1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,440 Welcome to the Going to Seed podcast. We hold these once a month. 2 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:13,000 Today we have William Whitston with us. William is a 3 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:18,600 plant breeder. And him and I have hung around in the same 4 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:24,820 circles for the last 13 years or so. William actually makes a 5 00:00:24,820 --> 00:00:30,760 living doing plant breeding. He's breeding up in Central 6 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:35,240 Washington on the coast. Crops that do really well for him 7 00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:40,680 because of the climate that he's in or dahlias, Jerusalem artichoke, 8 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:47,640 mashua, mauka, and sorry about the pronunciation, and oka and 9 00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:55,880 potato, sea kale, skirret, yuluko, yakon, and yampa. And 10 00:00:56,520 --> 00:01:00,920 for the last decade, the most popular page on my website has 11 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:06,080 been about growing true potato seeds. And invariably when 12 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:10,000 people ask me for seeds, I send them to William. He has a 13 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:16,400 website, cultivariable.com, where he sells the seeds. And 14 00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:21,840 they're such good seeds compared to the little narrow genetic 15 00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:24,920 diversity that I have in my garden because William has 16 00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:29,360 really taken the potatoes to heart and just does a beautiful 17 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:36,480 job with them. William writes like scientific articles about 18 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:40,840 how to breed these crops. They're really detailed and 19 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:46,480 careful. He maintains a laboratory in his home or his 20 00:01:46,480 --> 00:01:53,080 farm where he removes viruses from the potatoes and things 21 00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:57,600 like that. So during that time, he was working closely with 22 00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:01,280 Carol Deppe. So that's William. Welcome, William. 23 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:04,880 Thank you very much. That's always interesting to hear 24 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:08,400 someone describe what I do because I think I describe it 25 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:10,800 differently every time. It seemed so much more concise that 26 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:11,080 way. 27 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,560 Would you like to add anything to what you do that I left out 28 00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:18,280 or that you really brings you joy? 29 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:22,800 I think you did a pretty good job. The only difference, I 30 00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:26,800 think, is just a realization that I'm coming to over time. 31 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:31,080 And that is that I think more than anything else, what I'm 32 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:37,040 doing is just simply exploring these plants. What I'm doing is 33 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:41,120 not ultimately always or necessarily even often 34 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:47,120 practical. I do a lot of things out of sheer exploratory wonder 35 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:51,040 that don't necessarily produce anything that anyone else will 36 00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:56,480 ever want. So that's a big part of it. But obviously, I have to 37 00:02:56,720 --> 00:02:59,560 produce enough that other people would be interested in growing 38 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:02,360 in order to actually make enough money to survive. So that's 39 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:03,680 certainly a big part of it as well. 40 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:08,360 Are there particular crops that are more valuable to you? 41 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:15,320 I think Yakon is my top selling crop and followed by potato. 42 00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:19,960 Everything else is quite small in comparison. 43 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:25,160 Can you describe the Yakon growing? How does it grow? 44 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:25,920 Sure. 45 00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:27,520 What do people use it for? 46 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:33,400 Yakon is a sunflower family plant, structurally similar to 47 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:39,920 a Jerusalem artichoke. It's a tall, typically somewhere between 48 00:03:40,160 --> 00:03:45,840 five and nine foot tall plant with a structure overall similar 49 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:48,400 to the sunflower Jerusalem artichoke. It has much smaller 50 00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:53,800 flowers, but it produces very large storage roots that are 51 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:58,480 sweet and are typically consumed more like a fruit than like a 52 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:02,800 root vegetable. The overall structure though is quite similar 53 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:07,400 to a Dahlia or to a Jerusalem artichoke. The plant is 54 00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:14,640 propagated by a Rhizomatous crown and the storage roots are 55 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:20,400 non-propagative. You could occasionally get an adventitious 56 00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:22,400 root or sprout off of one of them, but they don't have a 57 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:26,560 bud so you don't normally use them to propagate. Sexually, it 58 00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:30,440 is a plant like many of these clonally propagated plants that 59 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:36,080 has lost quite a bit of its ability to reproduce over time 60 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:42,240 and was until fairly recently considered to be mostly sterile. 61 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:45,360 It turns out that a lot of these clonally propagated plants that 62 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:48,200 are widely considered to be sterile usually aren't. They 63 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:52,640 just need some work and encouragement to bring them back 64 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:53,400 into fertility. 65 00:04:54,640 --> 00:05:01,040 How has your work on fertility been or has it been productive 66 00:05:01,040 --> 00:05:03,720 to you to restore fertility to the Yakon? 67 00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:11,560 Yeah. Initially, I grew about six varieties of Yakon that had 68 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:19,840 been collected over the years. They were South American heirloom 69 00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:25,040 varieties that had by hook or by crook made it into Europe or 70 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:34,000 North America and then circulated as things do. In fact, 71 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:38,840 all of these were considered basically to be sterile. There 72 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:43,880 was some work done by hobbyists in the UK for a while. You may 73 00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:49,520 know Owen Smith of Radix and some others worked quite a bit 74 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:55,560 to try to get seed from Yakon and really only succeeded in one 75 00:05:55,560 --> 00:06:00,000 case where they were able to cross Yakon with a wild relative 76 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,680 and get a hybrid through that. But I collected some more 77 00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:11,120 varieties and really made full use of my long frost free season 78 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,520 to get flowers really late in the year, well into December and 79 00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:20,040 even January. Eventually, that produced some seed and once the 80 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:25,560 ball got rolling, I was able to go from growing about a thousand 81 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:30,240 plants and producing about a dozen seeds to growing a hundred 82 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,480 plants and producing 3000 seeds in just a couple of years. 83 00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:38,520 That was just a matter of growing the new hybrid varieties 84 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,640 that had improved fertility, identifying the ones that 85 00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:45,920 produced more pollen, focusing on those. Over time, I was 86 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:48,720 breeding Yakon and now all of the varieties that I offer are 87 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:50,160 varieties that I bred myself. 88 00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:54,560 Very nice. How is Yakon used in the kitchen? 