The Plant Cycle

Each row has one hundred plants (seeds) started from one cluster. This process is done in batches of 45 pollinations of 100 plants (seeds) each year, this gives 4,500 plants.The first year will see only 1,600 of the plants qualify to go on and of these, only about 220 will get their potato planted into the ground as the "first year" cycle.

The "second year" of planting - which is actually the third year in the process - over half of the new potato strains (220) are passed over leaving about 100 to go on the next season. This process of elimination will continue, weeding out poor strains, until the seventh planting year the breeder is left with one or two from that particular year to study. Usually the second year, the potatoes will be scrutinized on the basis of...

• Resistance to wet or dry conditions
• Resistance to chemicals
• Resistance to disease
• Quality of leaves
• Taste
• Appearance
• Grease Retention
• Storability
• Etc.

 
What if the plant that passes all tests but that of soil conditions? What if it will thrive in another climate? This is the reasoning behind the practice of shipping many of these kind of plants to other nations for further testing.