The TPS seedlings in my garden have grown into large potato plants.  These two plants growing next to each other are from the same lot of Elongated Red Diploid TPS. Since the foliage and growth pattern of each plant has been very similar, I was surprised to see such a large difference in flower color.  The flowers that I cross pollinated by hand have formed berries.  I have seen a lot of bumblebees in my potato patch which should help with cross pollination, but I choose not to rely solely on their efforts.  Most of the flowers that I did not pollinate have dropped off the stem without forming a berry.  I learned to hand pollinate potato flowers from Rebsie Fairholm’s book, The Lost Art of Potato Breeding. Her book also explains the difference between diploid and tetraploid potatoes very well.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about growing potatoes from true seed.

The diploid berries are different from the tetraploid berries that I am used to seeing. Tetraploid berries are mostly round like cherry tomatoes while these diploids are more tubular like a miniature paste tomato.  Regardless of shape, I am happy to see that the berries on my two diploid plants are looking healthy and growing quickly.  I will wait until these two plants die down naturally to harvest both the berries and tubers.  It will be interesting to see if the different flower color of each plant corresponds with different colors in the tubers.