89 00:06:55,280 --> 00:07:00,040 I think most people tend to use it a fresh fruit. It's crisp, 90 00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:05,960 it's juicy, it's mildly sweet. Most of the time if I'm eating 91 00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:10,520 Yakon, I'm just eating it fresh. You can certainly use it in 92 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:13,120 things like a fruit salad. You can use it in a stir fry. 93 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:20,520 Unfortunately, the major use of Yakon in the world is boiling it 94 00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:23,200 down to make a syrup. I guess I shouldn't say unfortunately, 95 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:28,120 many people like Yakon syrup, but it's this kind of commercial 96 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:34,600 product. How do we boil this stuff down and turn it into a 97 00:07:34,600 --> 00:07:41,520 diet food that we can hype and sell? It's not the way I would 98 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:45,560 choose to eat Yakon, but it is by far the form in which most 99 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:47,640 people would be familiar with the crop. 100 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:51,280 I don't even remember if I could buy that at the grocery 101 00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:53,480 store. That would be interesting to look for. 102 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:55,880 Probably could at a health food store. 103 00:07:55,880 --> 00:08:02,120 You mentioned Dahlia. Can you tell us about growing Dahlia? 104 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:09,520 Yeah, there are great similarities between Yakon, 105 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:13,800 Dahlia, and Jerusalem artichoke. They're all fairly close 106 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:18,520 relatives that are structurally similar. The nice thing about 107 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:23,040 Dahlia is that they're quite willing to make seed. That's 108 00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:27,320 nice. You don't have to start from scratch. You can pick a 109 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:32,880 couple of any widely available Dahlia varieties and grow them. 110 00:08:32,920 --> 00:08:37,400 Assuming that you have any pollinators, odds are you're 111 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:42,560 going to get seed. You're going to get very diverse seed 112 00:08:42,560 --> 00:08:48,520 because Dahlia is our polyploid crop, most of them. Dahlia is 113 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:53,920 another quite complex group in which the common garden Dahlia 114 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:58,680 is polyploid, but there are related species that are 115 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:03,520 diploid and that can be more straightforward to breed. The 116 00:09:03,520 --> 00:09:07,160 common Dahlia are polyploid, and so any seed you get is going to 117 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:12,960 be quite significantly different from any other seed. That 118 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:18,080 obviously has its upsides and its downsides. The Dahlia is 119 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:21,560 very diverse. It has its upsides and its downsides, but 120 00:09:21,560 --> 00:09:27,800 it's harder to get to anything resembling stability by going 121 00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:31,000 through multiple sexual generations. On the other hand, 122 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:35,480 you can get a tremendous amount of diversity in just one 123 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:40,280 generation of seed, and you can propagate it clonally. It's very 124 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:46,880 easy to fix traits that you like that way. It's definitely a 125 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:51,080 propagated crop. If you like what you can keep it, as long as 126 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:57,840 you can manage to keep propagating it. Dahlia as far as 127 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:05,920 a food crop are, I'd say, still on the edge. It's not that easy 128 00:10:05,920 --> 00:10:11,840 to get really delicious, sweet Dahlia. From my seeds, which 129 00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:14,720 I've done a fair amount of work on, it's maybe something like 130 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:18,760 one in 80 is a Dahlia that I would want to eat, and the rest 131 00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:23,440 is a Dahlia that I never want to taste again. There's definitely 132 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,440 a lot of work that could be done with that crop. The other 133 00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:31,400 problem with Dahlia is a thing that's common to all of these 134 00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:35,680 sunflower family plants, and that is that their major 135 00:10:35,680 --> 00:10:40,200 storage carbohydrate is inulin. Inulin is quite hard to digest. 136 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:45,800 It's easier for some than others, but it would be difficult 137 00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:48,520 to make any of these a staple crop that you would want to eat 138 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:52,440 all the time, because they're just going to blow your guts out 139 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:53,400 eventually. 140 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:57,840 I typically use the Dahlia and the Jerusalem artichokes, 141 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:02,640 something that you add to a soup or you add to a stir fry in 142 00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:06,480 small amounts, but not eating a whole plate full of it. 143 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:10,040 You definitely wouldn't want to eat them like potatoes unless 144 00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:12,920 you're an unusual person. There are people who can do that. There 145 00:11:12,920 --> 00:11:17,200 are people who can just pile on the Jerusalem artichokes and 146 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:21,800 never have a problem. But I have tried to adapt to those crops. 147 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:26,400 I've followed the common advice that if you add them to your 148 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:30,480 diet in increasingly large amounts, eventually your gut 149 00:11:30,480 --> 00:11:35,720 microbiome will adjust and you'll simply be fine. I've not found 150 00:11:35,720 --> 00:11:36,360 that to be true. 151 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:42,000 Sweet. On your Dahlia, did you end up choosing for different 152 00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:45,600 flower types? Were there some flower types that are more seedy 153 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:47,400 or easier to work with than others? 154 00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:52,760 Yeah, I did this indirectly in that I found it was much easier 155 00:11:52,760 --> 00:11:58,480 to breed towards sweetness in Dahlia coccinella, which is a 156 00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:03,600 wild relative of Dahlia. They're typically single flower Dahlia's 157 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,840 and they have an open center. The open center means that the 158 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:10,200 insects can get in there and do the cross pollination. You're 159 00:12:10,200 --> 00:12:15,360 going to get a lot more seed. It's a nice coincidence that the 160 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:20,560 Dahlia species that tends to be the best to eat is also one of 161 00:12:20,560 --> 00:12:22,000 the ones that's easiest to breed. 162 00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:26,560 I also found my Dahlia breeding moving in the direction of 163 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:31,520 single flowers instead of all those petals that interfere with 164 00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:35,680 pollination. Yeah, it's really difficult. If a Dahlia is 165 00:12:35,680 --> 00:12:40,040 sufficiently ornamental, it's effectively sterile because no 166 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:42,200 insects are going to be able to get in there and do any 167 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:47,640 pollination. I used to get rotten seed heads and that was 168 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,600 really nasty. Yeah, you literally have to pluck the 169 00:12:51,600 --> 00:12:55,160 petals out if you want that to work. I've done some breeding 170 00:12:55,160 --> 00:12:59,840 with older garden Dahlia's that are like pom-pom types that 171 00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:05,280 actually have very good flavor. But if you don't open up the 172 00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:09,560 centers so that you can either manually pollinate or let the 173 00:13:09,560 --> 00:13:12,360 insects do the job, then yeah, you're just going to get those 174 00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:19,480 gnarly wet balls that at the end of the season that contain 175 00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:20,360 nothing of any use. 176 00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:26,240 While we're on the sunflower family, could you tell us about 177 00:13:26,240 --> 00:13:32,120 Jerusalem artichokes? Yeah, so Jerusalem artichoke was my 178 00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:35,960 original plant breeding adventure. When I decided I was 179 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:41,200 going to breed plants, I looked around, I thought, what should I 180 