tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-230478572024-03-18T09:48:54.523+00:00Daughter of the SoilAdventures in experimental horticultureRebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-4602936263746162912019-08-18T20:24:00.000+01:002019-08-18T20:24:02.381+01:00Pink-flowered peas (Alderman x Salmon Flowered)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was more than a decade ago that I made a cross between <b>Alderman</b> and <b>Salmon Flowered</b>, two heritage peas, with the vague dream of producing a good tasting culinary pea with pink flowers. But as my other three major pea-breeding projects took up more and more of my time, it kind of went by the wayside.<br />
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Just to recap: <b>Alderman</b> is a tall, elegant shelling pea with white flowers, introduced in 1891. Its flavour is outstanding, which is probably why it's one of the only Victorian tall peas which is still commonly available today. It's far and away my favourite shelling pea, and while there are a few others which can rival it for flavour when they're young, Alderman stays exquisitely delicious even when the peas are at full size and maturity, and I haven't found anything else that can match it. It has large, well-filled pods on large plants, its only disadvantage (if you consider it a disadvantage) is that it's quite late maturing. <b>Salmon Flowered</b> is a real rarity, whose seed I got from the Heritage Seed Library many years ago. It's an umbellatum-type pea, which means it has a heavily fasciated (thickened) stem with all the flower buds borne in a great clump at the top. The flowers bloom more or less all at once and the pods form in a big clump, sticking out in all directions. There were a few of these varieties around in the 19th century but they're no longer commercially available – and in terms of flavour and yield they can't really compete with modern varieties. But Salmon Flowered (not its real name, which has been lost*) has really beautiful and unusual bicolour pink flowers which I haven't seen in any 'normal' pea at all. The wing petals are a peachy salmon pink and the standard is a very pale blush pink.<br />
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*A Swedish heritage pea called <b>Rosakrone</b> is now available from <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/peas.html" target="_blank">Real Seeds</a> and is very, very similar to Salmon Flowered. I grew some Rosakrone this year to see just how similar it was, and while I'd say it's not absolutely identical, it is similar enough that they're most likely different stocks of the same original variety. The pink flowers are very much the same colour.<br />
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So the purpose of hybridising Alderman with Salmon Flowered was to see if I could breed the pink flower trait into a crop of otherwise normal garden peas – using Alderman as the benchmark because of its exceptional flavour.<br />
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Back in 2010 I grew out the F1 seeds from my <b>Alderman x Salmon Flowere</b>d cross and wrote about it <a href="https://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2010/06/gene-genie.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The F1 plants all had bicolour purple flowers, which might seem like an absolutely bizarre thing to get from a cross between a white flowered and a pink flowered pea, but actually it's what I'd expected. Purple bicolour is the ancestral default flower colour for peas (not just culinary peas but also the sweet pea <i>Lathyrus odoratus</i>) and the only reason why most garden peas DON'T have purple flowers is that they've all been bred to have a recessive gene which <i>suppresses the production of anthocyanin pigment</i> in the plant. I went into some detail about that in my original post about this cross, so I won't repeat it all here, but suffice to say that <b>Alderman</b>'s pure snow white blossoms are not due to any 'white flower' gene as such, they're caused by the presence of this gene which switches off the expression of purple colour so that the flowers are white by default. <b>Salmon Flowered</b> doesn't carry this colour-suppressing gene – it can't do, or it wouldn't have pink flowers – so when you make a cross between a variety which has the pigment-suppressing gene and one which doesn't, the F1 generation will default to the dominant condition – which is for colour to be expressed. Being the dominant ancestral trait, purple flowers prevail. But on a genetic level, the recessive half of the gene pair, which forces the flowers to turn white, is still there and ready to be passed on to a large proportion of the F2 offspring.<br />
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I only have a modest sized garden and very limited free time so the focus on my breeding for coloured pods (edible fibreless coloured pods at that) took up more attention and space for the next few years and the Alderman x Salmon Flowered went by the wayside. I had the bag of F2 seed which I produced in 2010, but hadn't sown them. So this 2019 crop was another "back from the dead" miracle story.<br />
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I found the F2 seeds in a box, and thought about how nice it would be to work on breeding for flower colour for a change, rather than pesky pod colour. But seeds from 2010 were only fit for the bin, surely? I had to do a quick test though rather than lob them straight out, so they went into a tray of water, alongside some other decrepit sideline projects.<br />
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I don't normally soak pea seeds or recommend soaking pea seeds. I was doing it here because it was just a germination test on 9-year-old seeds, and they were not expected to sprout. However, almost all of them did.<br />
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This goes against everything I've been taught about pea seeds. 1-2 years is commonly given as a pea seed lifespan. Some people report them lasting a bit longer if you store them in the fridge or the freezer. But mine hadn't had any special storage conditions. They were in plastic bags inside a cat food box on top of my bookcase. The 16 seeds (of quite diverse size and colour, being F2s) in the top right of the photo above became 16 sprightly little plants in a frame in the garden.<br />
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I didn't see any loss of vigour from the seed being nine years old. In fact one of the plants turned into the most productive pea I've ever grown, producing large numbers of pods on a multitude of sideshoots. That one will be covered in another blog post later, along with a couple of other interesting things which emerged from this growout.<br />
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I labelled the plants individually and numbered them from 1 to 16, and took notes on them as they grew, paying particular attention to the colour and density of the axillary pigmentation (the pinky purple splodges where the leaves join the stem) as I've increasingly noticed a significant correlation between axil splodges and the eventual flower colour and/or pod colour.<br />
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Well, I already knew that the F1 had produced purple flowers, so what was I expecting to get from the F2? In a sample size of only 16, I wouldn't expect to get perfect Mendelian ratios for anything, but still there are general trends to look out for. The first would be the colour-suppressing gene discussed above. That should, in theory, turn up as white flowers in about one in four of the F2 plants. In the event, I only had one plant with white flowers (plant no.7), but that's enough to show that the inheritance of that trait is working as expected. In this project, the colour-suppressing gene is not what I want, and I will have to select against it in future years as well, as it will be lurking as a hidden recessive in many of the other plants even though they didn't have white flowers.<br />
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Of those which showed coloured flowers, I was expecting a majority to have purple bicolour flowers like the F1, as that's controlled by dominant genes and is the trait most likely to express itself. I know very little about the genetics behind pink flowers in peas, if I'm honest, but I was pretty sure it would be a recessive trait and so I had my fingers crossed that it would turn up in a proportion (maybe one in four) of the non-white plants.<br />
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And voilà!<br />
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It actually turned up in exactly four plants, numbers 3, 6, 10 and 15, which is close to being a Mendelian ratio. These all produced flowers which were a very consistent shade of pink, that is, they were all bicolour pinks with peachy salmon wings and a pale blush pink standard. There was no variation in the expression of the pink colour, other than some differences in how the colour changed over time as the pigment broke down in the fading flowers, where some turned a more dusky, rosy pink than others. But in terms of the essential flower colour, they were identical to one another and identical to the colour of the parent plant, Salmon Flowered, which provided the pink gene. They did all have somewhat larger flowers than Salmon Flowered – flower size was more consistent with that of Alderman – but that's controlled by a different genetic locus.<br />
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They were absolutely beautiful and I was thrilled with them.<br />
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A second recessive trait which I was expecting to show up in one in four plants was the umbellatum form – which as far as I know is a simple recessive gene which causes the flowers and pods all to bunch together in a cluster on top of a fattened stem. But having never done breeding work with umbellatum-type peas before, I couldn't be sure how this would work out in practice. Again though, it turned out much as predicted. Only two plants, plants 5 and 9, were of the umbellatum type, which is a bit short of a Mendelian ratio but close enough to show the principle of it. There were no intermediate types, all the plants were either umbellatum or non-umbellatum. As far as this project is concerned, the umbellatum trait is not a desirable one and so I'll be having to select against it until all the hidden recessives are eliminated from future generations. The two plants which had this trait were both purple flowered anyway. It may not be a desired trait in this cross but it does look quite spectacular!<br />
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All of the pink-flowered plants had what you might call 'normal' form. They produced two large flowers per node, which gave rise to large green pods, much like Alderman. The umbellatum types did tend towards very slightly smaller pods, whereas all the non-umbellatum types had normal size pods, which suggests that smaller pods are a byproduct of the fasciation trait in umbellatum peas. It may simply be that the plant doesn't have enough energy to produce the flowers and pods all together at the same time without compromising on size a little bit. If there was a genetic cause, i.e. a gene in Salmon Flowered which made its pods smaller (as they ARE quite small) then I would expect that trait to segregate randomly through the F2 plants – but it didn't.<br />
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Axillary pigmentation is another interesting one. It occurs in all (in my experience) peas with coloured flowers. A purple-pink splodge at the point where leaf meets stem is invariably seen in a plant with purple bicolour flowers. The purple blotch is made from anthocyanin pigment, so it's subject to the action of the same colour-suppressing gene which causes white flowers. A pea with white flowers will have no pigment in the axils at all, because this gene switches off all production of anthocyanin pigment throughout the whole plant. So in a cross between a white-flowered and a coloured-flowered pea, like this one, the presence or absence of colour in the leaf axils is a very early indicator of whether the plant will eventually have white or coloured flowers. The axil pigment usually shows up quite early in the seedling stage, when they've produced their first couple of sets of true leaves.<br />
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In the case of this hybrid, the Salmon Flowered parent variety has an unusual kind of axillary pigmentation. It's lighter than the usual type – in fact it's a dusky rose pink, and very soft and subtle. I was thinking it's probably not a coincidence that a variety with unusual pink flowers also has unusual pink axillary pigmentation – there's probably a meaningful correlation between the two. So I was watching my F2 seedlings to see if there was any sign of this correlation, and there was.<br />
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The photo shows the subtle dusky pink pigment in the axil of <b>ASF 06</b>, one of the pink-flowered phenotypes. All the other pink-flowered ones had this as well, while the purple-flowered ones had the more normal blotch of purple colour in the leaf axils, and the white-flowered plant had none at all, as expected.<br />
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This is bloody useful, actually. If the colour in the leaf axil is a reliable indicator of flower colour, which it does seem to be, subject to errors of interpretation when the shade is a bit ambiguous, then it means you can identify the flower colour a good month or two before they flower.<br />
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Right then, so the appearance of pink flowers in roughly a quarter of the F2 plants suggests a fairly straightforward recessive gene at work. I'm sure there is some info out there somewhere about how this works, but the details of which genes control which traits are often buried in papers in academic journals which I don't readily have access to – and even when I do get hold of them, I struggle to make sense of the scientific jargon and it makes my brain hurt. So in my layperson ignorance I'm going to make a speculative guess about what's happening with this pink flower business.<br />
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I think that a pink-flowered pea is essentially a purple-flowered pea which has come under the influence of a modifier gene – probably just a single, recessive modifier gene. I think this modifier gene acts on the chemical makeup of the anthocyanin pigment, suppressing the production of blue pigment while leaving red pigment unaffected, so that the flower comes out pink instead of purple.<br />
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There are two reasons why I think that. The first is to do with the axillary pigmentation. If there was a gene specifically coding for pink flowers, I can't see why it would affect the colour of the axils as well. But clearly it does, because pink flowers and pink axils go together. Which suggests a modifier gene having a blanket effect on anthocyanin production throughout the whole plant.<br />
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The second reason I think this is the case is because of a study which has been done on sweet peas, which are a different genus from edible peas but have a lot in common with them. As I mentioned earlier, the default ancestral colour for sweet peas is a purple bicolour, but some time in the 18th century a mutation occurred which gave us the lovely pink-and-white bicolour known as Painted Lady, which is still widely available today. A <a href="https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjps-2017-0238#.XVmTWJP0kW9" target="_blank">study was published</a> in 2017 in the Canadian Journal of Plant Science on the genetic basis of this mutation, and although I don't have access to the paper itself there was enough information in the abstract to tell me what I needed to know: a single base pair mutation means that the flower is lacking the blue pigment known as delphinidin, which is one of the anthocyanins which make up the purple colour in sweet peas. In the absence of delphinidin, the flower becomes pink. In simple terms, if you imagine that the colour of the purple flower is made from layers of translucent blue and pink, removing the blue layer leaves you with just pink.<br />
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So that's what I think is probably happening in <i>Pisum sativum</i> as well. If you look at the pink flowers in my F2 plants, they are all bicolours. They are all essentially the same, there's no variation in the colouring. So it seems quite plausible that they are meant to be the default purple bicolours, and that a recessive gene has come along and deleted the production of delphinidin (or whatever blue pigment they're supposed to have) and this salmon-pink bicolour is the result.<br />
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As I said, this is just my speculation! I'm sure there are people out there who know more about it than me.<br />
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This is turning into a very long post, but I have learned such a lot from growing these sixteen F2 plants!<br />
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So let's finish up with a bit about the pods and peas. This project is not seeking to produce edible pods or coloured pods: both parents are green-podded shelling peas, and all the offspring are green-podded shelling peas as well. My aim was to get the kind of big, plump green pods and fat peas found in Alderman, and not so much of the small pods and small peas of Salmon Flowered. In this, the F2 generation has given me what I wanted, because all the non-umbellatum type plants produced pretty good pods and most had good sized peas.<br />
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I did some taste tests as well. I was hoping to get as close as possible to the sweet and complex flavour of Alderman and not so much of the pleasant but rather mealy taste of Salmon Flowered. In this I was also very lucky. I tasted three out of the four pink-flowered phenotypes and they all had very good tasting peas, with <b>ASF 06</b> being the best. Unfortunately <b>ASF 10</b>, which was a lovely plant with beautiful flowers, died prematurely after getting its main stem damaged in a storm. It had only just begun setting pods at that stage and the peas inside were still very immature. I thought I had nothing to lose by leaving the pods on the plant as long as possible in the hope that they would use the residual energy of the plant to carry on maturing a bit. And they did. When I finally harvested the pods, the peas were still quite small but they look like they might, just might, be mature enough to germinate. I didn't eat any of these – I wanted to conserve as many as I possibly could.<br />
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Here are the seeds from the four pink-flowered plants after being harvested and dried. As you can see there are a few differences between them. They all have subtle purple speckles on them, except for the salvaged seeds of <b>ASF 10</b>, which were not fully mature. <b>ASF 15</b> has more of a green colour to its seeds, while <b>ASF 06</b> and <b>ASF 15</b> have a mixture of green and tan. The tan seeds are a trait inherited from Salmon Flowered, which also seems to be related, albeit loosely, to the pink flower trait. You may also notice that <b>ASF 06</b> in particular has some variation between wrinkled seeds and rounded, dimpled seeds. The wrinkled ones are a rule-of-thumb indication of sweetness in peas, because sugar shrinks more than starch does. I probably won't select out the wrinkled ones next year though, I'll grow a bit of both, but I might possibly separate them out into different halves of the seed tray so that I can keep track of whether there's any correlation between wrinkled seeds and sweeter flavour.<br />
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That's it now, until next year when I can grow the F3. I would expect all four of the pink-flowered peas to breed true for the pink colour, as it's a recessive trait and they must be homozygous for that trait. It's likely that some of the purple-flowered phenotypes are heterozygous for pink flowers, and will produce a few of them in their offspring – so I will probably grow out some of the best of those to see if I can get some more pinks. But either way, I'm extremely pleased with what has come out of this F2 crop and I'm feeling quite optimistic about the prospect of getting peas with pink blossoms <i>and</i> lovely flavour, within a couple more years.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-52011434794152610392019-08-09T21:48:00.001+01:002019-08-10T01:02:09.968+01:00Red-podded pea update: the F6 crop and beyond<style type="text/css">
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Ever since I first had a red-podded pea turn up (completely unexpectedly) in a breeding project in 2008, I’ve had a bit of a frustrating time trying to get it into a form which is worth releasing into the world. Not that I’ve been trying continually, because I haven’t been able to maintain the garden every year during the last few years, but it has had me scratching my head trying to come up with a way of producing edible pods with this rich crimson colour. Finally, in 2019, I had a significant breakthrough.</div>
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The original red-podded pea plant, numbered <b>GSC 15</b> in my breeding project, was an F2 from a cross between <b>Golden Sweet</b> and <b>Carruthers’ Purple Podded</b>. The purpose of the cross was to breed a new purple mangetout pea for Ben Gabel at <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/index.html" target="_blank">Real Seeds</a>, but neither Ben or I had any idea that crossing a yellow pea with a purple one would result in a red colour. It was only this one plant which produced red pods, and it happened because it was a yellow-podded pea with a solid layer of purple pigment on top. The pigment is translucent, so the yellow shining through from under the purple creates a beautiful glowing red, like stained glass.</div>
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This breeding line, which is currently somewhere around an F6 or an F7, is now a stable, true-breeding variety. It’s reliable and consistent for all its traits, except one: it still turns up a small minority of offspring whose pods are not fully red. It doesn’t tend to throw any plain yellows any more, at least not in the growouts I’ve done, but it will produce some semi-red plants which look like the red pigment has just been sprayed around the edge, and some which have a jagged, flamed pattern of solid red on a yellow background. I think these are caused when one or other of the two dominant genes for purple pods is unable to express itself. But WHY it can’t express itself I don’t really know. All I know is that it happens often enough to be a thing, and on that basis I don’t think the semi-reds will cease appearing no matter how many years are spent trying to rogue them out. They just have to be accepted as the nature of the beast, and besides, I had one semi-red this year which I liked enough to want to keep it, if I can persuade it to become a variety in its own right.</div>
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<i>One of the semi-red phenotypes. I believe it's probably caused by co-dominance between purple and non-purple genes. Because of that, no amount of 'roguing out' will eradicate these oddities, which show up in a small minority of offspring.</i></div>
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But anyway, having reached the F6 generation this stable red-podded variety still has a problem, and the problem is not going to go away. It doesn’t taste good, either as a shelling pea or a mangetout. It has a gristly layer of fibre inside the pod which makes it unsuitable for eating even when it’s small, and if you shell out the peas to eat fresh they are starchy as hell, with a bitter aftertaste. The genes controlling flavour in peas are complicated, but the situation here is very simple – it is true-breeding for crap flavour.</div>
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It does, however, look truly stunning.</div>
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It’s possible that it will find a use as a soup pea, maybe becoming edible when it’s dried and then boiled for ages. The jury’s still out on that one. But in its current form it’s not suitable for unleashing on the world, and will have to be considered a breeding line. To that end, I grew out a batch of seeds in 2019 which had been in storage for 4 or 5 years, just to replenish my stock of seed. I saved seeds from the best ones (which was most of them, as it’s certainly a fine-looking variety) and saved the rest for taste-testing in the kitchen, some time when I can be arsed to boil up a vat of pease pudding.</div>
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So, what to do? I need red-podded peas with edible pods. And ones which taste nice.</div>
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When I did my initial report on the edible-pods frustration nearly ten years ago, I said there were five things I could do about it. Here they are again, with the results of my efforts.</div>
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<span class="s1"><b>1. Stand in the middle of the garden and shout "BOLLOCKS!" in a really loud voice.</b> Yep, done that.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>2. Grow out the remaining F2 seeds (about 20 left) in the hope of finding another red-podded phenotype but with edible pods.</b> This didn’t provide what I was looking for, but I did find an extremely nice purple mangetout (the whole point of the breeding project in the first place) which I selected and re-selected in the F3 and named Barcarolle.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>3. Grow out the remaining F1 seeds to get more F2 seed.</b> I tried this, as part of a belt and braces approach. Growing out more of the F1 took a year but it yielded plenty of seed. I grew a batch of F2s in 2019 and some of them were quite nice but no, I didn’t get the tasty-edible-red-podder I wanted.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>4. Switch to another line of F3 seed, even though none of them are proper red-podders.</b> This was always a good bet, because some of the necessary traits for red mangetout pods are recessive genes which may be hiding in the DNA of a plant which isn’t showing it. For example, yellow is the base colour for red pods and you can’t get red pods without the recessive ‘golden pod’ gene known as <b>gp</b>. The laws of probability suggest that two out of three of the F3 lines should carry the <b>gp</b> gene, even though they don’t themselves have yellow pods. Also, the two genes which produce edible (fibreless) pods are both recessive, so a goodly proportion of inedble-podded lines could produce edible-podded offspring.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Although only one of my original batch had properly red pods, I did get a couple of peachy-coloured or semi-red mangetout lines. My efforts revolved around these, as they were so “nearly there” – they had sweet-flavoured edible pods and a beautiful fiery blush. But sadly the fully red colour didn’t show up in their offspring either.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But although I didn’t get anywhere with the ‘peachy’ F3 lines, it was another F3 line which gave me my breakthrough in 2019, in a completely unexpected place: my <b>Barcarolle purple mangetouts</b>.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>5. Grow more of the original red-podded F2 and cross it with something else.</b> I tried a lot of this as well, but it's the most time-consuming option and I don't have many results yet, so I’ll report on it another time.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: small;">Barcarolle purple mangetout</span></b></div>
