Every spring, people turn to their local greenhouse, garden supply store or seed catalogue to buy the raw material for their backyard garden. Racks and pages boast of the qualities of different varieties of vegetables and flowers. Gardeners fill their shopping carts or fill out their order forms and soon their hands are full of the results of their tough decisions. Most people start with seeds: they're cheap, easy to ship, and you have access to a lot more variety than if you just wanted to buy plants. Even potatoes are sold as 'seed'. In reality, the potatoes that you buy from the seed catalogue to plant in your garden are not actual seeds, but clones.
Every different variety of potato started from a tiny 'true seed', which grew a single plant,with several tiny potatoes under it.
One potato from each new variety would be planted and would again grow a single plant, with maybe half a dozen larger potatoes underneath it.
A
t
this point, the potato is rated for color, size, number of potatoes set, shape
and how long they took to mature. The plants that have funny shaped tubers,
don't set enough potatoes or don't mature fast enough are taken out of the program.
Only the ones that have qualities which match what the potato breeder is looking
for get to stay. In this picture we see Dr. Raoul Robinson, a noted expert on
plant breeding, standing in one of our fields of trial varieties. Dr.Robinson
has written a book, called "Return to Resistance", on breeding plants
for natural resistance to disease and pests, which can be ordered from Indigo.
The next year, the potatoes are cut into sets, making sure each set has an eye, and planted out. Now, we have a dozen or more plants, all identical.At harvest, we have enough to do some real testing. At this point, the potatoes may be tested for glycoalkaloids, a chemical which gives some potatoes, such as the Netted Gem, their characteristic bitter aftertaste.
If they pass the glycoalkaloid test, they go to the kitchen test. They get boiled and baked, mashed and fried. They get eaten. The ones that cook well and taste good get to stay.
The
potatoes still in the program are cut and planted out again. 
For
the next couple of years, they will be planted over and over,
until we have enough to see if people would like to buy them.
Market testing
begins. We ask people to come back next week and tell us what they thought of
the potatoes. They often surprise us. Some varieties develop a strong following
when we didn't expect it; others struggle along, never reaching the level of
popularity we original pictured for them. (Thanks, David, for letting us use
your picture.The ones people
ask for over and over again move to the next stage: national testing. They must
be tested in at least three regions of the country to prove that they are better
than the varieties available already. They have to show symptoms when infected
with various potato diseases, so they don't accidentally spread disease to other
varieties.
Finally, they go for registration. We have an agent who looks after the potatoes at this stage. They do the paperwork, get the potato "fingerprinted" (a DNA map), file the physical description of the potato and apply for Breeder's Rights. Once the potatoes are registered, they begin the task of promoting the new variety.
For a quick look at some of the varieties we've grown on the farm, follow this link.