00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:46,400 work on? What is a plant that could be improved that is not 181 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:50,720 where I'm not going to have a lot of competition or where I 182 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:56,240 can potentially do something unique and add value to a crop? 183 00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:59,720 And I thought Jerusalem artichoke is really productive 184 00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:04,880 and it's tolerant of a wide range of conditions and it's 185 00:14:04,880 --> 00:14:08,960 hard to eat, even though it tastes good. I thought that 186 00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:13,720 seems like a good candidate. And it turns out that you really 187 00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:17,240 couldn't pick a worse crop to try to learn plant breeding with 188 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:21,960 than Jerusalem artichoke. I think it worked out in my case 189 00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:28,160 because it compelled me to learn so many things, but it's a hard 190 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:33,800 one. It's still quite hard. The first problem is, as with so 191 00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:37,480 many of these crops, is that it's polyploid, so you're not 192 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:41,920 going to get to stability easily, but it also has a type 193 00:14:41,920 --> 00:14:46,240 of self incompatibility that's much more difficult to learn. 194 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:50,760 It's a type of compatibility that's much less common in most 195 00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:54,880 domesticated plants that makes it really hard to make crosses 196 00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:58,000 because not only is it self compatible, but it's widely just 197 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:02,560 incompatible between varieties. So you could do everything 198 00:15:02,560 --> 00:15:05,720 right, but pick the wrong varieties to start with. You 199 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:08,960 could have 10 varieties and discover that you have no mutual 200 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:13,040 compatibility between any of them. You could also pick two 201 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:17,720 varieties that they immediately set seed for you. But on top of 202 00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:22,760 the incompatibility problems, you have the fact that it's a 203 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:29,280 crop that is photoperiodic when it comes to producing flowers. 204 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:33,480 And so you may have a very limited amount of time at the 205 00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:36,440 end of the growing season to actually do any crossing and 206 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:40,400 produce any seed before the plants just die. And in some 207 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:44,680 cases, the period is too short to do anything effective. And 208 00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:49,680 there are some varieties that have long day flowering, and 209 00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:53,840 those are quite useful. But also the varieties that have long 210 00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:58,640 day flowering are all mutually incompatible. So somehow you 211 00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:02,840 have to find a variety that overlaps enough that flowers 212 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,320 late in the season with a variety that flowers early in 213 00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:11,040 order to make those crosses. It's a really difficult but very 214 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:11,920 interesting plant. 215 00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:16,840 Have you done any work on trying to cross the Jerusalem artichoke 216 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:18,760 with annual sunflowers? 217 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:22,600 I haven't. It's not the direction that I really want to 218 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:27,480 go. I've looked at some of the results. People have done that. 219 00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:34,800 But you lose so much of the Jerusalem artichoke traits in 220 00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:39,240 that cross. I tend to think of that as being a cross that's 221 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:42,720 more about trying to introduce perenniality to annual 222 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:47,720 sunflowers than it is trying to gain anything for the Jerusalem 223 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:52,160 artichoke. So that's the opposite direction that I want 224 00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:56,680 to go in. When it comes to the sunchokes, my overwhelming 225 00:16:56,680 --> 00:17:01,120 interests are to get them to reproduce earlier in the year so 226 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:06,280 that it's easier to breed them and then to try to increase the 227 00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:10,760 fraction of non-inulin carbohydrates in them in order to 228 00:17:10,760 --> 00:17:12,840 hopefully make them a little bit more digestible. 229 00:17:13,360 --> 00:17:17,720 Is that test available easily to a homescale gardener? 230 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:25,000 Not really. There are things you can do. You can do an iodine 231 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:31,440 stain of the tuber flesh, which it will take up more of that 232 00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:34,840 stain in the event that you have a higher starch fraction in the 233 00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:41,320 tuber than in unuin. That's one way to get a sense. But 234 00:17:41,320 --> 00:17:45,400 honestly, one of the easiest ways to get a sense for whether 235 00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:47,720 you're making any progress is just to eat them and see what 236 00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:48,240 happens. 237 00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:54,120 Yeah. So many times when people want me to propose a scientifical 238 00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:56,880 method of doing something, I'm like, just taste it. 239 00:17:57,040 --> 00:17:57,560 Yeah. 240 00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:03,840 Just see what happens. Can we shift a little bit to describe 241 00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:09,640 your ecosystem and where you're growing and how that affects what 242 00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:10,120 you grow? 243 00:18:10,520 --> 00:18:15,360 Absolutely. I'm on the coast, the outer coast of Washington 244 00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:20,600 State, which is not a place where that many people live. Most 245 00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:25,520 people in Washington live on the Puget Sound, which is about 80 246 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:30,560 miles inland. And so the outer coast is more of a temperate 247 00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:39,360 rainforest climate. And it's chilly. It's got a long, chilly 248 00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:43,400 growing season, and it's extremely rainy for about half 249 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:49,600 the year. So I've got about reliably about 300 days of 250 00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:55,840 rain, 300 days frost free. And occasionally, we go the entire 251 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,080 year without a frost. Not this year. This year was very strange. 252 00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:04,720 We had really early and hard freezes, which hardly ever 253 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:09,840 happens. Normally, I'm able to work just about year round. But 254 00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:16,840 we have between October and May, we get about 120 inches of rain. 255 00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:22,880 It's very soggy for that half of the year. And then in the rest 256 00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:28,800 of the year, it still tends to be cool and foggy, but there may 257 00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:32,080 not be a single drop of precipitation. There are some 258 00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:36,720 challenges there. You have to irrigate to grow anything 259 00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:41,200 because otherwise it's basically a Mediterranean climate summer 260 00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:45,800 where there's just not any rain to use. And the temperatures 261 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:51,800 never get that warm. So it only reaches into the 70s here maybe a 262 00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,680 week or two out of the year. The rest of the year, it's going to 263 00:19:55,680 --> 00:20:03,240 be mostly between the 40s and the 60s. And so it's a great 264 00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:08,360 potato climate. Potatoes love it here. But I wouldn't be able to 265 00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:12,200 grow an ear of corn if I tried. As far as the rest of it goes, 266 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,920 because of the rain, this is a climate that has very poor soils. 