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Right then, this is what happened with the breakthrough. Alongside my growout of red-podded peas this year, I planted 16 seeds of my newly developed purple mangetout. Sixteen plants is not very many, but I’m doing all my breeding work on a very small scale in my back garden, so that’s all I have room for.</div>
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<b>Barcarolle</b> is a very promising variety which originated from the same cross as the red podders – <b>Golden Sweet x Carruthers’ Purple Podded.</b> I selected an F2 plant a few years ago which had beautiful dark velvety purple pods – a really solid dark purple, which is not something you get all that often in peas. As the peas start to swell inside the pod, they bulge through the pod wall and look like a row of little blackcurrants. The reason this happens is because there’s no fibrous membrane inside the pod, like you’d get with a shelling pea. It takes two recessive genes to get the pod walls completely fibreless like this, and it’s a desirable trait to have because it means the pods are fully edible at all stages of development – they don’t go coarse and gristly. I also got lucky with the flavour, as the pods tasted sweet and juicy and were pretty much stringless. Again, this is an uncommon thing to find in a purple-podded pea, because the purple colour is often associated with a slightly bitter flavour. It’s not that the pigment itself is bitter tasting, but there’s some kind of gene linkage going on which means that the purple pod genes are usually inherited alongside some less-desirable flavour genes. This was by far the best purple podded pea I’d ever tasted so I was well chuffed with this plant.</div>
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The following year I grew out the F3 generation, and to my delight, it came almost completely true to type. I had expected a few unwanted recessives to show up, but they didn’t. The F3 plants were as uniformly purple and bobbly and sweet and juicy as the previous year’s plant. I don’t always name my breeding projects at this relatively early stage, but it seemed like it was going to be quick and easy to make it into a stabilised variety so I gave it the name Barcarolle. (In case you’re wondering, I play the piano and I’m a big fan of Chopin.)</div>
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So then I grew out this batch of F4 plants in 2019, and, well, to say they began to segregate is an understatement. They segregated like buggery. Fortunately they all had the bobbly edible pods (a recessive feature), but they varied in size, flavour, number of pods per node, and most of all they varied for pod colour. In my batch of 16 plants, I ended up with four different pod colours – purple, green, yellow and red!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitU1IXavHDYcNnc5_xFVgnbfsF4KBoEfhLfeGAyjjeIKhCXELFYX_Ts-aiFXxOTTjs0IBRtETLu_bexuGSQqhbQGhi8ZWcFLg6HyNMfQ67aOS1HYGKx1PILwS6ZlA35ZirsD_x-Q/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitU1IXavHDYcNnc5_xFVgnbfsF4KBoEfhLfeGAyjjeIKhCXELFYX_Ts-aiFXxOTTjs0IBRtETLu_bexuGSQqhbQGhi8ZWcFLg6HyNMfQ67aOS1HYGKx1PILwS6ZlA35ZirsD_x-Q/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0010.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>My 2019 crop of Barcarolle F4 purple mangetouts, segregating for four different pod colours ... aaargh!</i></div>
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I must admit I don’t quite know why this happened. It doesn’t make sense for a variety which is true-to-type in the F3 to suddenly start segregating like mad in the F4. The most likely explanation, I think, is that I happened to grow out (by chance) only seeds which were heterozygous for pod colour in the F3 generation, so they all showed the dominant purple colour but they still had the recessive genes squirrelled away in their genome. Given that I work with such small sample sizes, this is entirely possible. But anyway, who cares – the thing that matters is that I ended up with no less than four red-podded plants, all of them with lovely juicy edible pods. This is such a holy grail for me, some 13 years after I made the original cross, that I spent an awful lot of time just standing in the garden gawping at it.</div>
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<i>The purple pods on the left are what Barcarolle is supposed to look like, but it came out with these red podded variants as well.</i></div>
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In some ways I probably shouldn’t be surprised to be getting red pods segregating out from Barcarolle. The only difference between red pods and purple pods is the base colour of the pod – green for purple-podders and yellow for red-podders. Barcarolle is derived from a yellow-podded parent, so the presence of the recessive <b>gp</b> (golden pod) gene shouldn’t be a surprise. I might have saved myself some grief if I’d tried looking for it here earlier.</div>
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As well as being exactly what I’ve been looking for for the last decade, the Barcarolle red-podders have some other advantages over my original red-podded pea. The red colour itself is a bit brighter – more scarlet than crimson. Both colours are equally nice when the pods are young, but one slight flaw in the original variety is that the red tends to darken as the pod matures, until they start to look purple rather than red. The reason for this is not a change in the pigment itself, it’s because of the natural darkening of the base colour of the pod. As yellow pods age, they tend to go more green – a trait seen in the parent variety <b>Golden Sweet</b> – and a greener pod means the pigment appears more purple. In the Barcarolle-derived red-podders, the pods stay yellow right through to maturity, and so the pigment continues to look red for a lot longer. I don’t know what subtle genes are responsible for this difference, but it was consistent across all four of the plants in this batch.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The best of them was the plant known as </span><b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">BRC 16</b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> (above), which was hugely productive. It grew to around 7ft tall and not</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">only produced two pods per node, it also developed fully productive sideshoots – a rare thing in peas – and bore good quality pods on those as well. It also did very well in the looks department, having beautiful colour-changing flowers borne on stems with a lot of bright scarlet colour and pretty pink mottling on the calyx. <b>BRC 14</b></span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">and <b>BRC 06</b> were both very similar but not quite as vigorous. The best one for flavour was <b>BRC 11</b> which had a fantastic juicy raw flavour, like apples!</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_2Dt9rHuqQIaYd3dK5m1tStapzn1bAWP9ytVWwt6TvsR7UK-Yd5MLeI9adT9kDiGb7FpfvRV-0ZIihBrLPCBbFg2vwCYId3gDWLIPAMI1nI8MXr57yAfa87HgDiJkMFkWndCk6A/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="487" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_2Dt9rHuqQIaYd3dK5m1tStapzn1bAWP9ytVWwt6TvsR7UK-Yd5MLeI9adT9kDiGb7FpfvRV-0ZIihBrLPCBbFg2vwCYId3gDWLIPAMI1nI8MXr57yAfa87HgDiJkMFkWndCk6A/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0019.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I do want to develop a red-podded pea which tastes good raw, because the colour is spoiled by cooking. With any red-podded or purple-podded pea, if you cook it any way other than the lightest steaming, the colour just disappears into the cooking water. No amount of careful breeding is going to resolve this, because it’s in the nature of the pigment itself – anthocyanin, which is water-soluble, and that’s just the way it is. So the only thing a plant breeder can do to get around this is to develop varieties which taste so good raw you won’t need to cook them.</span></div>
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Now, of course, I will have to wait until next year before I can grow out the offspring and see how they look. But I’m very optimistic. And I still have the purple-podded Barcarolle line which, once I’ve stabilised it, will be a wonderful variety in its own right. The red-podded line is not named yet, but I have another year or two to think about it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYfJXGsVTSlsxhJrvrTDFcsJpic2MQngXac5J5aeQqmGYaB_VkGD36fRTjWlP5JmkGoHph9Ku8K_qA-yn5Qb1HRMTQRpGEyVy5cSI07zm2ZNHn9hv-JgHbY8JaLCcVTgkZpwYYg/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYfJXGsVTSlsxhJrvrTDFcsJpic2MQngXac5J5aeQqmGYaB_VkGD36fRTjWlP5JmkGoHph9Ku8K_qA-yn5Qb1HRMTQRpGEyVy5cSI07zm2ZNHn9hv-JgHbY8JaLCcVTgkZpwYYg/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0015.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>The Barcarolle-derived red peas have beautiful bicolour flowers which turn blue as they fade, like these on <b>BRC 16</b>.</i></span></div>
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</style>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-77268559570988638642019-07-20T14:49:00.000+01:002019-08-12T12:37:49.354+01:00Sweet pea curiosity<span id="goog_587497261"></span><span id="goog_587497262"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibci2yqJV9qONZhry0b1E9vR2yzP626GBhzGBYjG5Jo6poqfCdhl2roFBHpn0Ac4_HpBOcDwiIaZlrQYOAoMDIZ5qAbkhoo9T_H_iqQdd6l3oxamlrSuPq3QwctWiNszJsCxe44Q/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibci2yqJV9qONZhry0b1E9vR2yzP626GBhzGBYjG5Jo6poqfCdhl2roFBHpn0Ac4_HpBOcDwiIaZlrQYOAoMDIZ5qAbkhoo9T_H_iqQdd6l3oxamlrSuPq3QwctWiNszJsCxe44Q/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0030.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>Two different flower colours from the same batch of seed.</i><br />
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One of my favourite sweet peas is a variety called <b>Nimbus</b>, and I grew a couple of batches in the garden this year. It's a widely available variety and (unusually for me, as I mostly use well-off-the-mainstream seed suppliers) I got the seeds from Thompson & Morgan.<br />
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Nimbus is a dark purple striped variety ('striped' being the official way of describing this type of colour pattern). Most of the plants in this batch are exactly that. And then there's one which looks like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijWJYwWnobScUn1Y3KzueCEW90YOGeE3CDSLaICY3zLY-9Z_eY8ZcI6QQliq6dgS60XdD8JBwVtTewiOwUMrZnhiC_TQ_o1ZVlixTKMXtItCSwXHguq0IOyUOffz6bSkAOWenlVA/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijWJYwWnobScUn1Y3KzueCEW90YOGeE3CDSLaICY3zLY-9Z_eY8ZcI6QQliq6dgS60XdD8JBwVtTewiOwUMrZnhiC_TQ_o1ZVlixTKMXtItCSwXHguq0IOyUOffz6bSkAOWenlVA/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0024.jpg" /></a></div>
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Whereas Nimbus is supposed to look more like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3KR1A42h1fZ9iyg80j3W0hdjRMnRCWMJJmAaUsB-Lte6UByQCK8_qE1lmwVl5WkW2H06hyWZ5ynHKoo5RqjTvJ69-3ze5sYSOUEMorjV4HTWZCPZZPb3FtDO5_qTip4oWR90fw/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="549" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3KR1A42h1fZ9iyg80j3W0hdjRMnRCWMJJmAaUsB-Lte6UByQCK8_qE1lmwVl5WkW2H06hyWZ5ynHKoo5RqjTvJ69-3ze5sYSOUEMorjV4HTWZCPZZPb3FtDO5_qTip4oWR90fw/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0026.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMtcWO9wTHRqFPuo-d5z1W28l2YWf7hMJlevjWeZG4ZOGYclpurJPqUTBv_i9p7fIzzHUNse1vCDFCXrQaanqDBIbEvq5PxxaQA2T7uvm-3NHFYE5fZ65FrWCcZvbJSITQw1fSw/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMtcWO9wTHRqFPuo-d5z1W28l2YWf7hMJlevjWeZG4ZOGYclpurJPqUTBv_i9p7fIzzHUNse1vCDFCXrQaanqDBIbEvq5PxxaQA2T7uvm-3NHFYE5fZ65FrWCcZvbJSITQw1fSw/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0029.jpg" /></a></div>
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So, it's a rogue. It's one of those things which is not supposed to turn up in a batch of commercial seed and which would normally be instantly torn out and bundled off to the compost heap in order to preserve the integrity of the variety.<br />
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I quite like it though. So it's not going to be exterminated. I want to find out what it is and what it's doing in a packet of otherwise fairly normal Nimbus seeds. As far as I can see there are four possibilities.<br />
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<b>1. It might be a sport, or spontaneous mutation.</b> Sweet peas are very prone to this, so it's a strong possibility.<br />
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<b>2. It might be an accidental hybrid, if some stray pollen from another variety 'contaminated' the plants during seed production.</b> This is also possible. Sweet peas normally self-pollinate, but that doesn't mean they can't get crossed accidentally, in some circumstances.<br />
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<b>3. It might be an 'off type' or rogue inherent in Nimbus as a variety.</b> In which case, other people have probably come across it as well, and I'd be interested to hear from them.<br />
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<b>4. It might be a different variety, which got mixed into a batch of Nimbus seeds by mistake.</b> This is also something that easily happens, and there are one or two other sweet peas which have a similar appearance.<br />
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Probably the only way to find out is to save seeds from the rogue plant and sow them next year to see what they do. If it's an accidental hybrid, I will probably get a lot of segregation – which is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned (though it's something which would make many gardeners fling their hands up in horror). Of all the above possibilities, I think no.4 is probably unlikely, because although there ARE magenta/maroon striped sweet peas in existence, this one really does look like Nimbus in every respect other than the flower colour. So I think one of the rogue-of-Nimbus explanations is more likely.<br />
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My instinctive feeling is that it's a sport, because it looks to me as though the dark purple colour of Nimbus is made by combining a basic magenta colour with a blue overlay over the top (I say that because some Nimbus flowers show traces of magenta as the flowers fade), so this oddity looks to be the basic Nimbus colour without the blue overlay.<br />
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Anyway, I won't know until next year, so here are a few other pictures of my favourite sweet peas in the meantime.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiER7LGuTdx5KjvlI5cnwsHh_ZE_TU8qEyS1khI45wGOeryPVlEwL9X35uBgEYYNjoPz11aorHO-e-nwekZ5pepAlgEODeW2xhihDgE29ulxb26je8l0y9RDAw5YHzgfbjzDoy2cg/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="485" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiER7LGuTdx5KjvlI5cnwsHh_ZE_TU8qEyS1khI45wGOeryPVlEwL9X35uBgEYYNjoPz11aorHO-e-nwekZ5pepAlgEODeW2xhihDgE29ulxb26je8l0y9RDAw5YHzgfbjzDoy2cg/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0021.jpg" /></a></div>
<i><b>Painted Lady</b> is one of my top favourites, and a little piece of garden history. As a named variety it dates back to at least the mid-18th century, which is quite remarkable, as it pre-dates culinary peas as we know them today. It's also a beautiful, elegant, unassuming variety with a lovely colour and an exquisite scent.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghViry3C4XkF3JIrJIE5BBC02-Tq__YppPpdDaJjHG72H9S5ayhOU5NnSb7jogcTnyMZQ7EZ_Efz4xS1cuzbJV0bGKh_OPtHVAsXuJhSjIy2DVDROih-vd6u-ugg6M-c8RiarZ9g/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="581" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghViry3C4XkF3JIrJIE5BBC02-Tq__YppPpdDaJjHG72H9S5ayhOU5NnSb7jogcTnyMZQ7EZ_Efz4xS1cuzbJV0bGKh_OPtHVAsXuJhSjIy2DVDROih-vd6u-ugg6M-c8RiarZ9g/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0022.jpg" /></a></div>
<i><b>Queen of the Isles</b> is another old variety, one of the first to be bred by the legendary sweet pea breeder Henry Eckford and introduced in 1885. It has red and white flaked flowers.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRojI9lUy9JfvQLzi2ioVU1szuFAPUI3quyCba-zRWBaC3SdoDWh5Eu43tFF7nqqrG-36y49CCwy4s4jK9bLcD-dLIL6sYhWTavVr1nKSMApbmwslr1EtoeSCC27RTKft48bqI7g/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRojI9lUy9JfvQLzi2ioVU1szuFAPUI3quyCba-zRWBaC3SdoDWh5Eu43tFF7nqqrG-36y49CCwy4s4jK9bLcD-dLIL6sYhWTavVr1nKSMApbmwslr1EtoeSCC27RTKft48bqI7g/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0023.jpg" /></a></div>
<i><b>Matucana</b> is frequently described in seed catalogues as one of the oldest cultivated varieties, but it isn't. In fact it's probably not a heritage variety at all. But it is very lovely, with purple bicolour flowers and a scent second to none.</i><br />
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<br />Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-73989120686155679992019-06-27T01:13:00.000+01:002019-08-12T01:56:54.909+01:00A trial of ludicrously ancient tomato seeds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcTuV7B0NfjW_iOvlNhGMtQDoO2nTwINKVp2o1DeB3Z97One8Zsa4tJkyCxqfzApoyTV36uDPmYKGzg8e1LgwSq11dxxH_fKPDvlXQe4jt9pu1qGjfzkP6gdpGNuAzdma23J7tw/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcTuV7B0NfjW_iOvlNhGMtQDoO2nTwINKVp2o1DeB3Z97One8Zsa4tJkyCxqfzApoyTV36uDPmYKGzg8e1LgwSq11dxxH_fKPDvlXQe4jt9pu1qGjfzkP6gdpGNuAzdma23J7tw/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0033.jpg" /></a></div>
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This year I decided I wanted to grow some more of a tiny globular red tomato called <b>Tomatito de Jalapa</b> which was given to me years ago by my friend <a href="https://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/" target="_blank">Patrick Wiebe</a>. This is a blight-resistant variety, at least to some extent, which grows quite well outdoors in the UK, and I also love the taste of it, and the tiny, almost perfectly spherical tomatoes. It's not a normal garden tomato, it's a species of wild tomato from South America which is not (to my knowledge) commercially available. Therefore it's quite rare, and you can't buy its seeds in the shops.<br />
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When I grew it in the past, I saved seeds from it. Of course I did. But I'm buggered if I know what I've done with them. Somewhere there must be a box of home-saved tomato seeds hiding in a corner of my incredibly well organised house, because there are other varieties I'm missing which I know I've saved seed from. Anyway, when I was sowing my tomato seeds this year, I couldn't find them. I did, however, still have the little baggie of seeds which Patrick originally gave me, and which he'd sensibly labelled with the year they were produced: 2009. So these are 10-year-old seeds. The received wisdom in many gardening books is that old seeds won't germinate, or will produce only feeble plants, but I know this to be bollocks. So I put a bit of compost in a tiny flowerpot and sowed one of Patrick's decade-old seeds just to see whether it would grow. As you can see in the photo above, it did.<br />
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I dug out a couple of other geriatric seed packets from my box which I wanted to resurrect. One was an unidentified variety which I call <b>Café Rubik</b>, because I filched the original single cherry tomato from a café in Cheltenham called Café Rubik, in April 2010, after having it arrive on my lunch plate and deciding it was probably the best tomato I'd ever tasted. It must have been an F1 hybrid, whatever it was, because it segregated into three different fruit colours the first time I grew it. That doesn't put me off, of course ... I love to see a bit of segregation so that I have the option to select something new and unique. So Café Rubik the F2 still lives, the seed from that single original tomato (plucked from a salad, no less) still germinating after nine years, long after the café itself has closed down.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfx0DU5kcUAxd3Wchl7h-V28_qCZaXVjeD7mk0sUusLxfmPofY3OrjvFB-HnCha9uX1LBFeQMSl2ZD6Gj7DW14fku2DA7kcee4Dpv2OPtJQtfq-iTo-wVZr8reLTzihjbBEUJv9Q/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfx0DU5kcUAxd3Wchl7h-V28_qCZaXVjeD7mk0sUusLxfmPofY3OrjvFB-HnCha9uX1LBFeQMSl2ZD6Gj7DW14fku2DA7kcee4Dpv2OPtJQtfq-iTo-wVZr8reLTzihjbBEUJv9Q/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0035.jpg" /></a></div>
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Another one I decided to grow out was this ancient packet which I got as a freebie from the Heritage Seed Library. <b>Salt Spring Sunrise</b>, a Canadian heritage variety. God knows how old these seeds are; they're not dated, and I don't remember what year I was sent them. It could easily have been as long ago as 2007. And while the others I sowed had at least been stored in airtight grip-seal bags, these were just in a plain brown paper envelope, stashed in a cardboard box in the spare room. Anyway, I sowed two of these seeds, and one germinated. Initially it did struggle to free itself from its seed husk, and when it finally emerged from the soil it had ripped both its cotyledons clean off! It was left with a pair of green stumps. I didn't think there was much hope of it surviving, but after sitting there fattening up the green stumps for a couple of days, it began to grow its true leaves – and very quickly recovered.<br />
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Inspired by the longevity and resilience of these seeds, I thought it might be interesting to do a more formal germination test on some of my other tomato seeds, to find out just how old or craply handled they have to be before they stop germinating. As I never throw anything away, I had no shortage of ludicrously outdated specimens to choose from. I selected six packets of varying ages, which included some purchased seed and some I'd saved myself. Here they are:<br />
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Some of the bought seeds were from Association Kokopelli and some were from Terre de Semences, which is what Association Kokopelli was called before it became Association Kokopelli. I haven't purposely singled out this supplier, I just chose them because they're the oldest seeds I have in my collection. The ripest vintage was a pack of <b>Boondocks</b> produced in 1998, which makes them 21 years old at the time of sowing. Close on its heels came the millennium-era seeds of <b>Canabec Rose</b>; a 16-year-old pack of <b>Peacevine Cherry</b> from 2003, and some <b>Anna Russian</b> from 2007. Bringing up the rear were two packs of my own seeds: an F3 derivative of a variety called <b>Pink Jester</b> which I originally bought from a supermarket and saved seeds from, and the special beta-carotene rich orange variety <b>Caro Rich</b>, which I hadn't even saved properly – they were just scraped out of the fruit onto a piece of kitchen roll and left to dry. These seeds are 13 and 11 years old respectively.<br />
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The test was not all that scientific. I filled a small 6-module tray with compost, and on 3rd May I sowed two seeds of each variety in the front row (the younger ones), and four each of the varieties in the back row, since the older ones were less likely to germinate. These are very small sample sizes, but I didn't want to sow too many just in case they all grew! I'm emotionally incapable of murdering seedlings which are surplus to requirements, so if I'd ended up with a dozen plants I'd have had to find room for them all somehow in the garden.<br />
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The tray of seeds was kept on the windowsill in my music studio, which has a radiator under it, and this was on fairly often as the weather was so bloody cold. This bottom-heated windowsill is brilliant for germinating tomato seeds and it didn't take too long for the first germination.<br />
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And the first one up after 10 days was ... <b>Caro Rich</b>!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLRBDSCr3dmqE6RPtujuBCmbTHCCdYXH2MNbmgXMep9COf3dezC38vWFfCnF8m5msUr1wLrE_QELBWOWK_xR7N-LuHm5LKTF6ytA0t3d5MdCAK4byW_4Qz5FYY6zl5__2EWRXdkQ/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLRBDSCr3dmqE6RPtujuBCmbTHCCdYXH2MNbmgXMep9COf3dezC38vWFfCnF8m5msUr1wLrE_QELBWOWK_xR7N-LuHm5LKTF6ytA0t3d5MdCAK4byW_4Qz5FYY6zl5__2EWRXdkQ/s1600/Daughter+of+the+Soil+0034.jpg" /></a></div>
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Then came <b>Pink Jester F3</b>, a couple of days later. Both the seeds of that one germinated, while with Caro Rich it was just one. At 11 years old, Caro Rich was the freshest of all the varieties I sowed, but it was very interesting to me to see it germinating so readily, given that the seeds had been saved in the crudest way. The proper way to save tomato seed is by <a href="https://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2008/09/saving-seed-from-tomatoes.html" target="_blank">the fermentation method</a>, which is what I would normally do and recommend, and the simple method of lobbing them onto kitchen roll and letting them dessicate into a disgusting scabby crust is widely frowned upon as a bad way to save tomato seeds. For one thing they stick irretrievably to the kitchen roll, so when you want to sow them you have to tear around them and sow them with some of the kitchen roll still attached. There's also the matter of the germination-inhibitor chemical which tomatoes naturally produce within their gel, which stops the seed from germinating while the gel is there. The fermentation method removes this very effectively; the kitchen roll method doesn't. Though you could argue that at 11 years old, any biochemical inhibitors had probably degraded anyway. I also stored the kitchen roll sheet in a sealed plastic bag after it was fully dried, so that might have helped to preserve it. But still, it was interesting to see this seed germinating normally in spite of everything.<br />
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I'd still recommend the fermentation method for most tomato seed-saving, but if you really can't face doing it, or haven't got time, or it's a tiny quantity of seed which is too fiddly to ferment – you should be fine just to splat it onto a paper towel, and still expect to get a decade's worth of viability out of it.<br />
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Following these initial germinations I didn't get any more. I kept the trial going for around a month, but nothing else showed up. I took the tray out to the greenhouse and potted up Caro Rich and the two Pink Jester seedlings, all three of which are growing on well. I don't generally find that plants from old seeds are inferior to plants from fresh seeds (though I'm sure some commercial seed companies would like people to think that). They may be slightly slower to germinate and have less available nutrient within the seed to get them through the germination process, but once they've established themselves with a root and a shoot they usually grow pretty normally. The really old seeds in my trial didn't germinate though. Maybe some of them would if I sowed a larger sample. But for now, I forgot about the rest of the modules as I got into my busy season, and they stayed on the top shelf in the greenhouse. Until, <b>seven weeks</b> after I sowed the seeds, I found this:<br />
