Jessie Keith
Family
Solanaceae
Botanical Name
Solanum tuberosum 'Red Cloud'
Plant Common Name
Late Potato, Potato, Red Cloud Potato, Red Potato
General Description
The disease resistant, red-skinned potato, 'Red Cloud', is high-performing and has flavorful smooth white flesh. This vigorous 1993 introduction was bred at the University of Nebraska by Alexander D. Pavlista and Robert B. O'Keefe and developed primarily as a fresh table potato for boiling, mashing and baking. They named it for a great Sioux chief who lived in Nebraska and South Dakota. It is an early to mid-season potato with a spreading habit and tubers that are ready for harvest 70 to 90 days after planting. Excellent disease resistance is another of its traits; it is highly resistant to scab and moderately resistant to early dying (Verticillium dahliae), dry rot (Fusarium spp.), and early blight (Alternaria solani).
Potatoes are tender perennials widely cultivated as seasonal annual crops. They are bushy and have crinkled compound green foliage. Their small, star-shaped flowers bloom in late spring or summer and often lack fertile male pollen. Those of 'Red Cloud' are pinkish white. Bees pollinate the fertile blooms and small, round, seed-filled fruits follow that are greenish yellow.
The starchy potato tubers develop from underground stems. The skin of 'Red Cloud' tubers is rich red with creamy white flesh inside. The small, shallow, pinkish eyes on each tuber are leaf buds that can sprout to form new plants. All green parts of a potato plant are poisonous.
Grow potatoes in full sun and fertile, rich, loamy soil that’s evenly moist but well-drained. Plant seed potatoes deep along berms to increase productivity and make harvest easier. Drought stress and high heat will reduce productivity significantly. The potato is a cool season crop typically grown when conditions are moderately warm and pleasant. In frost-free, subtropical areas they are grown in winter or spring when conditions are more favorable.
Potato beetles are the chief pest and must be regularly removed or they will completely defoliate a plant in no time. Fungal blights also destroy crops. Regular rotation of potato crops will reduce the instances of re-infection with soil-borne fungal diseases.
Potatoes are rarely propagated by seed. Instead, whole small tubers or chunks of tubers with eyes are planted. These are called "seed potatoes" and produce exact clones of parent plants. In temperate regions potatoes should be planted one to three weeks before the last frost date. Though susceptible to frost, they are slow to emerge from the soil. The new shoots can be protected from late frosts with frost cloth. As plants emerge, the soil can be mounded even higher around them to build the hill. Any exposed tubers should be immediately covered because sunlight causes them to turn green and green potatoes are inedible.
After flowering, the plants start to develop their tubers. Once the foliage begins to turn yellow, the tubers may be dug up and eaten, though it is common to raid potato mounds early for new potatoes. The tubers should be stored in a cool, dry, dark location where they can last for months. Never chill potatoes as this will cause them to become sweet and unpalatable.