267 00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:22,520 One of the things that that enables me to do is to breed 268 00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:25,480 plants to grow in poor soils. I don't do a lot of amendment. 269 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:31,320 Mostly, I work with what I have. And I select varieties that 270 00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,680 don't need a lot of fertilizer. Typically, they'll do much 271 00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:40,320 better if they are given fertilizer. But and I do some 272 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:43,760 fertilizing, it really just depends on my goals. With some 273 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:46,720 plants, if I'm going to get seed from them in order to make 274 00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:49,440 crosses, I need to give them a little something to get them 275 00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:54,360 across the finish line. But in general, my philosophy is to try 276 00:20:54,360 --> 00:20:59,760 to do as little as possible so that I'm not introducing 277 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,120 conditions that I have to maintain indefinitely. 278 00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:07,680 Can you tell us about your laboratory and about what you do 279 00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:10,520 on that and how you clean up a potato variety? 280 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:17,640 Sure. It's hard. I guess I'll tell you why first. The first 281 00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:23,400 thing, one of the worst problems that I had early on is that I 282 00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:28,160 grew all these clonal crops, and they clearly had diseases. And 283 00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:32,280 there's not much that you can do once you get a virus into a 284 00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:37,080 clonally propagated crop. It's just going to continue infecting 285 00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:41,920 that crop forever. They don't spontaneously recover. They just 286 00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:46,680 live alongside each other until either forever or until the 287 00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:50,040 infection becomes so severe that the crop just simply can't 288 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:55,480 reproduce anymore and it dies out. Now this is a well known 289 00:21:55,680 --> 00:22:00,120 and traditional problem with potatoes. Potato varieties would 290 00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:04,120 eventually run out. They simply didn't produce anymore and people 291 00:22:04,120 --> 00:22:07,240 abandoned them and then they would introduce a new variety 292 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:12,000 grown from seed and move on. But because it's so hard to 293 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:17,280 concentrate rare alleles in a polyploid crop, you really do 294 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:22,680 lose something when you lose a good variety. And so there's 295 00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,960 value in being able to clean these up to cure the diseases 296 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:30,520 and at least bring them back into production so that you can 297 00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:34,680 use them in breeding. And there's really only one way to 298 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:40,320 do that, which is to grow them under laboratory conditions 299 00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:44,800 where you can apply techniques like thermotherapy, chemotherapy, 300 00:22:45,360 --> 00:22:49,120 and there's some other lesser known cryotherapy is another 301 00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:53,400 option where you actually can freeze the growing tips of the 302 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:57,880 plants to kill viruses. Because that requires liquid nitrogen, 303 00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:02,640 that's a little bit beyond my scope. But the first stage to 304 00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:06,640 being able to do this for the most part is tissue culture. You 305 00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:10,720 need to be able to establish the plants in culture in a form 306 00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:18,040 where they are easy to work on. In rare cases, you can directly 307 00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:22,280 treat a tuber. There are some viruses that are just acutely 308 00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:26,840 sensitive to heat, for example, and you can actually heat a 309 00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:30,560 potato tuber up to the point for long enough where the virus dies 310 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:35,360 but the tuber doesn't. But in general, the mass of a tuber is 311 00:23:35,360 --> 00:23:39,960 so great, it's really hard to wipe out a virus in something of 312 00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:45,040 that size. But if you can establish a very small plantlet 313 00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:49,480 in tissue culture, and you can get it growing rapidly, the mass 314 00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,080 that you have to deal with is so much less, the amount of virus 315 00:23:52,120 --> 00:23:55,960 in that mass is so much less that it's more sensitive to 316 00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,080 various techniques. And one of those is again, is 317 00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,800 thermotherapy, you can establish small plantlets, you can get 318 00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:06,280 them growing rapidly, you can put them in an incubator at a 319 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,840 temperature that's high enough to potentially kill a virus but 320 00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:12,880 not kill the plant itself. And over time, you can clear them 321 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:17,880 viruses that way. You can also subject them to chemotherapy, 322 00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:20,880 and this is one of this is typically one of the more 323 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,920 effective strategies, there's a common answer to this, and 324 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:30,440 antiviral known as ribavirin, if you introduce that into tissue 325 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:35,280 culture with a plant that has a virus, it over time is very 326 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:42,520 likely to clear that plant of infection. Maybe 50 to 60% of 327 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,800 viruses subjected to ribavirin in a high concentration over a 328 00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:51,360 period of three to four months will eventually test, test 329 00:24:51,360 --> 00:24:55,240 clean. Some will require a combination, so you have to 330 00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:59,920 give them chemotherapy and thermotherapy. And then some are 331 00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:04,760 just very difficult to clean in any other way than through 332 00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:10,080 meristem culture, which is a practice where you dissect the 333 00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:14,080 growing tip of the plant and take only a very small piece 334 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:18,720 about 0.1 millimeter in size from the growing tip and 335 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:23,440 establish that in a new culture and allow it to grow. And that 336 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,760 that meristem tip is not connected to the vasculature of 337 00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:32,320 the plant. So most viruses are not yet communicated to that 338 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,560 part of the plant at that stage of growth. And so you're 339 00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:39,280 actually slicing off a piece that is in many cases virus free 340 00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,840 and growing that but it's really, it's really difficult. 