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Yes, it took its time all right, but <b>Anna Russian</b> germinated, at 12 years old. This is a phenomenon that most tomato growers have probably come across, even with much fresher seeds than these: a tray which fails to germinate is cast aside, only to be found sprouting quite happily several weeks later after being completely abandoned and neglected. Sometimes tomatoes just inexplicably won't sprout until they're ready, and they won't be rushed.<br />
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Sadly, the day after this photo was taken, Anna was razed off at soil level by a snail. So I won't be growing any of that variety this year. But still – it germinated.<br />
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One important observation I made with <i>all</i> of these antique seeds, and not just Salt Spring Sunrise which had the most extreme case of it, is that they were all very prone to getting the seed husks stuck on their heads when they first emerged from the soil. This is not surprising, as the older the seed is, the more it dries out and shrinks. It might be a good idea to try to reconstitute the seed with a bit of moisture before sowing it, to help avoid the problem of seedlings getting completely stuck and unable to release themselves, but I haven't done any experimenting to find out how best to do that. Maybe an overnight pre-soak would be enough.<br />
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The message of all this, in summary: don't immediately assume that a packet of old seeds is no longer viable – at least give it a go.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-90608853809959341262011-05-22T17:06:00.000+01:002014-10-25T18:47:36.780+01:00Potato blessings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>An unnamed/unidentified South American andigena potato. The carmine-red splodges in the leaf axils give a clue to the deep red tubers it will produce.</i><br />
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So here's some positive stuff I've been getting on with. I've had some very generous potato donations from <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.com/">Rhizowen</a> and <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/start_E.html">Frank Van Keirsbilck</a>, which I'm watching with great excitement as they grow. They include several colourful specimens of South American andigena (I think) types, a rare phureja variety, and some Maori (Taewa) potatoes which Frank grew from seed sent to him by a gardener in New Zealand. Being seed-grown they are "Frank originals" rather than named varieties, but I am happy with that. To me, a reshuffling of the genes of Maori potatoes is just as interesting as getting hold of existing heritage types, because it shows a lot of detail about the ancestry of these potatoes as the various parental traits segregate out. I'm very excited about them as they are very hard to get hold of outside New Zealand. It's a little difficult to tell what the spuds will look like, as all potatoes at this time of year look like brown wizened prunes regardless of what cheerful colours they might have had at harvest, so I will have to wait and see. But one seems to be a dusky ultra-purple and another a reddish bicolour. Among the South Americans there is a similar range of colour loveliness, including an unnamed pink and yellow bicolour and a black and tan bicolour called <b>Puca Quitish</b>. It's going to be a fun year for bizarre-coloured mash in the Rebsie household.<br />
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This is <b>Pastusa Amarilla</b>, a phureja-type potato from <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.com/">Owen</a>. As the tubers were small I started them off in modules, where they grew like rockets, and this one had already begun to set some tiny tubers of its own by the time I planted them out.<br />
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I've not yet had time to blog about my TPS-grown potatoes from last year, and there's so much to say I don't know where to start. There were lots of fascinating colours and exquisite flavours, and some amazingly high yields considering the plants were seedlings and not grown from tubers. A great many tubers produced by last year's seedlings are now replanted and growing for the first time as tuber-grown plants. Some are <i>HUGE</i> ... in fact the biggest and most vigorous potato plants I've ever grown. This may be down to the fact that freshly created potato varieties are relatively virus-free. The more established varieties, unless you get planting stock which has been "cleaned" in a laboratory, will have become burdened with a collection of energy-sapping pathogens over the years. It could also be an effect of hybrid vigour, but that's probably less of a factor in potatoes than in other plants, because essentially all potatoes are hybrids. Their tetraploid (doubled chromosome) structure keeps their genes banging around like a pinball machine in every seed. Hybrid vigour is the norm in most potatoes, which is why they're such a successful food crop, and you should theoretically only see a drop in vigour if you inbreed them, i.e. grow seeds which have self-pollinated. But in an illustration of how nature likes to raise two green fingers to such predictions, the most rampant batch of triffid-aspiring monster spuds I currently have in the garden is an inbred line from self-pollinated berries of <b>Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy</b>. These little beauties deserve a whole post of their own as they are wonderful, colourful and precious.<br />
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One of the most interesting potatoes-from-seed I have on the go is from a cross of primitive stenotomum cultivars, <b>Pirampo x Khuchi Akita</b>. This is an F3 "novelty line" from Tom Wagner, a cross of two traditional Andean potatoes which are not adapted to temperate zones such as Europe but are still fun to experiment with. I have been erroneously describing them as Bolivian, when in fact only Khuchi Akita is from Bolivia, and Pirampo originates in Peru. Any road, this hybrid is diploid, so it lacks the chromosome doubling which gives cultivated potatoes their big tubers and high yields. It's also limited in its ability to set tubers in the British climate, so I couldn't be sure that the plants I grew from TPS would give me any potatoes at all. But they did give me one very big surprise. They were completely and quite astoundingly blight resistant.<br />
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Last September I watched as all the potato haulms in the garden turned brown and rotted, including the ones which I was trialling for possible blight resistance as they had been bred to contain the resistance genes. Fortunately the blight in 2010 was late enough that it didn't curtail tuber production, and I got a good harvest, and was able to simply stand back and watch to see how the blight affected different varieties at different speeds. I had twelve plants of Pirampo x Khuchi Akita, in various parts of the garden, and there was not a speck of blight on any of them. They just sat there defiantly while the plague raged all around them, and then, as a final "sod you" gesture to <i>Phytophthora infestans</i> they put on a second flush of flowers just as I was scraping up the blackened corpses of every other potato in the garden. They were still flowering in October when the first frosts came. Their flowers were beautiful too, have a look at these ...<br />
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<i><b>Pirampo x Khuchi Akita</b> potato blossom, 2010.</i><br />
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I was really surprised, because I wasn't expecting this hybrid to show any blight resistance at all. There are a few species of near-wild Andean potatoes which are blight resistant, but not these; these are technically the same species as normal cultivated potatoes, just a less developed form of it. I'm still not entirely convinced that the resistance is genetic, and will have to see what happens to them this year before I allow myself to get too excited. But it does at least illustrate why I'm keen to experiment with unusual varieties like this.<br />
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As it turned out, about half the plants managed to set tubers. This is a pretty good achievement for an Andean landrace type, because they are dependent on daylength, and the long daylength in Europe is completely wrong for them. Consequently they don't start to tuberise until the days shorten in the autumn, by which point they don't have time to do anything before the frosts hit them. What I'm looking for in these plants is the odd one or two which can tuberise successfully in our long summer days. It's one of those things which is self-selecting by default and doesn't require much intellectual input from a plant breeder – if it doesn't tuberise effectively then it can't survive to the following year. Extreme Darwin in action. Another self-selecting trait is the keeping quality, since a short shelf-life is common in Andean potatoes. It's often possible for farmers in South America to grow a continuous cycle of potato crops, perhaps two or three a year, so they don't need to be stored for any period of time. They are just replanted shortly after harvest and off they go again. Can't do that in England though, unless you want to grow a crop of frost-bitten stumps. So I can only regrow the ones which stay alive in storage for six to eight months. This weeded out several of my Pirampo x Khuchi Akita beauties, unfortunately.<br />
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The tubers I got from the plants were small, deep-eyed, immensely variable in size (but still small) and not very abundant. However they did come in some absolutely glorious colours and markings, mostly reds, purples and intense carmine pinks.<br />
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Alas, this beautiful purple bicolour was among the ones which didn't make it through the winter. I didn't even get a chance to taste it as it was so pitifully low yielding. But I feel blessed to have had it enter my life, however briefly.<br />
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This one was a lot more promising. It's a bright red one with yellow eyes, though it doesn't look its best in this shot because it's unwashed. (Washing potato tubers considerably reduces the chance of them keeping over winter.) This was by far the best yielding of the lot - a pretty respectable harvest for a diploid landrace type. Only the largest tubers succeeded in surviving over winter, but survive they did ...<br />
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And this is what they look like now, blossoming like mad already. Notice that the flowers are more of a mauve colour than the magenta-purple blossom shown above. The flower colours did vary somewhat between siblings in this hybrid, though they were all somewhere on the mauve to purple spectrum.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com99tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-23901406284609772282011-03-27T20:36:00.001+01:002011-03-28T01:10:15.882+01:00Tomatoes of past glory<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535018923/" title="OSU Blue Fruit by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="OSU Blue Fruit" height="424" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/5535018923_f501a06679_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<i><b>OSU Blue Fruit tomato.</b> Not yet commercially available (to my knowledge), this is a breeding line of purple-black tomatoes developed at Oregon State University in the US. The fruits ripen to a deep coal black but are perhaps at their most beautiful during the ripening phase when they take on some magnificent purple tones. The flavour is decent enough, although work is still being done to improve it. And no, they are not genetically modified: the colour was achieved through traditional breeding methods by combining three genes found in South American wild tomatoes.</i><br />
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I have been rather quiet on the blogging front haven't I? The reason is that I'm now working full time for a small publishing company, and also writing a book about potato breeding which will be available in late summer or early September. The book will answer all your questions about growing from TPS and potato seed saving, and to the best of my knowledge will be the first book of its kind on the subject. It's all very exciting and enjoyable, but as you can imagine I am immensely and obscenely busy, and working some very long hours.<br />
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Today however, I'm closeted indoors as it's the first warm and sunny weekend of the year and that inevitably means the neighbours are having a barbecue. There's nothing like the stench of burning flesh to send me scuttling back into the house with all the windows shut; so here I am, and may as well do something useful like posting some of the tomato pictures I took last year and didn't get round to using for anything. All of these were grown in the greenhouse unless otherwise stated.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535594830/" title="Darby Striped Pink/Yellow by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Darby Striped Pink/Yellow" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/5535594830_f79325ac81.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Darby Striped Pink/Yellow.</b> This came from the Heritage Seed Library and is an absolute corker. It's actually an English-bred tomato, from the breeding work of Lewis Darby at the Glasshouse Crops Research Institute in Littlehampton in the 1950s and 60s. Dr Darby also produced the well-known striped variety <b>Tigerella</b> (a variety which I've seen described around the internet as a poor performer, which has not been my experience of it at all - it would seem that it grows better in the UK than in the US, which has led many American gardeners to be disappointed with it). Anyway, this Pink/Yellow line was never released as a commercial variety, which is a shame, because it is fantastic. The flavour is exquisitely rich and fruity, the texture is just right, the yields are very generous and the rounded fruits are a lovely deep pink-red with yellow stripes ripening to orange. It's definitely one I will grow again, and it has such a lot going for it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535594326/" title="Tangella by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Tangella" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/5535594326_63c83ee439.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Tangella.</b> Another of Dr Lewis Darby's creations, this bright orange tomato was released commercially and enjoyed some popularity in its day, but was subsequently deleted from the National List and is now rare. Once again, it was the Heritage Seed Library which supplied me with seeds. I don't rate the flavour of this one as highly as the Pink/Yellow variety above; it's milder and mellower, although it does have a tang to it. It is very firm on the outside but has a very soft texture in the flesh, bordering on the mushy when fully ripe. But it is a nice variety, and the colour is absolutely gorgeous ... a vibrant deep orange all the way through and probably high in carotenes. The fruits come out at a variety of sizes and are a rounded apple-shape, and being bred in England, it is very happy with the UK climate.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535593476/" title="Tomatito de Jalapa by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Tomatito de Jalapa" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5259/5535593476_0212bc8a2c.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Tomatito de Jalapa.</b> Another one I'd recommend. This tiddly tiny cherry tomato was given to me by Patrick Wiebe at <a href="http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/">Bifurcated Carrots</a>, but previously came from <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/start_E.html">Frank Van Keirsbilck</a> in Belgium. The thing that makes it special is that it's supposed to have <b>blight resistance</b>. Others who have tried it have had mixed results, some finding it blight-resistant and others not, with an additional observation that it needs to be deprived of any kind of feed or fertiliser in order to work its anti-fungal magic. My own experience was that it was <i>blight tolerant</i> rather than blight resistant as such. I grew it outdoors with full exposure to the elements, and gave it no fertiliser or special treatment. I also grew a normal non-resistant variety beside it as a 'control' ... not very scientific, but it gave me something to compare it with. Tomatito de Jalapa held off the blight better than the control plant did, and succumbed at a much slower rate, and although it did become <i>infestans</i>-infested, what was interesting was that the blight didn't get into the fruits, even when the stems they were growing on became blighted. Thus the plant was stricken with blight but I was still able to go on harvesting the fruits for some while - unlike the control plant, whose fruits rapidly became inedible. So this is definitely one to try if you want to grow outdoor tomatoes and be fairly confident of getting a crop. Having said that, the blight was a bit later in 2010 than it has been in previous years, so it remains to be seen how it will cope in a "bad" blight season. However, there's more to a variety than disease resistance, and Tomatito de Jalapa has a lot to recommend it. The small fruits are absolutely delicious - sharp and fruity - and borne on long trusses which ripen beautifully in the English outdoors. Productivity certainly didn't suffer much for the lack of fertiliser. So although the tomatoes are tiny, you get a constant supply over a long period, and overall yield is high. I'll certainly grow it again.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535587894/" title="Essex Wonder by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Essex Wonder" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/5535587894_031b0431f5.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Essex Wonder.</b> Popular in the 1930s as a market garden variety developed especially for the glasshouse industry in Essex, this is another "deleted" variety rescued from near extinction by the Heritage Seed Library. This crop was grown outdoors, which wasn't really ideal for it, but it coped. I've had better results growing it in a greenhouse in the past. It's a classic tomatoey tomato; in other words it's almost perfectly spherical, bright red, and has a nice old-fashioned tomato flavour. The size varies considerably, as does the thickness of the flesh, and the gel around the seeds is distinctly green.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535593004/" title="Anna Russian by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Anna Russian" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/5535593004_cb1d063f45.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Anna Russian.</b> An oxheart-type tomato. Oxhearts tend to be large, strawberry shaped and immensely fleshy, with few seeds. They also tend to be a bit on the bland side, and that's where Anna Russian is a glorious exception, being very rich and flavoursome. The fruits are a deep dark rosy pink with a mildly ribbed surface, and bright red inside. As they're so fleshy (and tasty) they work extremely well in slices and would probably be good in sandwiches. Yields are pretty respectable - higher than you'd think from the rather floppy plants - and early maturing. Despite the name I believe this variety comes from the US, though it may well have been taken there by Russian immigrants. My seeds came from Association Kokopelli in France. Sorry there's no bottle-top for scale in this picture, but the fruits are of quite variable size.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535007855/" title="Pink Freud F4 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pink Freud F4" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/5535007855_ce83fcdf11.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Pink Freud F4</b>. One of my own little projects which I'm quite pleased with. Now in an F4, it produces <i>masses</i> of miniature shiny silky Roma-plum tomatoes on large trusses, dark pink before ripening to deep red. The flavour is fabulous, and they are equally good raw or stewed up into a luxurious sauce. They also have incredible keeping properties, and ripe fruits can be left in the kitchen (unrefrigerated) for weeks on end with no loss of quality. I've no idea who its parents were, it arose from saving and selecting seed from a punnet of F1 hybrid tomatoes I bought in Marks and Spencer's in 2002. A great example of <i>why you should ignore the received wisdom that saving seeds from F1 hybrids is a waste of time</i>. On the contrary, "doesn't come true from seed" is another way of saying "has lots of exciting diversity". So if you grow any F1 hybrid tomatoes, either from seed packets or supermarkets, do try saving their seeds and see what surprising and delightful goodies they throw up for you.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535570620/" title="Pugliese Green by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pugliese Green" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5139/5535570620_79b33ed34d.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Pugliese Green.</b> Perhaps this should be re-christened Pugliese Red. I was given the seeds by Jeremy Cherfas of <a href="http://agro.biodiver.se/">Agricultural Biodiversity</a>, who is living in Italy and bought the fruits at a local shop. They are thought to be a locally-developed variety from the Puglia region of Italy (the heel of the boot). I grew them in 2009, allowed them to ripen to a full vibrant red, and was absolutely knocked out by how good they tasted. Really one of the best-flavoured tomatoes I've ever tasted. But when I blogged about it last time, Jeremy informed me that this isn't how they are eaten in Italy. As I should have guessed from the fact that he called them Pugliese Green, they are supposed to be eaten while they're still a bit green. So this year I tried it. And yes, they are indeed very tasty while green-ish. But I still maintain that the really knockout flavour develops when they are fully ripe! It's also remarkable how rapidly they ripen. One minute they're sitting there with no more than a blush of red, and the next day when you go to check them they are bright as a post-box. The fruits are medium sized, firm to the touch, and take the form of slightly flattened globes. The photo shows a couple of fruits in the intermediate semi-green stage as well as the full red. Take your pick. The fact remains that this is a very fine tomato, whatever colour it is when you eat it. Thanks Jeremy.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535593928/" title="Isis Candy by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Isis Candy" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/5535593928_b306b9a176.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Isis Candy.</b> Popular in the US but pretty much unknown over here (I bought the seeds a few years ago from an American seed company), this is a little treasure, and actually originated in Eastern Europe. It's a small tomato, but not small enough to call a cherry; it's very rounded and elegantly symmetrical, globe-shaped but distinctly flattened. It's thin-skinned and very juicy, and has a really lovely sharp tangy flavour. It's also very beautiful, passing through many shades of orange, pink and red, sometimes in marbled combination. A regular favourite.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5534990627/" title="Green Zebra by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Green Zebra" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/5534990627_9455e09639.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Green Zebra.</b> A green-when-ripe stripey tomato bred by Tom Wagner in the US and released in the 1980s through his TaterMater seed company. It can now be found in catalogues worldwide, and is widely grown and well loved. Fruits are a decent size and exquisitely striped, with more of a mottled pattern underneath. People often ask how you know when it's ripe, and the answer is that the lighter stripes change to a golden colour, which is quite distinctive when you see it. You can also give the fruits a little squeeze if in doubt. It does taste slightly different from a red tomato, and has quite a sharp, acidic tang.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/5535015967/" title="Banana Legs x Green Tiger F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Banana Legs x Green Tiger F1" height="332" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5173/5535015967_5d6f7cb735.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<b>Banana Legs x Green Tiger F1.</b> Another of my own breeding projects, this time from a cross I made between one of Tom Wagner's creations, Banana Legs, and a Marks & Spencer's commercial variety, Green Tiger (not to be confused with Green Zebra above). <b>Banana Legs</b> is a light yellow elongated tomato with silvery stripes and a distinct nipple on the end, while <b>Green Tiger</b> is a perfectly spherical, smooth and shiny tomato with deep burgundy red flesh and dark olive-green stripes over its red skin. What I find fascinating about this F1 hybrid is that it's in almost every way an exact intermediary between the two parent types. It's got silvery-green stripes (not very clear in this photo as they stand out more when unripe), and the shape is an extended globe with a small nipple. This half-way blend fascinates me because it's not something that happens in my pea-breeding projects. With peas, the dominant genes assert themselves completely in the F1 hybrid, with recessive traits completely hidden until they start segregating out of the F2. I'm not a tomato breeder, I only have an occasional casual dabble, so it intrigues me to see how differently the genes express themselves in tomatoes. It's results like this which illustrate why it took so many thousands of years for humans to understand the processes of genetic inheritance, assuming wrongly that it was a simple "blending" process, and it also perhaps shows why it was with peas that the great breakthrough of understanding was made. Anyway, I could go on about how beautiful and high yielding this hybrid was, and that the flavour was pretty decent - but it doesn't really matter what traits it has, because I cannot preserve it in this form. Every seed is an F2 with a different genetic shake-up, so presumably when I sow them I will start getting segregation for the various parental traits rather than this half-way mix. But we shall see.<br />
