saving seed

I wonder why in saving seeds we can only pick 6-8? My point in savings seeds is so I can have a LOT of variety.

Here is my list
Beans - eat them green, dry the seeds for dried beans
Pumpkins
Greens - spincah, kale, etc - vitamins, multi-cropping, colder weather croping
Broccoli
tomatoes
melons
corn

John, that is a great answer, and much more appropriate than your first. While your first reply was "legally" correct, I suspect everyone knows that it is hard to grow potatoes from potato seed (while it does exist). The answers concerning potatoes were in the spirit of the thread.... not in the spirit of correcting others that may not be completely scientific in their answer.

I would go with
Tomatoes.
Potatoes (from seed) after the first year I would save tubers.
Field corn (non-monsanto)
Wheat
Onions
Swiss chard
Basil

John: I apologize. I thought shQ was a typo. Haven't see the term befoe.

On potatoes 'seed' may be a misnomer. A seed potatoe is one which has been saved for that purpose and cut into sections, each containing at least one eye (sprout). Back in about 1952 my folks grew a very large patch. I remember mom sitting there cutting up potato after potato after potato. Wondering how they do it on large potatoe farms today. Anyone know?

I grow potatoes from the seed balls that form at the top of the plant. Heirlooms produce the most but so will hybrids (like Yukon Gold). One sowing of seed can give me many different looking and porducing plants. Most all will produce potato tubers. From those I can continue to select for the plants that have the characteristics I desire. Potatoes take longer to stabilize than other veggies and that is what keeps it interesting. It is practical as part of a long term sustainablility project but less so in an emergency food gathering situation.
If you are interested in learning more, checkout the breeding work of Tom Wagner, potato seed breeding specialist.

You asked about storing seeds. I put mine in large Plastic containers with desiccant in the Refer. Then when my storage area gets cool enough , the get moved to there.

Yes, actually I do know and have even owned such a device. In 1987 I attended a potato farm auction with the intent of purchasing a small potato digger.

The equipment fascinated me as I had never seen potato growing equipment nor none since. The grower had supplied potatoes to the chipping plant in Wichita.

At the end of the auction one piece of equipment sat in the yard unsold, that being a size sorter/cutter to produce the seed pieces. While I had no use for such an item it did have 4 or so good electric motors on it and many other pieces that I felt I could use/salvage. That said I offered the guy $50 for it and he accepted it just to get it out of his yard.

The machine was 4-5 feet wide and about 10 feet long. Potatoes were dumped into a low hopper at one end and then they traveled down a conveyor of rollers/chains. The openings of the rollers/chain changed spacing as the line moved along. The small potatoes would drop off first, then larger, then still larger, and finally the largest potatoes simply dropped off the end into a bin for hand cutting at a knife station by manual operation.

Each of the sorting points save for the last had automatic cutting. The larger the potato the more blades that cut it into sections with the end result of all seed pieces being of similar size.

I decided the machine was too valuable to waste for salvage and began to inquire around as to replacement rollers as they were rubber covered and hardened with some split.

I learned the mfg. had been out of business several years and that no replacement parts were readily available. Still feeling that the machine needed put to use than salvaged I contacted a vegetable equipment buyer and seller that advertised weekly for equipment to purchase.

I told the buyer what I had, the machine needs, and he offered me $200 via phone. From $50 to $200 for simply bringing the machine home and testing it with a 10# bag of potatoes worked for me. Even though I lost the salvage value of the motors and other parts I preferred to see the machine put back to its proper use rather than junked.

Too bad that I didn't at least take a photo of the machine or better yet have some video taken during the cutting of the 10# test.

This video on YouTube shows a machine that is much larger than the one I had. It doesn't show the cutting operation but does seem to show the size sorting and end product.

TPS is a topic which I do not think has ever been discussed on this forum. And there are many who haven't a clue as to what it is. For certain, were one to preserve potatoes in either a freezer or Svalbard, that's the only way. There is the small forum TaterMaterSeeds dedicated to mostly just potatoes and run by a person who creates hundreds of new varieties annually. I'm happy to note that I'm not the only one here familiar with Tom Wagner's work. One can visit it at: http://tatermater.proboards107.com/index.cgi?

So far, mostly good selections for what could amount to a small Doomsday stash. Originally I would have included a good lima bean or butterpea but a dual-purpose would give more meals in the end.

Martin

Thanks Windy in Kansas, I had never thought of it before ken's post but it had me wondering too. Too bad you didnt take a picture.

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Heirloom corn should be on top of everyone's list, since the bee population is slowly dwindling...

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Yes ago I had friends in the Dayton, OH area who tried a potato tower concept which, I believe, was in TMEN. They obtained about a dozen old tires about the same size. Seed potatoes planted in one. When plants started growing they would add another tire and a planting/potting mixture. Continued until they ran out of tires. Disassembled one tire at a time. As I recall they got what they considered to be an excellent harvest in a small bit of space.