341 00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:48,480 It's my, it's my technique of last resort because I'm almost 342 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,520 50, my eyesight isn't that good anymore, my hands aren't as 343 00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,400 steady as they used to be. You have to do all this work under 344 00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:58,240 a microscope. And it's really, it's really a game for a younger 345 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:03,240 person. So I try everything else first. But that's kind of the 346 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:08,760 picture of a virus cleanup in general, which was my initial 347 00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:12,960 application for having a lab. But it turns out there are also 348 00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,960 many other reasons to have one. And one of the best reasons if 349 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,560 you're growing a large number of clonally propagated plants is 350 00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,440 that you have a way to preserve them without growing them in the 351 00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:27,160 field. Because if you have a large collection of potatoes, 352 00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:31,640 for example, and you don't have a lab where you can preserve 353 00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,640 them in culture, your only option, other than growing them 354 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,160 in the field every year is to try to keep them over for maybe 355 00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:45,600 two years in a refrigerator. And that's far from a certain bet. A 356 00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:50,560 lot of them will die sometime in that second year, sitting in the 357 00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:55,080 refrigerator. And it's just so easy to lose things if you don't 358 00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:59,400 have a good way to preserve them. And that's a good deal of 359 00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,000 what I do is just simply keep plants in culture so that I have 360 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,760 them for the future when I want to grow them again. And when you 361 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,080 put the two things, the virus cleanup and the storage 362 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:15,280 together, the other part is you're able to maintain all that 363 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:18,520 work that you put into cleaning them of diseases indefinitely as 364 00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,760 well. So you only have to do that job once because it's a real 365 00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:26,000 pain to do it once much less over and over again. So that's 366 00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,600 that's, that's the lab. 367 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,120 Sweet. Could you describe tissue culture a little more? 368 00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:40,080 Sure. It's really a fancy way of saying that we're taking 369 00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:43,800 cuttings and we're keeping them in small containers. That's 370 00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:52,320 really all it is. So in my lab, I mostly grow things in 25 371 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,880 millimeter culture tubes, they're just large test tubes. 372 00:27:55,200 --> 00:28:02,440 And in each test tube, I use an agar based media that contains 373 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:08,200 typically a blend of minerals and vitamins, it's known as 374 00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:14,040 Murashige and Skoog medium. There are many different mediums 375 00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:17,800 that can be used in tissue culture, but that's a common 376 00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:22,040 one. It's just known as MMS most of the time. And it's just a 377 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:25,280 fertilizer, right? It's just the basic minerals that are 378 00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:27,320 necessary for plant growth. 379 00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:29,440 Something like Miracle Grow. 380 00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:34,000 Sure. Yeah, it's, you could potentially just use a regular 381 00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:39,160 commercial fertilizer in tissue culture, rather than one with a 382 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,120 fancy name that got written up in a scientific paper. But it's 383 00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,720 a, it's a formulation that's widely available if you're 384 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,520 buying stuff from a tissue culture supply company, and it's 385 00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:54,640 been widely studied. So it's easy to know how much to use in 386 00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,440 your medium. But so we're talking a test tube with a small 387 00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,920 amount of a gel based media in it into which you insert a 388 00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:06,080 cutting and allow the cutting to grow in that hopefully 389 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:08,480 uncontaminated environment. 390 00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:09,720 Yeah, 391 00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:13,880 because obviously, if you have a if you have a gel based medium, 392 00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:19,360 and you put a plant in it, and anything else gets in there, like 393 00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,720 a bacteria or a fungi that is going to quickly outcompete the 394 00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:27,680 plant and, and eat the medium and leave you with a mess. So a 395 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:33,360 big part of what's going on in tissue culture is getting is 396 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,440 getting us a sterile piece of plant to put in there in the 397 00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,040 first place. That's actually the hardest step in tissue culture 398 00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:44,680 is establishing a new culture. Once you have a plant in culture, 399 00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:49,840 and it's, it's sterile, as long as you can maintain an aseptic 400 00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,840 technique to cut it up and transfer it to new tubes, that's 401 00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,200 very easy. You can do that all day long. You just you work in a 402 00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,720 clean environment, you cut it up, you establish new culture is 403 00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,160 very easy. But it's that first one that can be a real pain. 404 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,840 Because plants don't just have contaminants on the outside, they 405 00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:13,040 have them on the inside too. And so you can clean the outside of a 406 00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:19,200 plant all you like. And, and that will work in many cases. But 407 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,600 there is a lot of that there are a lot of endophytes that live 408 00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,400 within plants, and some of them are beneficial, and some of them 409 00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:30,000 aren't. And some of them are beneficial, unless you put them 410 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,000 in an environment where they can take over, in which case, they're 411 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:37,120 no longer beneficial. And there's a lot of complexity 412 00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:38,120 there as well. 413 00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:43,160 Thank you. Could you talk about the open source seed initiative 414 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:43,720 a little bit? 415 00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:53,000 Absolutely. So the goal overall of the OSSI is to provide a 416 00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:59,240 protected commons where people can can share new plant varieties 417 00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:05,240 without allowing others to later lock them up by the use of 418 00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:09,160 patents or, or other intellectual property 419 00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:13,400 protections. So it's a simple pledge that you place on your 420 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,840 varieties that that says that neither you nor anyone else can 421 00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,720 lock these varieties up in intellectual property protection 422 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,680 they are there forever available for anyone to use in any way 423 00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,120 that they see fit as long as they also agree to the pledge 424 00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,920 that no one can later take the descendants of these varieties 425 00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,040 and lock them up with intellectual property 426 00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,360 protections. And I thought that was a great idea. It was 427 00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,440 something that I had been thinking about before I realized 428 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:45,000 that the OSSI existed. Because my in my previous life, I worked 429 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,720 in the software industry. And so I was very familiar with the 430 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:53,600 concept of open source software and copyleft ideas. And I'd also 431 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:58,120 just seen a lot of what I thought was pretty dodgy use of 432 00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:02,080 intellectual property protections in that industry. So 433 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,080 actually not opposed to intellectual property protections 434 00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,160 in general, but I just thought there should be an alternative. 