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Something else interesting about my 2010 tomato crop which I will only talk about briefly as I need to do some more experimentation before I conclude anything. I took the slightly strange decision not to feed any of my tomato plants, but just to grow them <i>au naturel</i>, as it were. The inspiration for this was an incident in the 2009 season when I became so busy I had to abandon some tomato plants in the greenhouse - only to find months later that they were fruiting beautifully despite having no water or fertiliser, and also in immaculate blight-free health, even though blight was rampaging through the garden outside. This experience set me thinking, and then when Patrick gave me the Tomatito de Jalapa seeds with the instruction not to feed the plants as their blight-resistance only works if they aren't fed, something went ker-chinggg in my head.<br />
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So in 2010 I grew my greenhouse tomatoes without any fertiliser whatsoever, and I only watered them when they were really desperate. The results really astonished me. The plants didn't grow anywhere near as big as they would do with a "normal" feeding and watering routine, and so I suppose they produced fewer fruits too, but in terms of the number of fruits which were <i>edible</i> ... the yields were the highest I've ever had. This is because all the fruits were perfect - immaculate, healthy and blemish free. I had no blossom-end rot, I had no splitting (except very late in the season), I had no mouldering and squishing, and most remarkably I HAD NO BLIGHT. There was plenty of blight outside, it killed all the potatoes and the outdoor tomatoes. But the greenhouse tomatoes had none at all. It may be that they were just lucky, or sufficiently sheltered, but I don't think so ... I think they were so happy and healthy they managed to fight off all nasties. It's as if the lack of feeding enabled them to fulfil their natural potential instead of being forcibly plumped up into oversized bloaters. Another possibly significant factor: because the plants only grew to about 6ft and didn't sprawl like triffids all the way up to the ceiling and out the roof, it wasn't necessary to do much pruning at all. I just nipped out a couple of sidebuds when the plants were young and then left them to it. I'm wondering if the non-pruning also helped to keep them healthy, because this is exactly what the great Dominique Guillet asserts in his book <i>The Seeds of Kokopelli</i>. He reckons pruning is nothing short of tomato-abuse, and believes very firmly that the lack of pruning in his tomato crops is what keeps them blight-free.<br />
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Lots of food for thought and further experimentation here. If anyone else has any experience with growing tomatoes without fertiliser, or is perhaps brave enough to experiment with it in 2011, I'd love to hear about it.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com67tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-45260501393521366192010-08-30T01:32:00.000+01:002010-08-30T01:32:40.474+01:00Shetland tattie dreams<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938867718/" title="Shetland Black tatties, newly dug by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Shetland Black tatties, newly dug" height="424" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4938867718_723d882c8b_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<div style="color: #274e13;"><b>Shetland Black</b></div>A few years ago I bought some Shetland Black potatoes from Waitrose and they were very tasty. They were intriguing looking things … small, elongated and a muted shiny black with pale corky spots on the skin and a 'netted' surface. Inside they had a distinctive purple ring set into the pale yellow flesh. I saved a few and planted them. They grew pretty well, so I wrote a review of them.<br />
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A short while after writing the review, I had a message from Jon who lives in Shetland. Did I know, he asked, that the Shetland Black sold in Waitrose is not the same as the Shetland Black grown by the crofters on the islands? Well no, I didn't. And when he kindly offered to send me a sample of the "real thing" it was not something I was going to turn down.<br />
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A box duly arrived with a generous stash of "real" Shetland Black tubers, and I saw what he meant. They are certainly similar to the commercial ones, in that they are black-skinned and yellow-fleshed with a trace of purple inside. But they are rounder in shape, with deeper eyes. The flesh is a stronger yellow, and instead of having a simple purple vascular ring, the purple is more diffuse and spreads into the flesh, although it still has about the same amount of purple overall. The skin is a softer charcoal black, with a slight coarseness and a few pale speckles but none of the distinctive 'corky spots' or netting of the commercial type. When the tubers sprout, the sprouts are purple rather than the glossy black of the commercial version. It is, as Jon put it, "subtly yet profoundly different".<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4474515896/" title="Shetland Black potato by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Shetland Black potato" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/4474515896_b12d70b582.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>The Shetland Black potatoes from Shetland, as grown by Jon.</i><br />
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And while I find the commercial Shetland Black very well flavoured, the flavour of the local version is really outstanding. It has an exceptionally rich, strong, old-fashioned flavour with no bitterness in the skin, and the flesh is dense and smooth. The flavour is excellent when boiled and the potato holds together well without breaking up … if the outer skin is undamaged it keeps its purple colour. It also makes nice roasties, albeit rather dense ones with a thick skin. But then I guess that isn't an issue if you peel them … it's just one of my personal funny little ways that I never, ever peel potatoes.<br />
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Interestingly, Alan Romans mentions in his <i>Potato Book</i> that the version of Shetland Black conserved in the National Collection is considered by many Shetlanders not to be "right", and the authentic local version is described as larger and rounder with deeper eyes - exactly what I have here. Jon tells me that even within Shetland there are several more variants, some with a paler skin colour.<br />
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Naturally I was intrigued to see how the plants compared to the ones I'd already reviewed.<br />
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<b>Standard Shetland Black on the left, "real" Shetland Black on the right. </b><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938279597/" title="Two variants of Shetland Black by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Two variants of Shetland Black" height="297" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4938279597_d99fa7e16e_o.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938864770/" title="Two variants of Shetland Black by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Two variants of Shetland Black" height="297" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/4938864770_7b836447af_o.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938279165/" title="Two variants of Shetland Black by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Two variants of Shetland Black" height="297" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4938279165_9b9e392926_o.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
<i>Darker skin, yellower flesh, rounder tubers. The flowers do look fairly similar, but the difference not visible in this picture is that the one on the left is a rarity! This is the only decent specimen I've ever seen on the standard Shetland Black, it's usually a saggy specimen with wonky anthers or none at all. Whereas the one on the right flowers profusely.</i><br />
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"Real" Shetland Black produced very large voluptuous plants with big, dark green leaves, again quite different from the standard Shetland Black which tends towards the straggly end of the spectrum. To my delight, its flowering habits are also very different. It produces masses of blooms, large, elegant and mauve-petalled, borne over a long season. The real delight for me though is that it is a natural berry setter, loading itself up with large purple and green mottled fruits. In fact it's a potato breeder's dream. It has fertile pollen which can be used to pollinate other varieties and make hybrids. It will also accept pollen from other potato varieties to make more hybrids. And it is self-fertile, so I can also use it to pollinate its own flowers and reshuffle the contents of its own genepool without crossing it with anything else. To put this in perspective, the number of cultivated potato varieties which are fully male/female fertile is thought to be around 4 or 5%. Among the 95% of others which have compromised fertility is the commercial Shetland Black, which rarely flowers at all, and when it does its rather half-arsed mauve and white blossoms quickly drop off without producing any berries.<br />
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So I have been using "real" Shetland Black as both a male and female parent in my breeding programme this year. This is a good thing for me, because it brings interest and diversity. But it's also a good thing for Shetland Black, because one of the surest ways to conserve heritage vegetables is to pass their genes forward into new recombinations. Next year I will be able to sample such joys as Shetland Black x Salad Blue, Shetland Black x [Mandel x John Tom Kaighin], Highland Burgundy Red x Shetland Black, Marfona x Shetland Black, Congo x Shetland Black and possibly others. Plus of course the self-pollinated Shetland Black x Shetland Black, which will be interesting in itself. Potatoes can show a trace of inbreeding depression from self-pollination because nature really made them to be an outbreeder and they're not supposed to be self-fertile (the mechanism for preventing it got screwed up when they acquired their doubled genome). But in practice, self-pollinated seeds often produce really sturdy plants, just as vigorous as a hybrid would be. There's enough genetic diversity in the potato's tetraploid makeup to allow for a healthy bit of internal reshuffling.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938280719/" title="Shetland Black berries by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Shetland Black berries" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4938280719_674d52bc2a.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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My guess, and I must emphasise that it is only a guess, is that the commercially available Shetland Black could be derived from this local version, as the high fertility makes it very easy to save and share seed from it, either self-pollinated (in which case it's a simple reshuffling of the same genetic material) or a cross with something else. The reason I think the local one is probably the older of the two is because of its deep eyes. Shallow-eyed potatoes are a relatively modern innovation, prized for ease of peeling, and although the deep eyes of the local variety are not proof of antiquity, the shallow eyes of the commercial version certainly suggest a more modern origin. And also, the commercial Shetland Black has such low fertility it would be extremely difficult to breed anything from it.<br />
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The crop of Shetland Black I grew this year produced tubers somewhat smaller than the ones Jon originally sent me, but made up for it by producing absolutely masses of them … the yield overall was high. My guess is that they will adapt within a year or two and start producing the full size ones. On the whole, the plants seem to be very happy growing down here.<br />
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Part of what I wanted to find out was how well the Shetland tatties would adapt to being grown this far south. To any Americans and Australians reading this, the British Isles probably seem very small, and relatively speaking they are, but all the same there's a huge difference between the clement lush greenery of south-west England and the rocky windblustered Shetlands so many miles out in the Atlantic Ocean, far beyond the northernmost tip of Scotland. Shetland potatoes are adapted to thin peaty soil overlaid on solid rock, which is naturally acidic and supports a very different range of plants from the deep sandy loam of Cheltenham, which is naturally infused with limestone.<br />
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At one time Shetland had quite a range of unique local potatoes, bred for the particular needs of the soil and climate and maintained through many generations, helped no doubt by the extreme remoteness of this group of islands. Potatoes are known to have arrived in Shetland in the 18th century and formed a very major part of the islanders' diet. In the past, whaling boats from Shetland travelled as far as South America, where potatoes are native, and it's just possible that they picked up some spuds on their travels which differed from those already doing the rounds in England and mainland Scotland. Unfortunately many of these unique local varieties are now lost. Jon says that many older people on the island remember a red potato called <b>Marrister Red</b> which appears to have vanished, and also one called <b>Yell Blue</b>. He was, however, able to send me a sample of a rare and precious survivor among traditional Shetland tatties, which hails from the really tiny island of Foula.<br />
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<div style="color: #274e13;"><b>Foula Red</b></div>Foula is a fascinating place with a beautiful landscape - the islanders have a <a href="http://www.foulaheritage.org.uk/">truly lovely website</a> devoted to its heritage. It measures only three and a half miles by two and a half miles - you could probably walk its entire length in an hour, if it wasn't for the spectacularly steep slopes - and a population of around thirty people. It has the highest sheer sea cliffs in Britain, plunging straight down more than 1000ft. It has prehistoric stone rings and scattered shipwrecks. And remarkably for such a tiny and sparsely populated island, it has its own sheep and its own potato.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4473738739/" title="Foula Red potato by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Foula Red potato" height="332" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2796/4473738739_45988b49ba.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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It's difficult to explain just how rugged this potato has to be in order to survive as a viable food crop in Foula. Shetland weather can be very extreme. When in 1936 the island became the setting for a film starring John Laurie (later of Dad's Army fame), the camera crew were astounded by the sight of water in a mill loch being blown 300ft into the air by the force of the wind. But when they tried to film this spectacle they found the wind so strong neither they nor the camera could stand up in it, and they ended up having to crawl back to base on their hands and knees. Magical and inspiring the landscape may be, but this is not a good environment for growing vegetables. The traditional solution to this problem is to grow them in <i>plantie crubs</i> - small circular enclosures made of stones and turf, where the walls are high enough to prevent the plants from being blasted away and a decent layer of soil can be maintained to supplement the thin squishy peat which constitutes the island's natural topsoil.<br />
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The Foula Red potato is rounded, sometimes slightly kidney-shaped, with very shallow eyes and a pink-red skin, having a slightly rough matt surface. The flesh inside is a pale yellow, and it doesn't have internal colouring like its Black counterpart. The sprouts are pale pink and the plants grow into fairly large sprawling specimens with unusually large and flat leaves, dark green and with a rosy blush on the leaf stems.<br />
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It does have one major drawback though. It is almost laughably low yielding. The spuds are a decent size, but four or five tubers per plant is as much as they can offer. They look so promising as you grub around the base of the plant and unearth the first voluptuous brick-red tuber, since the largest one is usually at the top. And so you eagerly scrabble through the earth to find the rest of them and … er … there aren't any.<br />
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The crofter who gave Jon the tubers said that it's traditionally a low-yielding variety and it's quite normal to get such a miniscule crop. The reason it was worth cultivating was that it showed better blight resistance than other varieties grown on the islands, and therefore ensured at least some harvest during bad blight years … an important consideration in a community traditionally dependent on its own food production.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938279827/" title="Foula Red forming stem tubers by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Foula Red forming stem tubers" height="362" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4938279827_84c254a735.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Foula Red is a natural survivor. This plant had its stem damaged by snails, and responded by making stem-borne tubers.</i><br />
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Well, when I grew my Foula Reds for the first time in 2009 they came up happily enough and made fine plants, but were almost immediately struck down by blight! Really complete, devastating blight which killed them in a couple of days. What was most strange was that they were the only plants in the garden to succumb … all my other potatoes were fine. This doesn't mean, however, that Foula Red has been wrongly labelled as blight resistant. The fact is, blight is an incredibly fast-mutating fungal disease and even the most resilient potatoes become vulnerable over time. Since the arrival in Europe of two mating types of blight which quickly got loved up, the version of the disease we are currently blighted with is a new supersonic strain which raises merry hell and simply didn't exist here before the late 1970s. Foula Red may well have had good blight resistance, but the goalposts have moved.<br />
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So anyway, fearing I'd lost this precious rare potato, I searched the soil and found a few tiny baby tubers that had just started to form. They were barely bigger than peas. But I kept them safe over winter, and in spring they sprouted, and remarkably, have given me six fine healthy plants in 2010. And this time, they have survived long enough to give me their proud harvest of a couple of tubers each.<br />
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My English-grown Foula Reds made it to full size, and are as big as the ones Jon originally sent me. The one thing that is different though is the skin texture. As you can see, the big one in the photo has got the same smooth roughness of the originals but many of the others have a crazed surface where the outer skin is sloughing off, very rough to the touch. I assume this is down to soil differences, though I'm not expert enough in potato behaviour to know what causes it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938868698/" title="Foula Red by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Foula Red" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4938868698_5b2a0d51e9.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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And having sampled the taste of them for the first time, I found the flavour really excellent. It's quite similar to Shetland Black in old-fashioned richness, but it's milder and sweeter. The texture is lovely, dense but refined. Worth growing as a delicacy.<br />
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It might seem a bit odd to want to keep growing a variety which is both low-yielding and blight susceptible, especially as it's also quite slow maturing which makes the blight more of an issue. But I think something has been lost in the modern culture of wanting to maximise everything. Potato breeding focuses primarily towards larger yields, which is great, but there is still a kind of magic in only having enough to make an occasional treat. If the Foula Reds only produce enough potatoes for a couple of meals, fine - those meals are a special event. And there's also the fact that it's a rare type with no commercial potential and very limited distribution, which creates more of an imperative to take care of it. Local, heritage and landrace varieties shouldn't be judged by the same criteria as modern commercial ones. Foula Red may not win any accolades for its bounty or disease resistance, but it survives on an island with boggy soil and 100mph gales. Who knows when those genes for climate resilience might come in useful, or how important they might one day be for our future food security?<br />
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Something else I noticed, unless it's just the shock of adapting to a new climate: Foula Red is a late bloomer. Most potatoes start to flower around the time they set tubers, and Foula Red duly produced a couple of apologetic looking bud clusters which promptly aborted before they even thought about opening. Then it made its tubers, and then … when the tubers were already full size and the season was nearly over, it began to flower properly. Not all the plants produced flowers, only the two biggest ones, but they were a lovely surprise. Very pretty, elegant flowers in a light mauve with bright yellow anthers. They were a joy to behold. More for the sake of scientific study than any serious hope of finding anything, I plucked an anther and prodded it to see if there was any pollen in it. There were veritable plumes of it! Masses and masses of pollen. In fact, left to dehisce naturally it was dumping big white splodges of powder on the leaves underneath. It's pretty rare for potatoes to produce pollen in that kind of abundance. Excitedly, I dabbed some of it on the pistils of its own flowers, and on one or two other potatoes which were still flowering, which wasn't many at that late stage in the season. To my delight, every dabbing resulted in a plump healthy berry. So Foula Red, as well as Shetland Black, belongs with the 4% or so of cultivated potatoes which have complete male/female fertility.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4938866906/" title="Foula Red blossoms by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Foula Red blossoms" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4938866906_3c1438724f.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Foula Red flowers</i><br />
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This is really good news. As with Shetland Black, it will allow me to make new varieties from it (if I can find a partner for it which flowers at the same time). But more importantly, it is a huge help in ensuring the variety's future survival. Tubers have a finite lifespan, and any variety which can't produce its own seed (i.e. most of them) is difficult to maintain long term. Foula Red's ability to produce TPS, either by itself or by contributing its genes elsewhere, will enable it to regenerate. Of course being tetraploid (I assume Foula Red is tetraploid) the seeds from self-pollinations will not come "true" to the variety in every detail but they are nevertheless a recombination of the same genes. And who knows, they might even throw up a variant with decent yields. Ha.<br />
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So thank you very much Jon. And all credit to the crofters of the Shetland Isles who know a good tattie when they see one.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-18318175829311278672010-08-07T16:15:00.002+01:002010-08-08T18:52:57.521+01:00Proud author<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4869019432/" title="Proud author by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Proud author" height="480" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4099/4869019432_ae1abf1e63_o.jpg" width="461" /></a><br />
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My apologies for being a bit quiet the last couple of weeks. I've just been ripening the fruits of another big project.<br />
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I've been running a small record label with Daniel, my music partner, for a couple of years and while it isn't hugely lucrative we do find it rewarding. The long-held dream, however, was always to found a small literary press. It might seem like a bit of an ambitious thing to do, but I have a publishing background and it was always my intention to make use of it. I originally worked as a typesetter in my teens, in the pre-computer age when they had phototypesetting machines whose output had to be processed in a photographic darkroom (I think that's how I became a singer, because I'm scared of the dark and used to sing all the time in there to take my mind off it). Different fonts were kept on strips of film, so when you wanted to use another font you had to open the machine and attach the appropriate filmstrip around a drum inside which had all the delicacy and charm of a piece of agricultural equipment and would nearly have your fingers off. The typesetting process made the most unbelievable noise, like a load of baked bean tins rattling around in the bottom of a metal dustbin. Once developed in the darkroom, the sheet of text had to be coated with sticky wax on the back and then cut up and arranged into a page layout by hand. If anything was cocked up, you had to start all over again. Mercifully I was rescued by a job with a major educational publisher, the one now known as Nelson Thornes, where I trained in book production (i.e. tut-tutting over other people's typesetting instead of doing it myself) and later moved on to be a graphic designer and editor, both of which I loved. When I got fed up with working for the buggers I went freelance. It's all done on Macs now of course but with the cumbersome clatter of typesetting machines still jangling my memory after 20 years, I always regard Adobe InDesign software with goggle-eyed wonder. Still can't quite believe it will let me change typefaces without snapping my fingers off.<br />
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So now <a href="http://www.skylightpress.co.uk/">Skylight Press</a> has come into being, and after all these years of designing and editing books for other people I have one of my own. At some stage there will be Daughter of the Soil plant breeding books, but don't hold your breath on those because I haven't written them yet. The first masterpiece to roll off the press is <i>This Wretched Splendour</i>, a stageplay about the First World War which I wrote in my 20s. And of course there's a story behind that too.<br />
