Characteristics
Overview
A Clipping of a Potato Plant.
Use clones to breed, not only to copy. A clone keeps its parent's genes when you plant it, but at one point in its growth a plant can also pick up genes from the plants around it. Put the right neighbours together and that works for you.
Say your first round of potato seeds gave you two decent plants. One leans on growth, the other on yield, and neither has both. Take clones from each, then plant them in a large planter box in a chequer pattern, so every plant has neighbours from the other line.
- Keep wild seedlings and weak plants out of that box, since bad genes pass to neighbours even more easily than good ones.
- Inspect every plant once it has grown past the stage where genes mix.
- Take clones from any plant that came out with growth and yield together.
It can take a couple of rounds. The plant that finally reads close to perfect is the one whose clones fill every bed afterwards, and from then on each harvest hands you more potatoes for the same work.