435 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:13,080 And I think the OSSI is a great alternative. I think it's fine 436 00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:16,840 to have both. I think it's fine to do either one. But I release 437 00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:23,360 all of my varieties under under OSSI. I don't think that's 438 00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:27,040 something that I will ever stop doing. I don't have any interest 439 00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:32,560 in in releasing new varieties any any other way. And there are 440 00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:38,960 a variety of reasons for that. I prefer the idea that people can 441 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:43,560 use my varieties in any way that they like. I think that's, I 442 00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:47,040 would have just released them public domain if something like 443 00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:51,600 the OSSI didn't exist. But I like the idea that this is a 444 00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:56,200 little bit stronger in saying, no, they have to remain free to 445 00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,800 use for everyone far into the future. I like that. But there 446 00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:04,840 are also practical reasons why I would not undertake something 447 00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:10,040 like plant variety protection or patents or any of those things. 448 00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:12,760 And that's the way that these things are not practical for a 449 00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,920 small plant breeder. They're expensive. You'd have to sell a 450 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,920 tremendous amount to justify the cost of anything like that. And 451 00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,840 I've read very specialized things that not many people are 452 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:32,440 interested in that often don't last for very long. If I keep a 453 00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:37,720 variety for five years, that's a long time. So they're just the 454 00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,080 other types of intellectual property protection just 455 00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:44,080 wouldn't be practical choices for me even if I even if there 456 00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:45,320 were things that I wanted to do. 457 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:51,440 So could you talk a little about so supposing someone develops a 458 00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,920 new variety? How do they go about getting that recognized by 459 00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:56,080 the OSSI? 460 00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:58,960 Sure. Yeah, that's a very straightforward process. If you 461 00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:03,680 go to the OSSI website, there's a form there that you can use to 462 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,800 submit your variety and you just basically have to give a little 463 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:11,240 bit of background information on it. Talk about what varieties 464 00:34:11,240 --> 00:34:16,200 went into the breeding, what process you went through to to 465 00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:22,000 select it. And typically, I can't remember what all the 466 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,560 questions are, but it will ask you to talk about what your 467 00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:29,400 goals were and then what the actual outcome was. And there's 468 00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:34,240 nothing that's difficult to answer. But the goal there in 469 00:34:34,240 --> 00:34:37,480 general is to make sure that there was actual breeding work 470 00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:47,800 done. Not everyone who applies for OSSI is super clear on what 471 00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,080 constitutes breeding and what doesn't. And of course, there 472 00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,080 are areas where reasonable people can disagree on what 473 00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:58,680 constitutes breeding and what doesn't. But for the OSSI, the 474 00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:04,720 rule is you have to have started from genetic diversity. In 475 00:35:04,720 --> 00:35:07,360 general, they're not going to recognize a process, for example, 476 00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:13,600 where you grew an open pollinated variety for five or 477 00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:17,880 six years and now claim that it is locally adapted without 478 00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:21,520 there having been any introduction of more genetic 479 00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:26,120 diversity to that line. You can certainly make a claim that 480 00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,400 things have happened in that period of time that over those 481 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:33,920 five or six years, some genes have changed. Some perhaps some 482 00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:38,400 epigenetic changes have occurred. There's certainly room 483 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,200 to say that there are differences, but it would be 484 00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:46,280 very hard for to establish that as as breeding without some very 485 00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:49,640 clear testing involved to show the difference. So in general, 486 00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,280 it starts with genetic diversity and then a process of selection 487 00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:58,680 to a new thing. Thank you. Let's open it up to questions. Does 488 00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:05,080 anyone else have some questions for William? I do. All right. On 489 00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:10,200 the Yacon that your climate you describe your climate is vastly 490 00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:14,760 different than mine. But you work with Dahlia and Dahlia 491 00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:19,680 grows like weeds here and produces large clumps of roots. 492 00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,520 Is Yacon similar to Dahlia? Could I maybe expect it would 493 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:29,880 grow similar for me here? Yeah, Yacon will generally produce a 494 00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:34,520 useful yield any place that you have about a four month growing 495 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:39,600 season. So that opens up most of the country, maybe even three 496 00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:45,960 months. If you have a very warm summer, Yacon likes to be warm. 497 00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:51,120 So it's it'll grow quite quickly in a place like like Florida 498 00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,240 where it routinely gets up into the 80s or lower 90s, but not 499 00:36:55,240 --> 00:37:00,600 scorching. Okay. I'm in southern Indiana and I can have three 500 00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:08,400 months in the low 90s and easily and also periods very dry during 501 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,720 that. So that's why I wondered. But you're growing your Dahlia's 502 00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:16,160 in your climate and then my vastly different climate they 503 00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,200 grow great. So I was just hopeful maybe it would too. I 504 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:20,560 might have to give it a try. 505 00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:25,080 Yeah, I think it would probably of all the crops that I grow 506 00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:32,400 Yacon is the most adaptable to continental climates. It's 507 00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,680 actually chilly in my climate. It would rather be in a warmer 508 00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:42,240 place than here. But it's a standout because most of what I 509 00:37:42,240 --> 00:37:48,040 grow is does not like to be hot. Yacon will take 80s or 90s. It 510 00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:51,480 doesn't like to be dry. If you're going to have a long 511 00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:55,800 drought period, it's going to need supplemental water, but 512 00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:56,960 heat is not a problem. 513 00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,760 Is it adaptable genetically adaptable or might could steer 514 00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,000 it toward tolerating a little bit more dryness? 515 00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,480 It's certainly possible to breed new varieties, but you need a 516 00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:15,520 pretty long growing season for that. As far as adaptation 517 00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:20,720 within the plant, it's possible. That'd be much harder for me to 518 00:38:20,720 --> 00:38:24,880 establish here because I just don't have that much variability 519 00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:29,280 year to year in climate. But it's certainly the case that 520 00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:34,720 some plants show a significant amount of adaptation, even 521 00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:40,000 among clonal varieties to new conditions over time. I wouldn't 522 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:40,840 bet against it. 523 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:43,440 Is it day length sensitive? It needs a... 524 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:49,840 It's not. It simply has a maturity period that is no less 525 00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:51,280 than about 100 days. 526 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:52,880 Oh, I got that. 527 00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:57,600 The flowers themselves, if you're considering breeding the 528 00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:02,880 flowers themselves, may have some short day character. It's 529 00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:08,040 really hard to tell. They require a much longer period of 530 00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,760 maturity before it begins to flower than before it begins to 531 00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:17,320 produce roots. In some cases, they may not flower at all until 532 00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:18,560 days are short. 