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I walked the Somme battlefields in 1996, primarily on the trail of Wilfred Owen, who is a special favourite poet. It was an experience which affected me very deeply. Everyone has seen photos of the cemeteries with rows and rows of white slabs, but until you go out there and see them for yourself you really have no concept of the scale of it. I spent a week out there picking up buttons and bullets in fields, putting my fingers into the carved names of the missing, the tens of thousands of people who were simply blasted out of existence. I collected poppy seeds from old trenches and stood on the edge of the Sambre à l'Oise canal where Wilfred Owen was gunned down. The night after attending Owen's grave I had some very deep and strange visionary dreams. In the following days and weeks they began to crystallise into ideas for a play. I was heavily involved in theatre at the time, so I was confident I knew how to write for the stage. It turned into a full length play about a group of bored and demoralised British soldiers in a front line trench whose lives are transformed by the arrival of a new officer, who uses his sense of humour to deal with the tragedies of the war and inspires them to face their fate with a new stoicism. I gave my newly finished script to a director at the Cheltenham Playhouse, who loved it and managed to get a theatre company down there to sponsor a full production. And a marvellous production it was too, which still brings happy memories to all concerned.<br />
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I also decided to try my luck further afield, so I sent out 30 scripts to major theatre companies and producers. 29 were rejected or ignored (I have a personally signed rejection letter from Alan Ayckbourn, yay!) but one London producer phoned up and said "this is brilliant, I've got a director lined up and we're staging it in February". And then things went a bit mad for a while. The play was put on at the Grace Theatre in Battersea. Susan Hampshire came to see it (she was so radiantly beautiful I'm sure she must glow in the dark) and came over afterwards to say hello and told me how she felt the best war drama is written by women because we have more empathy for its human aspects. Michael Billington from <i>The Guardian</i> came to see it - and wrote a spectacularly glittering review. That caught the eye of the top London literary agents who all started ringing the theatre wanting to "have lunch" with me. And at this point I kind of freaked out. I was still quite young at the time and I'm a shy and reclusive person, and all the attention just terrified me. I was frightened of the agents and didn't follow them up. And within a few weeks I found my celebrity status had evaporated as suddenly as it started. The play was forgotten and I came out of the experience with a three-year writer's block.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4869019150/" title="This Wretched Splendour by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="This Wretched Splendour" height="603" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/4869019150_2b6b8286a4_o.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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So anyway, now that the time has come to launch our small publishing venture, it seemed like a good idea to resurrect the play which has sat in my bottom drawer for 12 years. It still reads pretty well, and I've done a cover design for it which features one of the Somme poppies from my garden (though much Photoshopped). I decided to release it under my maiden name of Rebecca Wilby since that's what it was originally performed under. Should anyone be curious enough to want a copy, it's currently available <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/this-wretched-splendour/12056991">direct from the printer</a> for £8.25 (or $11.89 in the USA). I think they charge about £2.99 for postage as well, but for those who don't mind reading things on screen it's also available as a download, which is cheaper. At some point soon it will be available "from all good bookshops" as they say, but it may take two or three months yet for it to navigate the murky bowels of the global bibliographic databases.<br />
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But fear not, amid all this excitement I am still pollinating potatoes and staring at peas.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-58280154683406945622010-07-11T19:45:00.000+01:002010-07-11T19:45:56.309+01:00TPS: blooms, hybrids and berrybags<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4771531487/" title="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3" height="424" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4771531487_5f6c426de5_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<i>Beautiful purple potato blossom with white star points. This is seedling no.3 of <b>Pirampo x Khuchi Akita</b>.</i><br />
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My potato plants grown from TPS have started flowering, and very beautiful they are too. At the moment it's only the diploid ones which are in bloom, and although the tetraploids are starting to form buds they are a way behind.<br />
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I have two diploid lines on the go, both of them grown from hybrid seed produced by Tom Wagner and given to me by <a href="http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/">Patrick</a>. They are <b>Skagit Valley Gold x Thumbed Nose F1</b> and <b>Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3</b>. Actually I also have some diploid plants from <b>Mayan Gold OP</b> seed I collected a couple of years ago, but those were sown a couple of weeks later than the other two and are not flowering yet.<br />
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<b>Skagit Valley Gold</b> is one of Tom Wagner's own varieties, derived from Andean potato lines, which makes it genetically distinct from the vast majority of American and European potatoes. It has small round tubers with orange-yellow flesh which cook very quickly, taste very special, and are high in carotenoids and Vitamin E. <b>Thumbed Nose</b>, its partner in this cross, is also one of Tom's own varieties but I can't tell you much about that one. I only have two plants of this hybrid and they are looking extremely unlike each other, although both have the distinctive diploid foliage. One is tall and dark-leaved with pigmentation in the veins, and hasn't flowered yet (though it has buds). The other is a bright lime green and much more compact, with little or no pigment. That one is flowering (pictured below) and the blossoms are an attractive pink mauve.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4774481996/" title="Skagit Valley Gold x Thumbed Nose with bee by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Skagit Valley Gold x Thumbed Nose with bee" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4774481996_0a40271e3c.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i><b>Skagit Valley Gold x Thumbed Nose F1</b> blossom, providing some entertainment for a bee.</i><br />
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The flowers on diploid potatoes look just the same as flowers on tetraploids (although they seem to have some additional colour options - I've never seen dark purple blossoms on a tetraploid) but they have some practical differences. Maybe it's to do with Tom's diligence in using only the most fertile varieties in his breeding work, but these flowers are producing stupendous amounts of pollen. As you can see in the photo, they are attractive to bees. This is interesting because bees are among the natural pollinators of potatoes but I've very rarely seen them taking an interest in regular tetraploid varieties. So prolific is the pollen production on these blossoms there were plumes of it going up like a puff of talcum powder just from the beating of the bee's wings. Needless to say I've been using the pollen to make some more crosses and a single anther is enough to pollinate pretty much everything I have available. There is just masses of it.<br />
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The other thing that's different about diploids is that they're normally self-incompatible. This inability to fertilise their own flowers is genetic, and forces them to outbreed with other potatoes. The first two blossoms on this plant fell off, unfertilised, despite the amount of pollen they were chucking around, as there was nothing else to fertilise them. Now that the Khuchi Akita hybrids are flowering I've been pollinating them with that, so hopefully I will get some berries now.<br />
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<b>Pirampo</b> and <b>Khuchi Akita</b> are both rare landraces from Bolivia. I don't know much about them, the only available information being in the records of the United States Department of Agriculture genebank, which lists them both as a "primitive cultivar". My understanding is that they have been cultivated for many generations by Bolivian farmers but have never been commercially available, and are closer to wild potatoes than to modern spuds. The appeal of this is obvious - they have diversity which would simply not be found in so-called "advanced cultivars". They are both of the Stenotomum type - that is, they're what used to be regarded as a separate species called <i>Solanum stenotomum</i> but which is now classified merely as a subspecies or subgroup of the standard <i>Solanum tuberosum</i>. Confused yet? Just look at the pretty flowers!<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4774481692/" title="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4774481692_135056541b.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i><b>Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3</b> blossom. This is plant no.4 in my batch, but they all have fairly similar flowers so far, varying in shades of purple and mauve.</i><br />
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The seeds I was given are described as being an F3. That just means that Tom has recombined the offspring a couple of times since the original cross. They have a lot of diversity, which I'm seeing more clearly because I have a number of plants ... about 15 altogether, of which eight or nine are now flowering. Most of them have flowers similar to the one shown above, a deep rich velvety purple. There are subtle variations in the purple, with some having a magenta hue and others more blue. Some have white tips on the petals. There are also some coming out mauve, again with some variation between pinky-mauve and bluey-mauve. Unfortunately the blossoms tend to be borne facing downwards, so you have to lift them up to see how beautiful they are! The plants are also varied in tallness, vigour, and the amount of colour on the stems and leaves.<br />
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I know little about the tuber characteristics of the parent varieties nor what to expect from my plants, but while I was earthing up the other day some soil fell away and I got a glimpse of a pink-skinned tuber under one of the plants, which seems to have set tubers exceptionally early. I'm not talking about the subtle rosy brick pink of a Pink Fir Apple here. I mean this one was really PINK. As in bright, vivid carmine. I left it in situ and covered it back up, but I can't wait to see what other variants these plants come up with.<br />
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I have to say, TPS is amazing stuff. The seeds are tiny and the emerging seedlings as fine as cotton threads; they have no tuber to provide them with support or nourishment. And yet in less than three months my TPS-grown plants are as large and voluptuous as most of my tuber-grown plants.<br />
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So of course I've been making a lot more hybrids for next year's seed, using various tuber-grown varieties. This berry is on a <b>Sharpe's Express</b> plant, pollinated with <b>Salad Blue</b>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4782585493/" title="Sharpe's Express potato berry by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Sharpe's Express potato berry" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4782585493_142fc26b12.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>The one berry containing (I hope) F1 seeds of <b>Sharpe's Express x Salad Blue</b>.</i><br />
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Sharpe's Express is not an easy variety to make berries with, as it is a very poor flower holder. It produces very pretty flowers when it's in the mood, of a pale lilac mauve colour. But the vast majority of its buds are thrown off before they open, and I only had one cyme of mature buds this year, of which only three flowers opened. I pollinated them all very carefully with pollen from Salad Blue. Two of them fell off before they had a chance to develop into a fruit. But one - just one - successfully set a berry. I go out every day and pray for it to stay on just a little longer and not drop prematurely. Such is the tenuous nature of making hybrids with some varieties.<br />
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There are other frustrating varieties too. <b>Negresse</b>, which would be a wonderful variety to breed from, appears not to produce any pollen (is anyone else having any luck with it?) Its anthers are hard and sterile and I can't get anything out of them. <b>Congo</b> is not much better. And my <b>Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy</b> is declining to flower at all this year, casting off its unopened buds with wilful profligance. But I've also had some successes. <b>Pink Fir Apple</b> was being a pain in the arse, producing masses of flowers but not holding them long enough for a berry to set. Through patience and persistence I've now got quite a lot of berries on it, simply by keeping on pollinating more flowers day after day. Again Salad Blue has been the primary pollinator ... as I'm tempted by the idea of knobbly blue fingerlings. <b>Highland Burgundy Red</b> has given me a pleasant surprise too. I've been growing it for years and it's never once set a berry for me. However I've found its female fertility to be very high - it sets berries very readily when presented with decent pollen. I assumed it was itself male-sterile, but just out of curiosity I made a couple of test crosses, using its pollen to attempt to fertilise other varieties. To my surprise I got a berry. So I tried hand-pollinating it with its own pollen, and again, one or two berries ensued. The pollen fertility doesn't seem to be as high as Salad Blue's, but it certainly can be used as a male parent as well as a female. Perhaps the reason it doesn't naturally pollinate itself is more to do with flower physiology. It has an exceptionally long pistil which sticks way out of the end of the flower, and it also has very small compact anthers. Maybe the distance between the anthers and the stigma is just too great to enable self-pollination without assistance.<br />
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So I now have quite a lot of swelling berries on a great many of my different potato plants, all hand-pollinated and marked with colour-coded wool to identify the fathers. However, there is something I will have to watch out for. The berries are quite visible to start with but as they get heavier they tend to sag down into the foliage, and are lost from view. Some sag as far as the ground, where they're vulnerable to being nibbled at or stepped on. They also have a habit of dropping off the plant unexpectedly, which is not a problem in itself as the seeds inside will carry on maturing even when detached from the plant prematurely (within reason), but it does become a problem if there's a chance of them getting lost. If they roll away from the plant it can be difficult to be sure where they came from, and the coloured threads which identify the father varieties are very liable to get detached from them. What I need - at least for those which are most precious or easily lost - is a small and very lightweight bag to hang over the berries as they near maturity, so if they do suddenly decide to make a break for freedom I have them protected and contained. I've read about people using paper bags for this, which are certainly a cheap and convenient solution, but in the British climate that's about as much use as a chocolate teapot (and for similar reasons). They need to be weatherproof, and porous enough to let air and moisture in and out, translucent enough that I can see the berries inside and light enough not to add any extra strain on the stalks, and ideally re-usable. Here's what I came up with.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4774480730/" title="Potato berry bags by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato berry bags" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4774480730_b4d71e4fe3.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Berrybags. Not the tidiest stitching, but I think these will do the job very nicely.</i><br />
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They are simply made from a scrap of nylon gauze of the type that's sold for making window drapes (hence the pretty gold pattern, but that's optional) and offcuts of this kind of material can be got from fabric shops for next to nothing. I'm simply folding them over and stitching them up by hand, and very roughly, as the aesthetics don't really matter. The top edge has a piece of wool folded into it to make a drawstring, and I sealed the edges with a fray-stopping chemical goo so they don't fall to bits. They take about 15-20 minutes to make and as I'm the kind of person who never measures anything they are in several different sizes, some small enough for a single berry and some big enough for a whole cyme. The bag goes over the berry (including its coloured marker thread, to make sure that stays with the berry) and the drawstring is tied up around the stem.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4773842213/" title="Potato berry bag by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato berry bag" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4773842213_017b6ca525.jpg" width="500" /></a>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-39555868553288910542010-07-07T22:53:00.000+01:002010-07-07T22:53:40.969+01:00July miscellany<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4772171156/" title="Papaver rhoeas by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Papaver rhoeas" height="424" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4772171156_1e1320e1bf_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<i>Is there anything more beautiful than poppies at this time of year? This is one of my Somme poppies (see below) but with white flecks.</i><br />
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My last couple of posts have been pretty demanding in terms of time and research, so I feel the need just to blather about more casual stuff today.<br />
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Tomatoes ... what can I tell you about tomatoes?<br />
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I have a greenhouse full of 'em, laden with flowers and green fruits. I've been doing a few crosses, in a half-arsed kind of way, but I consider them very much a sideline. For one thing, I get fed up with hand-pollinating tomatoes very quickly. In principle they are exactly the same as potatoes and all the instructions I gave in my potato-hybridising post should translate conveniently to tomatoes, which are of course from the Solanum family and have the same basic flower type, except that they're small and yellow. But I find tomato pollination much more frustrating. The small flowers are very fiddly to work with, and the anthers tend to be tightly fused into a cone, so you have to separate them with a careful incision ... they can't be succulently and individually plucked like potato anthers. They are quite a bugger to get off, in fact - which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that they are snugly clamped against a ridiculously fragile pistil. There's none of the "green bendy bit" as described in my pea video ... with tomatoes it's an unyielding green brittle bit. I've destroyed flower after flower by accidentally clonking the pistil off as I attempt to wrench at recalcitrant anthers. Some varieties have a pistil so fine and spindly you can barely see it. And when you do find it, the pollen has to be applied so lightly and delicately, because the tiniest shove in the wrong direction and the pistil is cast aside like a green splinter. Grrrr.<br />
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Before I put you off tomato breeding forever, I should mention that I have a preference for small tomatoes, which tend to come from small flowers. Many of the larger-fruited varieties have much sturdier blossoms which are relatively easy to work with. Ever wondered why large-fruited tomatoes are so popular among hobbyist breeders? Now you know. <br />
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Just to show that I can and do get successful hand-pollinations though, here is a product of my own fair wobbly hand.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4772166554/" title="Banana Legs x Green Tiger F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Banana Legs x Green Tiger F1" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4772166554_02260575af.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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It's an F1 hybrid of <b>Banana Legs x Green Tiger</b>, a cross I made in 2008. Let me admit now that I know very little about tomato genetics, and made this cross very much on a whim just to see what would happen. <b>Banana Legs</b> is an American variety derived from the breeding work of Tom Wagner, though it wasn't raised by Tom himself but selected from a batch of mixed seed bought from his TaterMater company in the 1980s. It's a long plum tomato with a bright banana yellow skin with silver-green stripes, and yellow flesh, and attractive lacy foliage. <b>Green Tiger</b> is something of an enigma, as I obtained it from a packet of Marks & Spencer's eating-tomatoes, and they claim it's exclusive to them (or it was, until me and dozens of other gardeners started saving and sharing its seeds). It has a dark olive green and red striped skin, dark red flesh, and is as round and shiny as a snooker ball, but with a better flavour. Intriguingly, the F1 is producing egg-shaped fruits, which are pretty much intermediate between the two parent fruit shapes.<br />
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My tomato experiments are always going to be limited though by the fact that I don't have the space to do it properly. It's all very well having this solitary F1 plant, as you don't need to grow many plants at the F1 stage. Next year when I come to plant the F2 I will have a problem, as I won't be able to grow more than three or four plants ... so it's pot luck whether I'll get any interesting phenotypes. That's fine though ... I have enough on my plate with the peas and potatoes, and can do without too many extra projects. I'd rather give away the F2 seed, if I can find anyone who wants some, so that those with more space and more tomato passion can make use of it.<br />
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Here's another tomato curiosity: <b>variegated Green Zebra</b>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736261814/" title="Green Zebra variegation by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Green Zebra variegation" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4140/4736261814_5050505c0a.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Variegated leaves on a Green Zebra tomato. </i><br />
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It would be nice if this was a heritable feature, but no such luck. It's a spontaneous somatic mutation - which is the posh way of saying that nature freaked out and made a cockup in the cell division, and the cockup then replicated itself, resulting in two different types of leaf tissue within the same leaf. As the cockup is in the cells of the leaf, and not encoded in the DNA, it won't be passed on to the plant's offspring. In fact this tomato is already reverting to normal fully green growth.<br />
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And funnily enough, there is a similar thing going on in one of my peas. This is a variegated form of the already lovely <b>Buerre Cosse Rouge</b>. Again, I'm pretty sure it's a somatic mutation and won't be passed on in the seeds.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735618855/" title="Variegated pea leaves by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Variegated pea leaves" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4735618855_838f2e3ee7.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Then there's my <a href="http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2006/02/ongoing-projects-somme-poppies.html">Wilfred Owen poppies</a>, which were pretty much the first thing I wrote about when I started this blog in February 2006, and you can read the story of them if you're interested. The gist is that I collected wild poppy seeds from plants growing in a relic of a first world war trench on the Somme. The trench was, I believe, occupied by Wilfred Owen in January 1917 and his poem <i>The Sentry</i> was written about his experience in it. I've been growing the Somme poppies for many years in my garden, and they are rather lovely ... deep silky bright red with a distinctive black cross at the base, though they vary in how strongly the black cross is expressed.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4771532621/" title="Somme poppy by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Somme poppy" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4771532621_ceb9808c6c.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Somme poppy, with a partial black cross.</i><br />
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The native wild poppies of northern France probably haven't changed much since WW1, but during its tenure in my garden the Somme poppy has taken the opportunity to hybridise with some <b>Mother of Pearl</b> poppies I had growing elsewhere at one time. There's not a lot you can do about this; poppies are sluttily promiscuous and will cross over large distances. And I can't say it bothers me. I'm of the view that genes are the important thing, and outer appearance is secondary. I still get plenty of "true" Somme phenotypes every year, and additionally I get some beautiful variants like this.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4772170034/" title="Hybrid poppy by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Hybrid poppy" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4772170034_fd408b6122.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Natural hybrid between a Somme poppy and a garden variety. It has the perfect black basal cross of the Somme type with the pink radial stripes of Mother of Pearl.</i><br />
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And finally, a whinge.<br />
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When I moved into this house/garden, there was a trellis fence along the western boundary adjoining my main vegetable plot. The previous owner, who was also a keen vegetable gardener, had made a point of having a fence there which let full sunlight through to his vegetable plot. Well, my next door neighbours just took it upon themselves, without consulting me, to remove the trellis fence and replace it with solid 6ft panels. I can see why they didn't consult me. They knew very well I would object, on the grounds that I now have a permanent shadow along a sizeable strip of my vegetable plot. They didn't even do a tidy job ... I'm sure it looks immaculate on their side but they've lumbered me with scrappy bits of wooden battens with sharp nails sticking out of the wood. As they just went ahead and did it, the only recourse I have would be to try to force them legally to remove it. Do I want to get into legal shenanigans with people I have to live next to? No, not really. But all the same, I am well pissed off.<br />
