won't get the same type as the one they came
from. Nevertheless you will have a strain free from viruses.

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Kay Easton wrote in
:

I'm not sure whether the fruits fully ripen here. And I imagine it
would be a lot slower than even growing potatoes from peelings!
Could be fun as an experiment.

Hmmm....

I just want to say thank you for all the replies...

I will pot it in a small pot and see what happens...
Nothing ventured nothing gained....

And if it fails I won't have laid out any cash...So no harm there...

Thanks everyone!

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Pam Moore wrote:

My potato plants have just finished flowering....
I removed the flowers from some and left them on others to see if it made
any real difference to the crops....

And now they have produced 'Fruit'
They are very much like a thick-skinned grape only much darker...
About an inch ling and a half-inch in diameter..And very firm

Are they worth keeping?
Can I use them as seeds for future plants?

They are poisonous so beware.

One should never attempt to eat the fruit as it certainly is poisonous
but the potatoes grown from the seeds are fine.

--
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| Internet: | writing from |
| Fidonet: David Rance 2:252/110 | Caversham, |
| BBS: telnet://mesnil.demon.co.uk | Reading, UK |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Rick McGreal wrote:

I will pot it in a small pot and see what happens...
Nothing ventured nothing gained....

And if it fails I won't have laid out any cash...So no harm there...

The fruit is like a tomato (as., indeed, they are closely related). Let
it ripen as fully as you can (though it will never go red like the
tomato), then open it up and let the seeds dry on a piece of kitchen
paper. Plant them next spring.

The potatoes from this first plant won't be very big but you can then
plant them in the following year and you should get bigger ones - and,
with luck, an entirely new variety!

Good luck!
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"David Rance" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Rick McGreal wrote:
snip
The fruit is like a tomato (as., indeed, they are closely related).
snip

At one time people were grafting cuttings from tomato plants onto the top of
potatoes to get two crops from the same planting.

I have no idea what this did to the yield of the potatoes - I would have
thought there would be a major conflict between storing up food in the roots
and getting as much food as possible into the fruits.

Anybody tried this?

Cheers
Dave R

"David Rance" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Rick McGreal wrote:
snip
The fruit is like a tomato (as., indeed, they are closely related).
snip

At one time people were grafting cuttings from tomato plants onto the top of
potatoes to get two crops from the same planting.

I have no idea what this did to the yield of the potatoes - I would have
thought there would be a major conflict between storing up food in the roots
and getting as much food as possible into the fruits.

Anybody tried this?

Cheers
Dave R

"David Rance" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Rick McGreal wrote:
snip
The fruit is like a tomato (as., indeed, they are closely related).
snip

At one time people were grafting cuttings from tomato plants onto the top of
potatoes to get two crops from the same planting.

I have no idea what this did to the yield of the potatoes - I would have
thought there would be a major conflict between storing up food in the roots
and getting as much food as possible into the fruits.

Anybody tried this?

Cheers
Dave R

David W.E. Roberts wrote:

"David Rance" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Rick McGreal wrote:
snip
The fruit is like a tomato (as., indeed, they are closely related).
snip

At one time people were grafting cuttings from tomato plants onto the top of
potatoes to get two crops from the same planting.

I have no idea what this did to the yield of the potatoes - I would have
thought there would be a major conflict between storing up food in the roots
and getting as much food as possible into the fruits.

Anybody tried this?

Cheers
Dave R

Nope.. always been tempted but never tried.. Not uncommon though. May
increase/reduce vigour of one or the other species.. As with some trees
and can be done with Hops 'n Canabis I believe.
//
Jim

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, David W.E. Roberts wrote:

The fruit is like a tomato (as., indeed, they are closely related).
snip

At one time people were grafting cuttings from tomato plants onto the top of
potatoes to get two crops from the same planting.

I believe this was only experimental in a laboratory.

I have no idea what this did to the yield of the potatoes - I would have
thought there would be a major conflict between storing up food in the roots
and getting as much food as possible into the fruits.

It wasn't satisfactory.

--
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Internet: | writing from |
| Fidonet: David Rance 2:252/110 | Caversham, |
| BBS: telnet://mesnil.demon.co.uk | Reading, UK |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

"David Rance" wrote in message ...
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Pam Moore wrote:

My potato plants have just finished flowering....
I removed the flowers from some and left them on others to see if it made
any real difference to the crops....