533 00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:21,160 Interesting. 534 00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:27,880 I have a question. I was wondering, do you know anyone or 535 00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,160 are you still working with Apios Americana or the groundnut? 536 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,440 I'm working with it, which is to say that I still have some. It's 537 00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:40,360 not a plant that grows well here. I have not made a lot of 538 00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,880 progress with it. As is often the case with plants that I don't 539 00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,160 make a lot of progress with, I tend not pay much attention to 540 00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:51,320 it anymore, unless it does something unusual. It doesn't 541 00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,520 like to be dry. That's the main problem being west of the 542 00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:59,760 Rockies. It's a plant that really wants regular rainfall 543 00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,880 throughout the summer. Even though I irrigate, it's not as 544 00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:08,040 much as that plant wants. It wants to live next to a stream 545 00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:16,160 east of the Rockies with regular water. It just does not like dry 546 00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:20,720 summers. I have a bunch of varieties that grow very poorly 547 00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:25,520 and very slowly. They are reluctant to flower, but in a 548 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,320 long enough season in which I've watered them enough, they 549 00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:35,480 eventually do. Every single one of them requires hand 550 00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:39,920 pollination in order to set any seed because the insects that 551 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:43,800 pollinate them in their native environment don't exist here. 552 00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:48,160 They require a certain kind of carpenter bee that can trip the 553 00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,200 flower in a specific way in order to make it possible to 554 00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:58,120 pollinate. It's just a bit of a difficult crop. I think if you 555 00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:01,680 live in a place where it grows naturally, then you're a great 556 00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,920 candidate for working with it and improving it. Probably a 557 00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,680 much better candidate than I am. 558 00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:14,000 Do you know other people who are actively working on it? 559 00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:19,520 I don't. Almost everybody I know who has tried it has eventually 560 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:24,760 given up and found it too difficult to work with. There's 561 00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:31,400 a certain challenge with it in that most of the diversity that 562 00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:37,880 exists is in diploid varieties that are more southern. They're 563 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:42,560 found more in the southeastern US in warmer areas. For whatever 564 00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:45,160 reason, most of the people who are interested in breeding it 565 00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:50,080 are in more northern and cooler climate areas where the native 566 00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:55,960 varieties tend to be triploid and sterile. Most of the 567 00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:01,200 breeding work that was done with Apios Americana was done at 568 00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,440 Louisiana State University. That gives you an idea of what kind 569 00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:11,920 of climate is probably ideal for breeding the crop. Unfortunately, 570 00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:15,280 they abandoned that breeding program and there really hasn't 571 00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:20,640 been a lot of work done with it since then. Prospects for it as 572 00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:26,760 a more northern crop are probably long term at best. For 573 00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:32,240 the southeastern US, prospects for it are as good as just 574 00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,840 finding LSU varieties and starting to grow them because 575 00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:41,640 they were adapted for that kind of climate. As I understand it, 576 00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:43,440 in that climate are quite high producing. 577 00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:47,640 Right. Yeah, I agree with some last year. The thing that people 578 00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,680 advertise it as it's an LSU variety, but they don't tell you 579 00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,160 which one. I'm not sure which one it is, but it did very well 580 00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:58,120 for me because I'm in Tallahassee, Florida. It's 581 00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:01,520 something I'm more interested in exploring more of the different 582 00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:02,480 varieties out there. 583 00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:09,360 I have some and I'm slowly introducing what I have into 584 00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:15,160 tissue culture, which is likely the way that I will begin to 585 00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,800 share it again whenever I do start to offer it because it's 586 00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,440 not a crop that reproduces well by tumors in this climate. I'd 587 00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:28,040 be digging it every five years to get a small crop that would 588 00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:33,280 be worth selling. In the future, it will have more of the LSU 589 00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,920 varieties. At this point, I'm just gradually taking them out 590 00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,000 of the places where they've lived for the past 10 years and 591 00:43:40,240 --> 00:43:44,240 introducing them to culture so that I can get them to people 592 00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:48,800 who want to grow them. I think for you in your climate, you 593 00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:51,360 could much more easily be a groundnut breeder than I could. 594 00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:55,760 The world could use some groundnut breeders. I would 595 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:56,440 encourage that. 596 00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:58,240 Yeah, thank you. 597 00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:03,520 Okay, Bill. This is Holly. I have a question on true potato 598 00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:08,480 seeds and land racing. I live in a short climate, which I 599 00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:13,240 mentioned earlier that 54 days I'm pretty sure of. I may get up 600 00:44:13,240 --> 00:44:17,760 to 80 depending on the year. I have successfully grown red 601 00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:23,840 potatoes that you just buy the tuber seed potato at the store 602 00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:28,640 wherever that you buy seed potato. Last year, I grew true 603 00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:33,160 potato seed for the first time. I actually harvested quite a bit 604 00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:38,520 of it was just a land race variety mix. I've looked on your 605 00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:40,720 website and see all the different varieties that you 606 00:44:40,720 --> 00:44:45,720 have. I just want to know how much land racing do you do with 607 00:44:45,720 --> 00:44:51,200 your true potato seeds? As I go forward, are there varieties 608 00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,280 that would be better for me to try or just try them all and see 609 00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:55,040 what grows here? 610 00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,760 That's an interesting question. I'm not entirely sure how to 611 00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:05,800 answer how much land racing I do. Many of the things that I 612 00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:12,080 offer are mixes. Those mixes have occurred in many cases over 613 00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:18,120 multiple generations. I've saved from an initial base of clones. 