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I get on fine with the neighbours and haven't had any dispute with them before, although our garden ideals are polar opposites. Their garden is polished and scrubbed with lawns as sterile as astroturf, and mine is a voluptuous muddle. That, it seems, is the reason for the fence - the missus got fed up with untidy things from my garden growing through the trellis. They have no knowledge of the work I do with my scruffbag plot; they just find it baffling that I grow vegetables for seed and don't eat them. Why save seeds when you can get them for 99p down B&Q? The concept of breeding new varieties and conserving heritage ones meets with blank incomprehension. It's just a different outlook on gardening, and neither of us appreciates the other's aesthetic or way of doing things. At least now they won't have to worry about my dandelion seeds contaminating their garden, and I won't have to worry about their chemical sprays contaminating mine. The privacy is also a blessing. But I'm still pissed off.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4772165986/" title="Taking a fence by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Taking a fence" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4114/4772165986_e683df9ac2.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Yes I know it's extremely childish, but it makes me feel better.</i>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-6132970915021527022010-07-01T22:05:00.000+01:002010-07-01T22:05:12.382+01:00Hybridising peas: the video<object height="270" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xdw00g_breed-your-own-peas_tech"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xdw00g_breed-your-own-peas_tech" width="480" height="270" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object><br />
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Here's a demonstration of the method of hand pollinating peas for anyone who has 10 minutes and 39 seconds to spare. Sorry about the business with the cat, he distracted me and it wasn't really possible to edit it.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-84916583594506973272010-06-27T00:31:00.003+01:002010-06-29T01:42:24.441+01:00How to breed your own potatoes<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735622827/" title="Hybridising potatoes by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Hybridising potatoes" height="424" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4735622827_545266b6be_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Breeding new potato varieties is easy. You can hand-pollinate potato flowers in far less time than it'll take you to read this article, but I'm going to attempt a reasonably thorough explanation, so I hope you find it helpful.<br />
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Potato breeding is done through sexual reproduction, i.e. pollinating flowers to produce berries which contain <b>true seeds (TPS)</b>. Normally when you plant potatoes you propagate them from tubers, confusingly called seed potatoes but which are not actually seeds, but root cuttings. You can't cross tubers. They can only reproduce themselves as they are. Occasionally a plant may produce a spontaneous mutation but it doesn't happen often enough to be useful as a breeding method. Flowers are the way to go, because they give you the option to combine and reshuffle genes from the parent varieties of your choice.<br />
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There's a lot to be grateful for in the anatomy of a potato flower. Hand-pollinating them is very easy. The flowers are large and easy to work with, and the individual parts are easy to manipulate.<br />
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What's not so easy is making careful plans and predictions for what you might get out of it, and that's because potatoes are <b>tetraploid</b>. If you've no idea what I'm talking about then have a look at my <a href="http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2010/04/sowing-potatoes-from-tps.html">previous post about TPS</a> for a simplified explanation. To give a one-sentence summary: a tetraploid has double the amount of genetic material that a normal (diploid) organism has, which is a bit like inheriting traits from four parents rather than two. Tetraploids are a quirk of nature but in potatoes they are a very successful one, and the vast majority of cultivated potatoes in Europe and North America are tetraploid.<br />
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You may still come across the occasional <b>diploid</b>. Mayan Gold and its associated varieties are diploid, and those who are growing TPS from Tom Wagner may have a few diploid lines from him. Diploid potatoes can be recognised by a tendency to have smaller and less fleshy leaves, but the most distinctive feature is the berry. A diploid potato berry has a distinctively pointed end, kind of strawberry shaped, while tetraploid berries are more rounded and tomato-like. If you're feeling experimental you can try crossing a diploid with a tetraploid. At best you will only get a few viable seeds out of it, but it's a brilliant way of introducing new diversity into potatoes. At some point soon I will give it a whole article of its own, as it's too elaborate a subject to go into here.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735613597/" title="Potato berries by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato berries" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4137/4735613597_95d7742cd0.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Potato berries (these are tetraploid ones) in development.</i><br />
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However, assuming the potatoes you want to cross are tetraploid, since most of them are, it's very difficult to predict what the resulting offspring will be like because of the genetic variability involved. With tetraploids, the convenient order of the Mendelian ratio is thrown out the window and replaced by something more akin to a gene tombola. F1 hybrids are not uniform as they are in most other types of breeding project. If you grew a lot of offspring from your cross you'd find that many traits show continuous degrees of variation through the population, rather than segregating into Mendel's either/or groups … which happens because there are so many different ways the alleles can arrange themselves. To quote a research paper by Scotland's premier spudmeisters, Meyer et al (1998) "[Tetraploid] inheritance implies the random pairing of four homologous chromosomes at meiosis, and in a highly heterozygous outbreeding species results in a large number of possible allelic combinations at a single locus. In the most extreme case, eight different alleles could segregate independently in a population, resulting in 36 possible genotypic classes in the progeny." In other words, potatoes naturally have a mixed up genepool (from outbreeding) and when they pollinate and set seed those alleles can arrange themselves in any order - with each different combination having a unique effect on how that trait is expressed. And we're just talking about an individual locus here … the same is happening at every other locus throughout the whole genome. Yowza! <br />
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In short, tetraploids are complex and contain a lot of genetic material which can be immensely variable. Scientists doing genetic research on potatoes often choose to work with diploid lines instead, because tetraploids make such a muddle of their data it's hard to interpret anything.<br />
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So where does that leave you as a home gardener or small-scale farmer wanting to develop your own potato varieties? It leaves you in a position where you may as well have fun, experiment, use your imagination, be creative. As the results can't easily be predicted, you don't actually need to know anything about genetics. Think more along the lines of what you might get if you cross this colour with that colour, or this flavour with that shape - and then be prepared to be surprised!<br />
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One piece of misinformation I see spread all over the internet is a belief that you won't get anything worthwhile out of a home-made potato hybrid because producing just one good variety takes thousands of plants and many many years. This myth has arisen from under the slow-grinding wheels of the potato industry, which does work like that. Sure, if you want to breed a variety which will be listed in all the catalogues and sold in Tesco's and will make you rich from the royalties, your chances are very slim. The selection criteria for commercial potato varieties are immensely restrictive - and largely at odds with what most gardeners would want. Commercial breeders may well churn through (and reject) 200,000 seedlings to find one with commercial potential, then spend the next eight years doing field trials with it before it's ready for release. But don't let that put you off. You can breed a good variety within two years - easily. The majority of your home-made potatoes will be worthwhile, at least decent enough to eat and enjoy and feel proud of. A few will be exciting and wonderful. Even if you're only working with a very small patch of garden, you will almost certainly get some tubers that are worth saving and growing on next year. <br />
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The beautiful thing about potatoes is that it only takes two seasons to get a completely stable new variety. So it's actually quicker than most other vegetables. You make a pollination the first year and produce the F1 seeds, which are all unique individuals because of the genetic diversity. The second year you grow plants from those seeds and they make tubers. If you like the tubers, you simply propagate them by saving and replanting them. As the tubers are basically root cuttings of the parent plant (clones) they are genetically identical. There's no arsing about trying to make F2 and F3 hybrids (unless you want to) or years spent roguing out unwanted recessives. Once you've got something interesting, it's instantly a new variety.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4668225403/" title="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4668225403_0c2776ed1c.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Hybrid potato grown from TPS. This is one of Tom Wagner's hybrids, an F3 of Pirampo x Khuchi Akita. The parent varieties are Bolivian landraces, and are diploid.</i><br />
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If you've dipped a toe into plant breeding before, you'll know that plants tend to be either inbreeders or outbreeders - though that's more of a sliding scale than a polar absolute. Potatoes are really a bit of both. The natural status of potato is <b>outbreeder</b>. The various (diploid) landrace species from which cultivated potatoes are derived have a self-incompatibility mechanism which prevents them from pollinating themselves. The majority of diploid varieties are self-incompatible, although there are exceptions. This forces them to hybridise and mix their genes up in every generation, hence the wondrous diversity found among diploid landraces. However, when potatoes went tetraploid the compatibility barrier got screwed up somewhat. Many tetraploid potatoes have sterile pollen which can't fertilise anything at all, but others can fertilise themselves as well as each other. So they're designed to be outbreeders, but in practice a lot of flowers simply get knocked up by their own pollen.<br />
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Which gives you a choice: you can make hybrid seeds by crossing two different varieties, or you can make self-pollinated seeds which are the product of just that one variety.<br />
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<b>Choosing parents: hybrid or OP?</b><br />
Both are worth experimenting with, but for different reasons. <br />
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When a potato plant sets berries naturally without your intervention, it's most likely that it self-pollinated, but it may also have made hybrids with other potatoes flowering nearby, and you may have a mixture of selfed and hybrid seeds in the same berry. This is called open pollination (OP) … and the results are basically pot luck.<br />
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Making a deliberate hybrid is the most usual way to breed a new variety, as it introduces a lot more diversity. The basic method is to emasculate the flower to stop it from pollinating itself (which you don't even need to do if it's one of the many varieties with sterile pollen) and fertilise the female part of the flower with some pollen from a different variety. The offspring will be very varied, but that's the fun part and you should also get some hybrid vigour which makes for healthy and abundant plants. The only problem with this is that so many varieties of potato are poor berry setters, so not all varieties can be hybridised.<br />
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If you want to grow seeds from one specific variety it can be as simple as saving naturally pollinated berries from it, but if you want to be sure of getting self-pollinated seeds, it's easy enough to do (as long as it's one of the fertile varieties). Just dab a flower with pollen scraped from its own anthers, or other flowers on the same plant, or from other plants of the same variety. Bear in mind though that you will not get a true-breeding offspring of the parent variety by doing so. As potatoes are very heterozygous and have four lots of genetic material to throw around with cheerful abandon, even when they're self-pollinated they segregate into many different phenotypes. If you grow self-pollinated seed from <b>Salad Blue</b>, for example, you will not end up with a lot of spuds which look like Salad Blue. You will get varying shades of blue flesh, some much lighter than the original, some darker, and a few with pinky skin. If you grow selfed seeds from <b>Congo</b>, another blue variety, you may end up with a baffling range of purples, pinks and pure snowy whites, with considerable variation in tuber shape. What's happening is that all the genetic material which has been funnelled into the variety from various ancestors is segregating. Recessive traits emerge which weren't apparent in the variety you started with. If you grow enough self-pollinated offspring, you can start to build up a picture of the variety's pedigree, as many of the ancestral characteristics magically come back to life. So it can be a really fascinating thing to do.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735625121/" title="Seedling from Salad Blue OP by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Seedling from Salad Blue OP" height="331" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/4735625121_6416b3cbf9.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>A seedling grown from self-pollinated seed of Salad Blue. It's the only plant in the batch which has this striking black tinged foliage and black stems. I'm hoping it'll produce some dark tubers to go with it.</i><br />
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It's important to remember though that nature designed potatoes to be outbreeders, and if they self-pollinate they may show some degree of inbreeding depression. Only a bit though. As most spuds have such a rich and diverse genepool they can get away with a certain amount of inbreeding, but you may find self-pollinated seeds grow less vigorously than hybrids. That's not a problem and shouldn't put you off trying self-pollinated seed … but it's better to sow a few more than you need and then select the seedlings which show the most vigour and whoomph.<br />
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<b>Variety differences</b><br />
Differences in the fertility of individual varieties will most likely dictate what crosses you make, and how you do them. Over many years of being propagated by tubers, cultivated potatoes have moved away from the idea of flowering and producing seeds, and many of them can't be bothered to do it any more. Ironically for such a naturally variable and heterozygous plant, a historic lack of genetic diversity is thought to be the cause of the potato's fertility issues. The vast majority of modern cultivated potatoes are descended from one single Chilean spud, which had what is known as T-type cytoplasm, a genetic predisposition to making offspring with infertile pollen. Over the years many of these semi-infertile lines have been selected deliberately, as the male-sterility makes the process of hybridising them much easier. Consequently an awful lot of modern spuds have infertile pollen, and some are female-sterile too. Some can't be arsed to flower at all, and just dump their buds as soon as they appear. There are things you can do to force a reluctant variety to produce flowers, but it's a lot of hassle which I won't go into here, and from the point of view of future breeding work it makes more sense to choose varieties that at least show some willingness to come up with the goods.<br />
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I wish I could give a simple list of which variety does what, but I only know about the ones I've grown and observed myself, and it can vary from garden to garden anyway. Different countries have different varieties - import restrictions have affected exchange of material - so the ones I work with in the UK may not be available to people in the USA (just as most popular US varieties are strangers to me). So you will have to experiment with whatever you have available. As far as I can see, varieties fall roughly into four categories.<br />
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Some potatoes are <i>very fertile</i> and make excellent male or female parent varieties. <b>Salad Blue</b> is the Cassanova of the potato world - it only has to look at another potato and a berry starts swelling. You can usually tell a fertile variety because it naturally sets its own berries in profusion. <b>Desirée</b> is another very fertile one, and so is <b>Mayan Gold</b>, although the latter is a diploid so it needs to find the right kind of partner, or get lucky mating with a tetraploid. <br />
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Most cultivars fall into the <i>male-sterile or almost-male-sterile</i> category - these are the ones which flower happily enough but don't tend to set berries. <b>Highland Burgundy Red</b> is a good example of this, as is <b>British Queen</b>. It gamely produces a mass of dainty little flowers but in years of growing it I've never had a single berry. Give it a dab of pollen from a fertile variety though, and it sets berries very readily. So it makes an extremely good female parent. The advantage of male-sterile varieties is that you don't have to emasculate them, which makes it much quicker and easier to hand-pollinate them. Some varieties which appear to be male-sterile may actually be female-sterile. So it's worth trying the pollen on another variety to see if it will take. The disadvantage of using these partially sterile varieties is that it perpetuates the poor fertility of potatoes. If you want to do <i>Solanum tuberosum</i> a real favour in your breeding projects, select the progeny for good berry production. Because good berry production is what will keep its genetic heritage alive, as well as enabling some much needed new diversity to come in.<br />
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Then you have what you might call the <i>awkward buggers</i> category. These include <b>Pink Fir Apple</b> (syn. Rose Finn Apple) which not only has male sterility issues, it often can't be bothered to set a berry even when it's given fertile pollen. What usually happens is that the flower opens happily enough and you carefully pollinate it two or three times and on the third day the whole bloody thing drops off. Or worse, it starts to set a berry and then it falls off before it's mature. It pays to try again though, because there's a good chance that one of the pollinations will take eventually, when the plant is in the right mood and the planets are in the right alignment or there's an 'r' in the month. It's a pain in the backside to have to keep pollinating more flowers, but bearing in mind that each berry can easily produce 100 seeds or more, it only takes one successful pollination to give you loads of future breeding material - so it's worth persevering. Again, with a variety like this you don't need to waste time emasculating. I just go through the whole crop each day dabbing fertile pollen on every stigma I can find and saying "come on, set a bloody berry you sod!"<br />
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And finally you have the <i>total refuseniks</i>. There is a wonderful Victorian potato called <b>Witch Hill</b> which is reputed to be one of the best flavoured potatoes around - it is truly delicious. I would love to use it in breeding work. But every year the flower buds appear, and just as they're starting to look promising they drop off. All of them. Little dessicated posies cast to the ground. Now, unless it changes its mind, I cannot breed from it. If a variety won't flower, there is no breeding possibility, it's as simple as that. I could grow fields of the stuff and hope for a spontaneous somatic mutation, but that may never happen. Witch Hill is a genetic dead end. This is why breeders like Tom Wagner select breeding lines from varieties which are good berry setters. If a variety won't flower or won't set berries, it has no future.<br />
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The annoying thing is, Witch Hill did flower for me a couple of times when I first got it (it came to me as a laboratory-grown microplant) but I hadn't got into potato breeding at that time so I didn't think to make any crosses with it. D'oh!<br />
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<b>Hybridising potatoes: the practical bit</b><br />
Let's be grateful for small mercies: potato flowers are nice and simple and easy to work with. They are 'perfect' flowers which contain both male and female parts. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736259414/" title="Anatomy of a potato flower by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Anatomy of a potato flower" height="344" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4736259414_02d3321488.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Anatomy of a potato flower. Each of the anthers is a double sac, both halves containing pollen. When the anthers mature they develop little holes in the ends (like a salt cellar) and the pollen falls out onto the stigma.</i><br />
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The Mayan Gold blossom shown above is fairly typical, but there are variety differences in the exact shape of the flower. Some have a long style where the stigma protrudes some way out of the flower (be aware that a sticky-outy stigma has more chance of being cross-pollinated by passing insects than one where the stigma is hidden away). Some produce a neat little fused anther cone, others produce a rather grotty collection of misshapen anthers which don't hold together properly. Some (like Pink Fir Apple) do weird things where anthers and petals morph into one another. None of this matters - the principle is the same. You'll get to know the individual character of the flowers in your own garden as you work with them.<br />
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In order to control what pollen fertilises the flower, you have to stop the flower from fertilising itself, so that means removing the male parts of the flower before they mature. As I explained above, with some varieties you don't need to do this - if the variety produces sterile pollen or none at all, you can save yourself the trouble. The instructions shown here are for if you have a fertile variety or want to be sure of getting hybrid rather than selfed seed.<br />
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Potato flowers are produced in cymes - bunches of flowers which open consecutively, 2 or 3 at a time. The flowers last two to four days but tend to close up in late afternoon. The anthers develop holes in their tips when they're ready to dehisce, though they're not very glamorous - in fact they look more like some insect has had a go at them. Potato pollen is white, powdery and very fine. The stigma is receptive for about 2 days and the period of pollen shedding also lasts about 2 days. Fortunately for the garden dabbler, the female part tends to become receptive just before the pollen starts to shed, so you have a window of opportunity to intervene. <br />
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The best time for hand-pollination is in the morning when pollen is most abundant, and when the temperature is fairly cool. But I wouldn't worry too much about this, it works at other times too.<br />
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<b>If you're using a variety with infertile pollen, or you aren't bothered about the chance of a few self-pollinated seeds, you can skip steps 2 to 4.</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735622117/" title="Potato hand-pollination 1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 1" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4735622117_8093bba260.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 1: Having chosen the variety you want to use as the female parent, find a blossom at the right stage. Potato pollen can be shed quite early, before the flower opens, so emasculation has to be done while it's still at the bud stage. What you're looking for is a nearly-ready bud where the calyx (outer green bit) has started to open but the petals are still shut. This is a variety with a sticky-outy stigma, but with many varieties it will still be hidden inside the petals. Doesn't matter either way, although a sticky-outy like this inevitably carries a small risk of picking up stray pollen from elsewhere.</i><br />
