Two potatoes from two different plants, both planted from identical starter stock. I suspected they were hybrids going into the great Potato Experiment, because what common and cheap vegetable in the grocery store isn’t these days, and the starter stock came out of a store bought bag of potatoes. This is why I wasn’t certain what the potatoes I would dig up would ultimately be like. These two potatoes show quite distinctly how hybrids do not breed to true to the parent plant or seed and tend to exhibit traits of the hybrid’s parents.

The potato on the left has the harder, thicker skin of your standard baking potato, as well as the firmer whiter flesh, but they continue to exhibit the smaller size of the original potato from which they sprang forth. They also have the ruddier, more earthy flavor of a standard baking potato. In short, I won’t be planting any of these next month. Too small, too hard, and though the plant was among the healthiest, the potatoes themselves suffered from disease and pest predation on a somewhat alarming scale.

The potato on the right has the thin smooth skin I prefer and the golden, sweet and soft flesh of the parent potato, as well as a standard smaller and rounder shape. The plant it came from was one of the ones most sickly and disease prone, but the potatoes themselves were all pristine and beautiful. I’ll be selecting the most beautiful of them to replant next month.

While I was working with the potatoes prepping for dinner, I had to stop and take a photo, because it was a perfect example of what happens when you plant seeds (or starters, in this case) which are sourced from hybrid plants. I wasn’t at all disappointed to see it in action, because now I have potatoes to start with that I know will mostly produce plants and tubers with the traits I desire, though it may take a few more seasons before they completely breed true to what was planted.

I’m fairly certain the original potatoes I started with were a cross between two hybrids, so there may be some more interesting traits to be explored in the future. Eventually though, with some perseverance and time, I will have a potato that breeds true and has the traits I want them to have. I still have two more plants to dig up, so I may discover some of them this season yet.

I can’t wait until it’s time to dig up the potatoes I will be planting in August! It’ll be interesting to see what I end up with in the next generation. This kind of stuff is probably boring to a great many people, but I find genetics (plant genetics in particular) to be fascinating!