614 00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:23,360 I've selected for the trait of interest among those clones, then 615 00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,960 I've crossed them to each other and then repeated the process. 616 00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:34,880 I'd say that makes it a land race of a sort. I'm not selecting 617 00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:40,800 in most cases for anything other than a very specific trait. If 618 00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:46,280 I'm offering red tetraploid potato seeds, then I'm selecting 619 00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,200 for red. There are some other things that I'm selecting for 620 00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:57,520 just unconsciously. Generally, if a variety is not large enough, 621 00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:00,080 not yielding, not whatever, I'm throwing it out, but I'm not 622 00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:06,160 really applying any specific measurements to it. Mostly, what 623 00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:10,800 I'm doing is trying to get genetics out of clones to make 624 00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:15,680 them available as seeds. I'm not thinking too specifically about 625 00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:20,720 what else is going into that mix. In many cases, I'm not growing 626 00:46:20,720 --> 00:46:24,640 things for multiple generations. If you look at my website and 627 00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,800 you see anything that's a TPS mix, that is something that has 628 00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,880 been grown for multiple generations. For example, my wide 629 00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:38,040 TPS mix is something that's been grown annually for 10 years, 630 00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:41,080 where every year I'm selecting the best, then I'm saving seed, 631 00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:43,920 then I'm plowing it back into that seed mix. 632 00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:46,760 I think that's a pretty good case for a kind of a land race 633 00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:50,760 style growing. In others, if there's a name on a variety, I 634 00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,000 might have only grown it once just enough to get seed out of 635 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:54,520 it. 636 00:46:55,200 --> 00:47:00,640 When people ask me, I typically recommend Williams tetraploid 637 00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:04,400 mix and then select out of that for what you love. 638 00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:08,840 Yeah, that's the idea in general is that I'm not trying to bring 639 00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:14,920 you a land race that you would necessarily just continue 640 00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,360 growing indiscriminately. I'm trying to bring you a source of 641 00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:21,000 genetics from which you select your starting material and then 642 00:47:21,720 --> 00:47:23,480 produce whatever you want from there. 643 00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,160 Right. That's what I'm looking for, potatoes that I can grow 644 00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:31,360 here, that I can get them to harvest. Last year, I planted 645 00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:42,120 300 potato plants and harvested maybe 250. None of them went to 646 00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:45,880 seed, but I'm having a short season. This year, I'll plant 647 00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:50,800 some of those from tubers and hope that they will make seed. 648 00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,840 It's just a short season. I got tubers and some as big as my 649 00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:00,320 fist and some like marbles. I had a range of tubers that I 650 00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:05,600 wanted to grow. I had a range of colors and sizes. I'm looking 651 00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:10,760 for something that'll grow a nice tuber and go to seed that 652 00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:16,200 will thrive here in my short growing season. Thank you. I 653 00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:17,160 appreciate that input. 654 00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:22,520 There's a particular challenge with growing potatoes from true 655 00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:28,280 seed in a short season climate. That is that there's competition 656 00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:34,080 between the formation of tubers and flowering. Early potato 657 00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:38,320 varieties very rarely flower. When they do flower, they flower 658 00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:44,120 briefly because that plant is in a race to form tubers and die. 659 00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:48,720 There's very little time and very little energy for it to 660 00:48:48,720 --> 00:48:54,360 form flowers. All the best known early potato varieties are a 661 00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:59,880 mass to get seed from. There's probably not a great prospect 662 00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:05,880 for a long-term land race type variety from seed with those 663 00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:11,280 kinds of potatoes because you're just up against the very real 664 00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:14,720 limitations, the reproductive sync competition between the 665 00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:20,680 tubers and the seeds. What I would recommend in that case is 666 00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:25,760 trying to mix in some more mid-season type potatoes with 667 00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:31,120 your early potatoes and focusing on getting seeds in the years 668 00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:36,440 when your climate, when your growing season is long enough to 669 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,160 cross over between those because you're going to get a lot of 670 00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:43,040 early seed from a cross between an earlier variety and a mid 671 00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,720 season variety and probably enough to keep yourself going 672 00:49:46,720 --> 00:49:51,920 through the years when your season is short. But if you 673 00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:57,000 focus entirely on really early potatoes, you'll have to 674 00:49:57,040 --> 00:50:01,800 undertake specialized techniques in order to get seed from them. 675 00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,600 Those can be things like removing the tubers as soon as 676 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:10,080 they form on the plants or growing the plants in very 677 00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:14,040 shallow soil so that they can't form a deep root system, 678 00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,760 pruning the stolons off as they form. Anything that keeps the 679 00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:22,440 plant from dumping energy into the tubers gives it the potential 680 00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:26,040 to form flowers that you can pollinate and get seeds from. 681 00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:31,960 But there's just, it's just really hard with earlys. There's 682 00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:36,800 always a lot of extra work that goes into that because the plant 683 00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:40,880 is just struggling as it is to make tubers before it dies. 684 00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:46,520 All right. Thank you. Before we go, can you tell us where to 685 00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:47,680 find you on the web? 686 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:55,080 Yeah, you can find me at cultivariable.com. That's you 687 00:50:55,080 --> 00:51:00,080 can also find me on Facebook. We have a Facebook group called 688 00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:04,800 the variable which is quite active. That's mostly where I 689 00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:08,520 spend any time on social media these days that we have other 690 00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:13,880 presences but there's not much going on anyplace else. And of 691 00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:16,320 course, all the information is available at the website. So 692 00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,880 that's where I recommend that you go first, you can read about 693 00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:21,960 any of the crops that I work with and there's pretty 694 00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:23,520 comprehensive information there. 695 00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,280 All right. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Julia and Holly for 696 00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:38,840 technical support. Oh, sorry, Anna. Thank you very much.