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<i>You may notice a strand of mauve wool poking out underneath. I tied this around the stem of the flower (or in this instance the whole cyme, as I'm going to hand-pollinate all of them) as a marker, so I can be sure I know which ones I've hand-pollinated. I use a different colour of wool to indicate different pollen fathers.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736258976/" title="Potato hand-pollination 2 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 2" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4736258976_469049de80.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 2: Peel back the petals and you'll find the anthers inside. They are still immature at this stage - with no holes in the ends. If they do have holes and are shedding pollen, try a slightly younger bud instead!</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736258674/" title="Potato hand-pollination 3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 3" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4094/4736258674_d71f7e5062.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 3: Using a blunt scalpel blade, tweezers or similar, pull/scrape the anthers off, being very careful not to damage the style - the central stalk with the stigma at the end.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736258398/" title="Potato hand-pollination 4 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 4" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4736258398_2150632dbd.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 4: After removing all the anthers you're left with a denuded female part, ready to be pollinated with the pollen of your choice.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735620857/" title="Potato hand-pollination 5 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 5" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4735620857_f097a998fa.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 5: Next find the flower you want to use as the male parent. Choose a blossom which is newly opened, as those are the ones most likely to have a good pollen stash (the ends of the anthers should be open at this stage). Pull off a single anther using tweezers/scalpel/fingers.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735620479/" title="Potato hand-pollination 6 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 6" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4735620479_0c815d1380.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 6: When you turn the anther over you'll see it has a seam down the back, separating the two pollen sacs. Additionally, each individual sac has a little slit down its centre. Carefully slip the tip of a blunt scalpel blade through the slit and slide it along. Note that the slit should be open so you can insert the blade freely ... you want to avoid cutting into the anther if you can. </i><br />
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<i>If there is pollen inside, you will see it on the tip of the blade. It's a very fine white powder. If you don't see any white powder, try another anther from a different flower. You don't have to collect all the pollen at once ... just scrape out enough to dab on the female flower, and use the rest for more pollinations. (When the first sac is empty you can do the same with the other side. You can often pollinate ten or a dozen flowers from the pollen in a ripe anther like this.)</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736257532/" title="Potato hand-pollination 7 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 7" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4736257532_a5af11371e.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 7: Armed with your pollen-tipped scalpel, go back to the bud you just emasculated and dab the pollen powder onto the stigma - which is the knobbly-bobbly thing at the end. The stigma is mildly sticky when it's receptive, so you should find the pollen grains sticking to it quite readily. No need to make a song and dance with it - just a gentle dabbing so as not to risk damaging the stigma.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735619761/" title="Potato hand-pollination 8 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 8" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4735619761_9ba5ee56d8.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 8: The next day, go back to the same flower and pollinate it again with pollen from another fresh anther. The stigma remains receptive for around two days in total but you don't know exactly when that is, so for best results give it a pollen dab on three consecutive days. You'll notice that the petals have opened on this flower now, although it looks a bit weird as it has no anthers. Once the petals have closed and wilted a bit, you can assume it's no longer receptive.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4735619243/" title="Potato hand-pollination 9 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato hand-pollination 9" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4735619243_cc594e761c.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Step 9: The berry starts to form. Yay!</i><br />
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From this point on, patience is the order of the day. Potato berries seem to mature painfully slowly. Try to resist the temptation to prod and poke them, you don't want them to fall off as they dangle clumsily on their alarmingly scrawny stalks. After about four weeks you need to watch for them dropping off naturally. Ideally, tie a little cloth or paper bag over them at this stage so that they are caught safely if they drop. Alternatively, be very vigilant, and ready to rummage about on the ground if you notice them suddenly go AWOL. Fortunately they don't taste nice enough for animals to be interested in them, at least not in the way of UK garden wildlife, so they're unlikely to be carried off, but you don't want to chance it.<br />
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One key factor about potato berries, significantly unlike tomatoes (to which they're closely related), is that the seeds carry on developing even after they've detached from the plant, and the berries will stay firm for months. This has several advantages. For one thing it takes the pressure off you to extract the seed from them ... you can leave them until you've got the time and inclination, even weeks or months down the line. Secondly it means that all is not lost if the berry is dropped too early or the plant dies prematurely. This is very significant in the light of the blight problems we are all besieged with. The plants can be struck down by blight, wither and rot - and the berries will still survive. Save the berries and let them mature, and as long as you clean them thoroughly they will yield perfectly healthy seed.<br />
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The topic of cleaning and processing TPS from the berries is to be the subject of a separate post. In the mean time, go out and make some berries!<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">With thanks to Tom Wagner and friends at the <a href="http://tatermater.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general">TaterMater forum</a> for advice and suggestions (any errors are entirely my own responsibility).</span></i>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com52tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-89005292281793517002010-06-21T11:58:00.001+01:002010-06-22T01:13:22.132+01:00Gene genieGenes are the most wondrous things. What flower colour do you suppose I got when I crossed this white blossomed beauty ...<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4395021815/" title="Alderman by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Alderman" height="375" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2728/4395021815_56cd9bab66.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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... with this gorgeousness of rosy-pink?<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622188645/" title="Salmon-Flowered pea by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Salmon-Flowered pea" height="375" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4622188645_bf02880f5f.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Well, I got this:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4722149495/" title="Alderman x Salmon Flowered F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Alderman x Salmon Flowered F1" height="332" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1095/4722149495_179b12d459.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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It's my F1 hybrid of <b>Alderman x Salmon Flowered</b>. It has just blossomed and produced flowers of the 'standard' mauve and maroon two-tone, the colour you get in field peas. Neither parent shows this colouring. <b>Alderman</b> is a delicious late Victorian pea with the snowiest of snow white blossoms. Its partner in this liaison was the strange umbellatum variety <b>Salmon Flowered</b>, supplied by the Heritage Seed Library, which is the only pea in my collection to have the particularly lovely two-tone pale pink and salmon pink flowers.<br />
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I don't know all that much about the genetics of pink flowers, but I know there are at least a couple of genes which can produce them. I don't know which one(s) are present in Salmon Flowered, but the ones I'm aware of are both recessive. The white flowers of Alderman are also recessive. (Yes, despite the fact that most garden peas have white flowers, it is a recessive trait.) When you cross two varieties which both have different recessive alleles controlling the same trait, some weirdness can show up in the hybrid.<br />
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So am I surprised that my hybrid came out purple? Actually, no, not really. I did wonder if it might. And here's what I think the explanation is.<br />
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I've mentioned many times in my pea genetics posts (for those who don't glaze over while reading them) the existence of a gene called <b>A</b>. That's short for anthocyanin. This particular gene is an on-off switch which controls the production of anthocyanin, the pigment responsible for all pink and purple colouration in peas. The function of <b>A</b> is that simple - on or off. There are other genes which control which part of the plant the colour is expressed in ... flowers, pods, leaf axils, seeds. They are all separate genes which can inherit independently. But none of them can express themselves without the dominant <b>A</b> allele which switches on the pigment production. Without it, the colour genes are still there but they are mute.<br />
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With <b>Salmon Flowered</b>, it's obvious that it has genes for colour in various places. The rosy pink blossoms, the pink blush on the pods, the soft pale pink smudge in the leaf axil. The presence of all these colours tells me that it has the dominant <b>AA</b> genotype - in other words, anthocyanin is switched <i>on</i>. Conversely, <b>Alderman</b> shows no anthocyanin pigment whatsoever. It is entirely green leaved and white flowered. I can safely assume that it carries the recessive <b>aa</b> genotype - in other words, anthocyanin is switched <i>off</i>.<br />
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Because Alderman is genetically incapable of producing anthocyanin pigment, I have no way of knowing what other colour genes it has hidden away, clawing at their nucleotides and begging for release. It's very possible that it has a full palette of colour genes, and that it wants to express purple flowers, splodgy leaf axils, purple stems, the works. Even though all these colour genes are dominant, they are helpless, disempowered, in the presence of <b>aa</b>. It's a curious subversion of the usual law of inheritance, with a recessive allele suppressing the expression of several dominant alleles.<br />
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Now this is turning into a very wordy explanation, but it's all so gloriously simple. The mystery purple flowers in my hybrid have almost certainly come from Alderman. I believe Alderman has the dominant gene which makes purple flowers, but it's not normally expressed in Alderman plants because they have no pigment capability. When I made the cross with Salmon Flowered, I gave it the 'on' switch. In a cross between a plant which is <b>aa</b> and one which is <b>AA</b>, the hybrid is going to be <b>aA</b>. The dominant allele gets the upper hand, anthocyanin is switched on, and all the colour genes in both varieties are free to express themselves. My hybrid is showing colour traits from Alderman as well as from Salmon Flowered.<br />
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I suspected this might be the case when I saw the colour blotches on the leaf axils in the hybrid plants. They were very prominent, with the dark pink colour streaking right out into the stems. Although Salmon Flowered does have pink in the leaf axils, it is very pale and subtle. This was quite different and could only really have got there if it came from Alderman. So I knew there was a good chance that Alderman might have a purple blossom gene as well, especially as those two colour genes are closely linked and usually appear together.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHIoEtc2IeUvGJzo7nqjDO2hX7cBV39jETf-4iKw18kK_9D2doYenNtHbp1WX1wte7YtjKp7yb2NAG_yti7xTjkfs6SV5RWfvCzrE4CFIU6G2MGnZxFpFnSszry6m62HbXwpiEw/s1600/leafaxilsplodge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHIoEtc2IeUvGJzo7nqjDO2hX7cBV39jETf-4iKw18kK_9D2doYenNtHbp1WX1wte7YtjKp7yb2NAG_yti7xTjkfs6SV5RWfvCzrE4CFIU6G2MGnZxFpFnSszry6m62HbXwpiEw/s400/leafaxilsplodge.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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What this means for the F2 generation next year is that I will get a quarter of the plants unable to produce anthocyanin, and therefore having white flowers. Of the remainder, I will get mostly purples but I'm hoping that there will also be a few rosy pinks. I don't know exactly how the pink-flower gene works, so I wouldn't want to predict anything more than that at this stage. <br />
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Last time I wrote about my Alderman x Salmon Flowered F1 hybrid I said it was expressing the recessive trait for fasciation (stem widening). Well it isn't. It did show some fasciation, but it turned out to be from environmental causes and the plants reverted to a more normal pattern of growth. They do have very thick stems, but this is common to nearly all my F1 hybrid peas and I think it's mostly just hybrid vigour. They are, however, saving their flowers for the top of the plant, and have grown to almost 6ft before showing any buds. This, coupled with the late-maturing trait from Alderman, makes them very slow to reach maturity. That's probably something I will have to select against in the F2.<br />
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Meanwhile, jolly solstice blessings to all who observe such things.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-83325745814817542252010-06-18T21:52:00.003+01:002010-06-18T22:26:37.955+01:00A triumph of carrots<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684420443/" title="Carrot triumph by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Carrot triumph" height="500" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/4684420443_9b8aaf1e68.jpg" width="332" /></a><br />
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There is, you'll agree, a certain 'je ne sais quoi' oh, so very special about a firm, young carrot.<br />
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So said Uncle Monty in <i>Withnail and I</i>, my favourite film of all time (though in all honesty I don't watch that many) and it's certainly a triumph to me because I'm absolutely rubbish at growing carrots. I've grown the odd good one in the past, "one" being the operative word. To actually be able to hold up a bunch of homegrown carrots without them wilting in spindly shame is a first for me.<br />
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These photos are from the first batch I harvested. I dug up another load a week later and the colour was better on some of them in the second batch. They might have grown bigger if I'd left them a bit longer but I needed to vacate the greenhouse borders for my tomatoes. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685054564/" title="Carrot harvest by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Carrot harvest" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4009/4685054564_20ae5e8d30.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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So what did I do different this time? Well I started them off early and grew them in the greenhouse, which is probably what made the biggest difference to their fortunes. They were safe from the buffeting of spring weather and the oscula of marauding slugs. Also, instead of direct sowing the seeds in rows in the traditional way, I sowed tiny groups of seed in small modules and then transplanted them into the greenhouse border in baby clumps (no thinning needed).<br />
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I still need to perfect the method though, because some of them got into a bit of a cosy relationship under the ground, like these Purple Dragons.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684420151/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Menage à quatre by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Menage à quatre" height="332" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1287/4684420151_b3e72244af.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<i>Ménage à quatre</i></div><br />
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So let's have a little rundown of the varieties (see pic below).<br />
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<b>Red Samurai</b> - this one is an F1 hybrid. If you've read some of the cynical ranty stuff I've written about commercial F1 hybrids you might be a bit surprised that I'm growing one. But I always reckon if you're going to slag something off it's as well to be sure you know what you're talking about. So although I think commercial hybrids are largely a waste of money, I sometimes grow them to see how they compare with the OP varieties I sing the praises of ... and also to see whether they have potential for breeding work, because the F2 seed they produce can segregate into interesting new combinations. Anyway, Red Samurai is a red carrot - or at least a kind of brick red. The ones shown here are not very red, but I harvested some better coloured ones in the second batch. I also had some which didn't look right at all ... thin, spindly and whitish. The presence of the thin white dud in a carrot crop is usually a sign of an accidental cross-pollination with a wild type of carrot like Queen Anne's lace. Such crosses are not uncommon even in commercial seed because carrots are such tarty outbreeding slappers. But I did get enough decent red carrots to be able to evaluate it. It was sweet and tasty and pleasant. Did it have that special extra edge to justify the cost of an F1 hybrid? No. In a word. Nice, but nothing special and there are plenty of OPs which are better.<br />
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<b>John's Purple</b> - or John's Light Mauve, if my specimens are anything to go by. This is from the Heritage Seed Library and not commercially available. It was raised in the 1970s by a chap who spotted a purple carrot in a bag somebody gave him for his rabbits. The roots are neither large nor pretty, but they are certainly different from anything else I've seen. Eaten raw it has a strong, earthy, slightly soapy flavour and is very juicy with a really nice texture. The carrot is white inside but the mauve colour extends some way into the flesh. Worth giving this one another go, I think.<br />
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<b>Cosmic Purple</b> - hmmm ... I suspect I may have a packet of mislabelled seeds, because the carrots I dug up are neither purple nor particularly cosmic. Maybe that's a blessing, because I've heard nothing but negative things about the flavour and texture of Cosmic Purple. The thing I have here is a decent, nice looking orange carrot with a smooth skin, a sweet and juicy flavour (though rather mild in character) and lovely texture. God knows what it is though.<br />
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<b>Purple Dragon</b> - ahhh ... now this is purple. The ones I dug up in the second batch had an even stronger colour. Rich though the colour is, it's entirely on the surface. Slice it open and the carrot is a normal orange colour all the way through. Raw flavour is very sweet but with a hint of a bitter undertone, and the texture is firm and crunchy. It does however keep its colour pretty well when it's cooked, and loses the hint of bitterness. It's a nice variety and one I will grow again.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685053704/" title="Carrot harvest by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Carrot harvest" height="332" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1295/4685053704_0ef60942fc.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Left to right: Red Samurai F1, John's Purple, Cosmic Purple (supposedly), Purple Dragon.</i><br />
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Purple Dragon is certainly the pick of the bunch, and the one I'll continue to grow. It's not the best carrot I've ever tasted ... that particular accolade goes to a heritage yellow variety called <b>Jaune Obtuse du Doubs</b>. If I had time I might even try crossing them, but I shall need a couple of extra lifetimes to fulfil all my plant breeding ideas.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654031681/" title="Purple Dragon carrot by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Purple Dragon carrot" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4654031681_758a0b8d08.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Purple Dragon, sliced.</i><br />
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And another nice little triumph. Yesterday the blog's hit counter clocked up the 100,000th visit. I managed to capture the moment in a screenshot. This has taken exactly four years ... I put the site meter on here in June 2006, a few months after I started the blog. It was depressing to have it there at first because I had bugger all readers - even the spammers couldn't be bothered. It has built up steadily since then. So I'd encourage anyone who's just starting out with a blog not to get despondent if it seems like nobody's reading it. It can take several months to a year before you really get noticed. Anyway, thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me and left comments over the last few years.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6lVOXQOPU5qkBEolkBeKe_CIKItF6PLlvfc1QP9kjx-TevPRVRaDy7kXLpLR56RCT9bvdT2VjAhjpWYf8alKe9CaRumEOtZE5PonS7NQdtcX0HvVs2WE28YKW-jI_jkAP580qg/s1600/100000hits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6lVOXQOPU5qkBEolkBeKe_CIKItF6PLlvfc1QP9kjx-TevPRVRaDy7kXLpLR56RCT9bvdT2VjAhjpWYf8alKe9CaRumEOtZE5PonS7NQdtcX0HvVs2WE28YKW-jI_jkAP580qg/s400/100000hits.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-62336939809815521882010-06-13T23:34:00.000+01:002010-06-13T23:34:41.368+01:00Beautiful Luna Trick<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4697011223/" title="Twilight Luna Trick F4 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Twilight Luna Trick F4" height="447" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4697011223_aff75cae86_b.jpg" width="600" /></a><br />
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Everything's happening so fast in the garden at the moment I'm barely able to upload my photos onto the computer before they're out of date (however did I manage in the days when I had to send films to Bonusprint?) so I'm just going to chuck a few pictures of my <b>Luna Trick F4</b> peas up here to show you how they're getting on.<br />
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I'm very happy with the way things are going with this variety. You may recall, dear reader, that I have two separate batches of F4 plants because last year's Luna Trick F3 segregated into mangetout (snow) types and sugarsnap types, and as I'm intending to develop them as different varieties I'm growing the two types separately. Or I thought I was. As it turns out I have sugarsnaps among the mangetouts and mangetouts among the sugarsnaps, so balls to that idea. The former situation was entirely expected - I knew some of the mangetout-podded plants I saved seed from last year would've sneakily closeted away the recessive <b><i>n</i></b> allele in their genome, ready to spring forth unbidden in future generations. This recessive allele singlehandedly creates the sugarsnap type simply by thickening the pod wall, transforming a wide flat pod into a slim, round, plump and juicy one. I love both types, so I'm open minded about what I get. But the recessive nature of this gene means that it will be hiding itself in a proportion of the mangetout plants for a generation or two yet, and I won't know which ones until I grow their offspring.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685055832/" title="Luna Trick F4 blossom by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Luna Trick F4 blossom" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4685055832_28a502175a.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Upside down flowers? Well why not.</i><br />
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The most promising F3 plant I had last year was one called <b>LT10</b>. (There's nothing arcane about this name, it was simply the 10th plant in my Luna Trick trial to get a label stuck on it.) It was a tall mangetout-podded plant with a divine flavour. And the gene gods were smiling on me, because when I started growing out the F4 it turned out to be the only one of my mangetout lines which was true-breeding for tallness, which is what I want. All the others had hidden recessive dwarfing genes lurking in them. If I save seed only from LT10's offspring and not from the other lines I should have no more trouble with dwarves. I supposed it would be too much to expect LT10 to be true-breeding for mangetout pods as well, and indeed it has presented me with a goodly smattering of sugarsnaps. They may well be good enough to contribute to the development of my sugarsnap line, but in the breeding of a stable mangetout line they are a pain in the backside.<br />
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While I was expecting to get sugarsnaps in the mangetout batch, I certainly wasn't expecting to get mangetouts out of the sugarsnaps - that was a complete surprise. A recessive trait is by definition true-breeding. It can only express itself when a matched pair of recessives get it together and there are no dominants involved to spoil the party. As the mangetout-pod trait is dominant it couldn't possibly be present, hidden, in any of the sugarsnap plants I saved seed from last year. So I was intrigued to see not one but several of the F4 sugarsnap plants developing mangetout pods. How could this be? Is there some other gene at play which suppresses the sugarsnap gene? Did the faeries dig my plants up and move them in the night? The solution became obvious when I looked at the identification tags of the plants concerned. They were all from the same parent plant, LT2. I'm growing ten of LT2's offspring, and the majority of them have mangetout pods, with a few sugarsnaps. While I hesitate to declare a Mendelian ratio on such a small sample size, it seems obvious that there is one and I made a mistake in classifying LT2 as a sugarsnap when it was nothing of the sort. Sometimes mangetout pods look a bit sugarsnappy. It's a relief to find such a simple explanation, and it's one of the reasons I number my plants at the F2, F3 and sometimes F4 stage - as laborious as it is, it enables me to track the pedigree of each individual, to find patterns in weirdness and resolve mistakes.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654039813/" title="Luna Trick baby sugarsnap pod by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Luna Trick baby sugarsnap pod" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/4654039813_29c4dd843e.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>The first Luna Trick F4 pod, still with its little petal nosebag on. This one is a sugarsnap type (honest).</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684421465/" title="Luna Trick F4 sugarsnap pod by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Luna Trick F4 sugarsnap pod" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4684421465_29d35a29a8.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>The same pod five days later, now with a beautiful luna crescent shape.</i><br />
