There are 5,000 varieties of potatoes in the gene bank in Chile. Wotske, this year, is growing 17.
Wotske is Rosemary Wotske, owner of Poplar Bluff Farm near Strathmore in Canada, and more power to her. But what about this large potato genebank in Chile? That sounds interesting.
Too interesting, it turns out. Because of course there isn’t one, as anyone who has spent even five minutes looking into potato genebanks can ascertain. Or rather, there is a potato genebank in Chile but it’s got about 700 accessions and not 5,000 — or it did the last time the data in WIEWS were updated. And there is a much larger, international genebank not too far away, at the International Potato Center (CIP), but it’s got about 4,300 potato landraces, and Peru isn’t Chile is it?
CIP’s celebrated collection of Andean potato varieties is useless in long days. As short-day adapted plants, they will produce only foliage in Canada. That is why Chilean, or rather Chilotan (=from Chiloe) potatoes are so interesting. They resemble Andean varieties very much in texture, dry matter, internal colours, shapes, but will produce in long days (Chiloe is a lot further from the equator than Peru). I am not sure whether Andres Contreras is still active, but at some point he had a sizeable collection of Chilotan potatoes. Unfortunately, it never seems to have been duplicated outside Chile, which is a shame. Nor has there been much interest in Chilotan potatoes on the part of CIP. This link may help: http://www.papasnativasdechiloe.cl