And now they have produced 'Fruit'
They are very much like a thick-skinned grape only much darker...
About an inch ling and a half-inch in diameter..And very firm

Are they worth keeping?
Can I use them as seeds for future plants?

They are poisonous so beware.

One should never attempt to eat the fruit as it certainly is poisonous
but the potatoes grown from the seeds are fine.

And as others have pointed out every plant will be an entirely new variety. Just let me be the first to try your new
slug proof, blight proof, drought resistant, flood tolerant, scab proof, wart proof, virus proof, nematode proof
maincrop baker/chipper. I'll even show you how to patent it for a half share of the royalties.

Rod

"David W.E. Roberts" wrote:

At one time people were grafting cuttings from tomato plants onto the top of
potatoes to get two crops from the same planting.

I've seen these grafted plants sold by mail order from big adverts in the
(US) Sunday paper:

THE AMAZING POMATO!!! GET TOMATOES AND POTATOES FROM THE SAME PLANT!!!
SAVE SPACE AND AMAZE YOUR NEIGHBORS!!!

The yield from each will suffer, of course. It's supposed to be an easy
graft, and I always thought I should try just because...

Others have posted similar replies, but: Potato seeds are very genetically
diverse. Like apple seeds, they don't breed true (Though there are now
some experimental varieties that do). The odds of getting a desirable
potato are lousy, but that's where Luther Burbank got the potato that bears
his name, and that's where new varieties come from. I was recently told at
the Seed Saver's Exchange convention in Iowa* in the far western colonies
that some of the agricultural colleges produce experimental potato crosses
and are always looking for volunteers to "grow them out" to see if any are
worth a second look. I suppose you'd get a credit in the footnotes if the
one you grew became a success.

*I posted a report in rec.gardens.edible; OT here, I fear.

Cheers!



Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

"Rod" wrote in message
...

"David Rance" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Pam Moore wrote:

My potato plants have just finished flowering....
I removed the flowers from some and left them on others to see if it
made
any real difference to the crops....

And now they have produced 'Fruit'
They are very much like a thick-skinned grape only much darker...
About an inch ling and a half-inch in diameter..And very firm

Are they worth keeping?
Can I use them as seeds for future plants?

They are poisonous so beware.

One should never attempt to eat the fruit as it certainly is poisonous
but the potatoes grown from the seeds are fine.

And as others have pointed out every plant will be an entirely new
variety. Just let me be the first to try your new
slug proof, blight proof, drought resistant, flood tolerant, scab proof,
wart proof, virus proof, nematode proof
maincrop baker/chipper. I'll even show you how to patent it for a half
share of the royalties.

Rod

I am growing potatoes from last year's seed with a modicum of success - no
disease has struck, but
having grown them from red Desiree potatoes, I can confirm that they appear
to be less than
consistent in colour - some are entirely the more commonplace light buff
colour. I planted them
in early march in the greenhouse, and planted them out when large enough,
but they have always
been behind the potatoes I grew from tubers. I expect them to crop no
earlier than late august/early
september, they are presently small egg-sized.
For anyone not serious about producing a large consistent crop, I
think saving a little potato
seed from this year and growing it on next year is a fun experiment, like
Forrest Gump said, you
never know what you're gonna get!

Andy

Gary Woods wrote in message . ..
[...]
The odds of getting a desirable
potato are lousy, but that's where Luther Burbank got the potato that bears
his name, and that's where new varieties come from. I was recently told at
the Seed Saver's Exchange convention in Iowa* [...]

*I posted a report in rec.gardens.edible; OT here, I fear.

Gary, no, no, a thousand times no! Please don't think NAm gardening
experience is OT he we all thrive on one another's experiences, and
even if we don't get an new idea from it, any real gardener will
always find the news interesting. (Personally, I love dreaming about
the wonderful American plants I can't grow, and never fail to be
entertained by accounts from American gardeners in some states of
their increasingly desperate attempts to grow lawns! -- you'd never
have made it to the Moon if you were the kind of people to give up
easily!)

Mike.