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In the last couple of days I've managed to do the first couple of taste tests, and so far they've all been very nice. Flavour is the most important thing I'm selecting for, apart from healthy vigorous plants which goes without saying. But I'm also looking out for crescent moon shaped pods, particularly among the sugarsnaps. I'm also mindful of the colour intensity. For the most part Luna Trick has a stronger and longer-lasting yellow colour than its yellow parent, Golden Sweet, but in last year's batch I did have some which faded to pale washy green a bit more quickly than I would like.<br />
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I'm also busy with the scalpel using Luna Trick for various hybrids, particularly as it represents a superior alternative to Golden Sweet, so rather than doing backcrosses to Golden Sweet in my Peachy and Red-Podded lines, I'm using Luna Trick instead. I'm making these crosses with both the mangetout and the sugarsnap types, which I'm hoping will give me a red sugarsnap as well as the decent flavoured red mangetout I've been coveting. I've also made some crosses with Salmon Flowered (the antique umbellatum pea) which is more of an experimental endeavour. What I have in mind is to extract the gene which makes the rosy pink flowers, which would look lovely on a yellow-podded pea. But my weird imagination also conjures up a vision of a yellow-podded umbellatum, crowned by a giant clump of sticky-outy golden sugarsnaps. What a spectacle that would be.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4697641976/" title="Luna Trick F4 pod by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Luna Trick F4 pod" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4697641976_0ca2ef2375.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>This is one of the mangetout type pods.</i>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-81063527547399936942010-06-09T20:23:00.003+01:002010-06-10T02:30:01.672+01:00A wildflower interlude<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684428355/" title="Cotswold storm by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4684428355_25d80f1603_b.jpg" alt="Cotswold storm" height="464" width="700" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A thunderstorm chucks its load on the Severn Valley (and shortly afterwards, on me) during my walk on Sunday. Normally you get a spectacular view of the Malvern hills from here, but they are swamped!</span><br /><br />I rarely blog about anything that isn't in my own garden, but it's worth making an exception sometimes. Not least because I ought to mention occasionally that I have an interest in native British wildflowers (and have a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/sets/72157623341530180/">Flickr set</a> of my best photos). And that I'm also lucky enough to live in the Cotswolds, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so I have no excuse not to go out and gawp at them.<br /><br />I don't have to go very far to find them. Cheltenham sits within a cosy semicircle of hills which form a continuous ridge around it. The ridge gives the town a beautifully sheltered climate and keeps frosts in my garden to a minimum. And the ridge itself is mostly grassland overlaying beautiful honey-coloured limestone which makes a wondrous habitat for wild flowers and butterflies. All of the Cotswold hills have their own unique character and variations in plant life, and when I feel the need for a botanical frenzy I tend to go to the quieter ones which the tourists (and even most locals) don't know about. My favourite is Nottingham Hill, which is a spur at the northern end of the ridge.<br /><br />Nottingham Hill is a very special place to me. The whole of the top is an iron age hillfort, but you can't see it from the ground because it's too big to view in its entirety. The earth is full of natural holes, dips and openings. The lower slopes (particularly on the N and E sides) are liberally dotted with springs, some of which are the sources of local brooks and streams. Most of the trees around the fort are magical trees, elder, hazel or thorn. There's also a very strange grove on the southern edge just below the fort where almost all the trees are hollow or have holes in them, growing in the dips and hummocks left by ancient quarrying. Some are small finger-sized holes, some cup-shaped holes with grass and violets growing in them, some large oval holes right through the tree. With gorgeous views over the Severn Valley to go with it, it's an incredibly evocative place.<br /><br />It's also lush with wild flowers.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684425199/" title="Rock rose and common spotted orchid by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/4684425199_6d7f5ee3c3.jpg" alt="Rock rose and common spotted orchid" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rock rose</span> (Helianthemum nummularium) growing next to a <span style="font-weight: bold;">common spotted orchid</span> (Dactylorhiza fuchsii) on Nottingham Hill.</span><br /><br />These pictures were all taken on Sunday, when I went out for a walk up there on what seemed like a charmingly pleasant early summer day. I was having a great time grovelling about in the undergrowth with my camera when it became apparent that the distant booming I could hear was not some bizarre rural motorsport as I'd assumed but a rather formidable thunderstorm approaching very stealthily. I can't resist rainstorms ... they are an exhilarating manifestation of nature's power and they make me feel wonderful. So once I'd got my camera to a place of safety (just as the rain was starting) I went off up another footpath and climbed up onto a mini-hillock on the hillside and embraced the storm while it pelted down and soaked me. It was bliss!<br /><br />I had to drive home with a wet arse, but it was worth it.<br /><br />None of these are particularly rare plants, but I don't care, it's always a joy to see them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684424819/" title="Wild thyme by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4052/4684424819_76c307ffdf.jpg" alt="Wild thyme" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wild thyme</span>, which is a species called Thymus polytrichus. It looks like a miniature version of garden thyme and you certainly can take it home and sprinkle it on your pizza, but I've found Cotswold wild thyme to be decidedly lacking in the aromatic department, so I generally just admire it and use home-grown stuff for eating.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684424039/" title="Bird's foot trefoil by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4684424039_71ee3993b0.jpg" alt="Bird's foot trefoil" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yes I know this stuff is common as dirt. But it doesn't half look beautiful once you get down on your hands and knees for a proper look. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bird's foot trefoil</span>, also known as Eggs and Bacon, and Lotus corniculatus.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685060340/" title="Green alkanet by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4685060340_2645a53189.jpg" alt="Green alkanet" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The decidedly blue flower known as <span style="font-weight: bold;">green alkanet</span>, and also by the glorious botanical name of Pentaglossis sempervirens.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684426807/" title="Crosswort by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/4684426807_6163847400.jpg" alt="Crosswort" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Although it looks a bit like lady's bedstraw, this is the slightly more subtle <span style="font-weight: bold;">crosswort</span> (Cruciata laevipes). Most things with 'wort' in their name have a history of medicinal use.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4684426171/" title="Common milkwort by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/4684426171_21fc380d7f.jpg" alt="Common milkwort" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Another old healing herb, <span style="font-weight: bold;">common milkwort</span> (Polygala vulgaris) which I found in two shades of blue and a pink variant, all growing together in the same clump.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685058072/" title="Creeping cinquefoil by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4685058072_8fc86e5278.jpg" alt="Creeping cinquefoil" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A particularly elegant blossom of <span style="font-weight: bold;">creeping cinquefoil</span> (Potentilla reptans).</span><br /><br /><br />One of the highlights of my walk was not a flower but a particularly beautiful moth. I don't know much about moths at all but these days all you need is a quick trawl of the interwebs to identify things.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685061378/" title="Five-spot burnet moth by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/4685061378_14a4772aa5.jpg" alt="Five-spot burnet moth" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685061252/" title="Five-spot burnet moth by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4037/4685061252_e1fc3ed2d8.jpg" alt="Five-spot burnet moth" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This gorgeous chap (two views of the same moth) is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">five-spot burnet</span>, or Zygaena trifolii if you prefer.</span><br /><br />Finally, here's something that <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> in my garden.<br /><br />I have a few wild plants naturalised in my garden, either because they've always been there or because I've introduced them through locally collected seeds. My house was built in the 1930s on land that was formerly a damson orchard, and I still have some damson trees in what was originally a field boundary at the back of my garden, and it's quite possible that some of the native wild flowers have stuck around here too.<br /><br />At any rate, when I moved here in 2004 and started weeding the garden, which had been fallow for a year, I found a scarlet pimpernel with purply-mauve flowers instead of the usual pale red. I carefully weeded round it to give it a chance to mature and set seed. I wasn't sure whether the flower colour would come true from seed, but sure enough the following year there were more.<br /><br />It's not particularly unusual to get colour variants in scarlet pimpernels. But blue is a more common one to find, or white. I'm not sure how widespread the mauvey purple ones are. But it certainly is a heritable trait because there's no variation from year to year. I try to help them colonise by carefully preserving all the pimpernels when I'm weeding and then removing a lot of the scarlet ones once they show their colour. Sometimes if I'm out there with my tweezers I grab an anther off one of the purples and dab it on the stigma of another purple on a different plant, just to make sure. But in all honesty it doesn't need my help, it's surviving fine by itself.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4685057062/" title="Purple scarlet pimpernel by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1293/4685057062_014d9d164b.jpg" alt="Purple scarlet pimpernel" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Violet-purple petals on a <span style="font-weight: bold;">scarlet pimpernel</span>, Anagallis arvensis. Native to my garden!</span>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-87995793311787290972010-06-04T17:43:00.004+01:002010-06-27T22:54:42.501+01:00TPS potatoes: transplanting and growing on<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654651488/" title="TPS seedling (Mayan Gold) by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="TPS seedling (Mayan Gold)" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4654651488_78979ecaf5.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>A young TPS seedling ready for a new home. This one is from an OP berry of Mayan Gold which I collected in my garden in 2008.</i><br />
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Well, I said I would give further instructions on cultivating potatoes from TPS (true potato seed) once I had some photos from my own crop, so it's about time I got on with it. These tips draw heavily from the <a href="http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/2009/11/tom-wagner-on-growing-and-saving-true-potato-seeds-tps/">videos of Tom Wagner's potato workshop</a> posted on Patrick's blog, so if you want more details I recommend giving those a spin.<br />
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Last time I wrote about <a href="http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2010/04/sowing-potatoes-from-tps.html">sowing and growing</a> young seedlings from TPS. Once the seedlings get established, you essentially grow them the same way you would ordinary tuber-grown potatoes … you earth them up as they grow. The only difference is that they are smaller and more delicate than tuber-grown potatoes, at least until they get established, and need to be handled a bit more gently.<br />
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The first thing you will probably notice about potato seedlings is that they grow very fast. When they first germinate they're so tiny they almost look like little threads of cotton sticking out of the soil. But it doesn't take long for them to outgrow their seed tray and be elbowing each other for space. They also tend to be a little bit straggly and thin-stemmed (though less so if they've been given plenty of direct sun) and when they reach a couple of inches tall it's time to give them their first transplanting.<br />
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Find a container or module thingy deep enough for the whole seedling. That is, the depth of the soil in the seed tray plus the height of the plant. Make a deep well in the centre of the module/pot and drop the seedling into it. Bury the whole plant right up to its neck - stem, leaves and all. Just leave the growing tip and a couple of sets of leaves sticking out at the top.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654652418/" title="Potting up TPS seedlings by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potting up TPS seedlings" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4654652418_5f28be1f4f.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>Put the seedling into a deep hole in the compost and bury the stem and lower leaves, submerged up to its tip, like the one on the right.</i><br />
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Once they are potted up they will grow like rockets. The submerged stems will grow little feeder roots which will help the plant grow bigger and better. They are exactly like tomatoes in this respect. They have the additional advantage though that they can also set tubers from these roots ... and earthing them up in this way will increase their tuber production just as conventional potato crops are earthed up for the same reason. When transplanting them, there's no need to remove the lower leaves - just bury them. They're better left in place to wither naturally rather than causing unnecessary injury by pulling them off.<br />
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Keep the potted up seedlings well watered in a sunny place for a few more weeks and admire them as they turn into something like this:<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654038837/" title="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4654038837_7886162420.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>A mature seedling ready to be planted out in the garden. This is a Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3 plant grown from Tom Wagner's TPS, now starting to look properly potato-like. Ignore all the funny business at the base of the stem ... relics of the fused cotyledons which this plant produced before growing normally.</i><br />
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When there's a good bit of stem growth on the seedlings and all risk of frost is past, harden off the seedlings for a few days and nights and prepare a plot of ground for them. By now they are getting to a point where they can be treated more like tuber-grown potatoes, and you can plant them in the same kind of soil you would use for any other potato crop. Having said that, the lack of a tuber does make them more vulnerable. If a tuber-grown potato haulm is damaged, it usually regrows fairly easily from the tuber, which is full of stored energy and nourishment and capable of compensating for pretty much any degree of human ineptitude. TPS-grown potatoes don't have that backup - they are dependent solely on their youthful root system, which is somewhat fine and tangly. Add a thin and brittle stem into the equation and you have a rather more delicate plant than a normal spud. Even so, it's amazing what they will survive. One of my seedling batches newly planted out this week had a devastating visitation from the Arse of Doom, which left evil deposits followed by a savage ground raking in which several plants were damaged. I was pretty surprised to find that baby plants reduced to mangled muddy stumps with all their leaves ripped off were sprouting new green growth within two days. Them's tough little chaps.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4736249926/" title="Stolon moments by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4136/4736249926_b66af973ec.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="Stolon moments"></a><br />
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Depending on how mature the plants get by the time you plant them out, you may find tiny tubers already forming when you take them out of their pots, as shown on this Carola hybrid above. The tubers form on special chunky roots called stolons. Sometimes you get stolons above soil level with little microspuds on the end, but usually when stolons grow above ground they develop leaf shoots, which is not what you want, so plant them out and get them earthed up. Something else I noticed was a very slight blue-ish tinge in the roots of some of my Salad Blue OP seedlings. I may have imagined that though, I was drinking some Belgian Leffe at the time, and that stuff is like LSD to me.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654037885/" title="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Pirampo x Khuchi Akita F3" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/4654037885_c258baef78.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
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Dig a little trench. Tom recommends a north-south orientation to make the most of the sun passing overhead. Then dig out a hole at the bottom of the trench deep enough to accommodate the whole height of the plant and its rootball. Yes, once again you are going to bury most of the plant right up to its top leaves. The original seed level is going to end up some way underground, which allows lots of stem depth for making extra roots and tubers.<br />
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I have been planting my seedlings around 10 inches apart. That's slightly closer than I would with tubers. Plants grown from TPS are not realistically going to produce as big a yield as a tuber-grown crop in their first year (they will make up for it next season) so I squeeze them up a little. Space is at a premium in my garden so I sometimes need to plant things a bit on the close side.<br />
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If waterlogging is a problem in your soil, you can plant the seedlings slightly to one side of the trench rather than in the bottom (choose the side where they will get most sun) to ensure the roots aren't sitting in a puddle where they might rot. My soil is sandy and well drained so I don't worry about it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654657390/" title="Potato seedlings planted out by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img alt="Potato seedlings planted out" height="332" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4025/4654657390_0857f549f0.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
<i>The seedlings planted along the base of the trench, planted deeply with just their growing tips exposed. They will soon grow up and away, and as they do I will be able to fill in the trench to keep them earthed up.</i><br />
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The earthing up process continues as the plants grow. The filling in of the trench is followed by a gradual mounding up, so that you end up with a long hillock around the plants. Just as you would with a conventional potato crop.<br />
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Next instalment will be an explanation of hand-crossing potato flowers to make your own TPS. Wahey!Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-50220866957822362892010-05-31T23:59:00.001+01:002010-06-01T12:05:59.212+01:00Please universe, may I have some edible red podded peas?<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654655572/" title="Purple mangetout pea F2 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/4654655572_97fbcc3350.jpg" alt="Purple mangetout pea F2" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded</span> F2. First one to flower.</i><br /><br />Today has been a perfect day for hand-pollinating peas. Warm and dry but not too sunny - which creates just the right conditions for pollen to spill its abundance and for stigmatic goo to be in the right mood to receive it. Even more usefully, it was completely breezeless with not so much as a leaf blade stirring. The bitter lessons of trying to hand-pollinate flowers that are thrashing about in the wind, not to mention walking across the garden with a precious blob of pollen on the end of a scalpel, have taught me that pollinations on breezy days are the stuff of futility. All the more so for those of us with waist-length hair, which is guaranteed to flap across your face at the very moment you were trying to deposit a miniscule dab of pollen onto a particularly wobbly and elusive stigma.<br /><br />As the weather was so perfect for it, I was really hoping to get some useful pollinations done for my red podded pea project. Only trouble is, most of the flowers I want aren't ready. The true red podders aren't even producing buds yet, and my semi-red mangetout line, which I'm hoping to cross with the Luna Trick sugarsnap for some peachy-red snap pods, didn't want to play either. I found a prime pollen-bearing bud on it that was well past the usual stage for self-fertilisation but when I cut it open I found it stubbornly refusing to dehisce.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654656464/" title="Red-blush peas about to flower by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4654656464_16d25fbf8e.jpg" alt="Red-blush peas about to flower" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>An F4 plant from my semi-red podded mangetout line, currently struggling under the temporary working name of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Peachy</span>, getting ready for some blossom action (but not yet).</i><br /><br />So instead I did some pollinations I didn't really need using the flowers I had available. It is worth pointing out that my beloved <span style="font-weight: bold;">Luna Trick</span> pea is the result of just such a casual union, in which I used up the last of some Sugar Ann flowers to pollinate a few buds of Golden Sweet just because I was bored. It turned out to be an inspired combination. Today's efforts mostly involved <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sugar Snap</span> flowers as females, pollinated with some of my purple F2 plants which may or may not turn out to be any good. I used the opportunity to take some close-up photographs of the pollination process. It's my fourth attempt to take such pictures. Thing is, you really need three hands for it, or an assistant who knows what they're doing. I have neither, so Plan B was to stick the camera on a tripod and use the self-timer for some very cumbersome hands-free photography, which resolved the three-hands issue but gave me some more challenges in trying to get it to focus in the right place when there's negligible depth of field. Anyway, if any of them are any good I'll add them to my previous pea-breeding tutorial.<br /><br />The hand pollinations are just one aspect of what I'm doing on this crimson seeking project. Since my pièce de résistance in the red podded pea department stubbornly refused to yield me any fibre-free pods, I've been looking at alternative ways of getting them. Which now involves several simultaneous endeavours.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Growing out the rest of the F2 seed from whence the original came.</span> This is the biggest hope. The particular combination of genes I need are a minority class which will only show up in a small proportion of the F2 offspring. I need the yellow pod gene (recessive), two purple pod genes (both dominant) and two fibre-thwarting genes (both recessive). I can't be arsed to look up in a Punnett Square what the actual chances are and calculate the number of plants I need for 95% probability … I'm content to know that it may take a lot of plants in order to deliver the holy grail. This year it's down to luck anyway, as I have only a small amount of F2 seed left and so I can't grow lots of plants. Even the seed I do have is of poor quality because it was grown from a late summer crop (I used to have this trick of growing two consecutive generations in one season to double the speed of my breeding work, but have since stopped doing it because the second crop yields weak seed at best, and at worst yields nothing and just wastes valuable breeding material). So I have about fifteen, maybe twenty plants, and they may or may not offer any red pods. The moment of truth is approaching, as the F2 plants have got flower buds.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654652864/" title="Purple mangetout pea F2 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4654652864_f9a9d53dcb.jpg" alt="Purple mangetout pea F2" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654656030/" title="Purple mangetout pea F2 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4654656030_487e36283e.jpg" alt="Purple mangetout pea F2" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><br />They're very pretty buds, with the mauve blush that promises bicolour flowers. Both parent varieties had bicolour flowers, so I'm expecting to see it in all the offspring. The ones shown above are fairly typical and there are others similar, with more or less purple sploshing on the stems and leaves. But I can already categorically rule out any red pods from these two plants or any of the others currently budding. The reason? Green calyx.<br /><br />Green calyx means green pods. I've noticed from my work with yellow podded peas that there is a direct correlation between the calyx colour and the pod colour. Yellow podded peas are always preceded by pale cream buds which turn into a cream calyx. Sometimes it has green mottling, and pink dapples, but the base colour is always cream. (Have a look at the picture of Peachy above and see how cream the calyx is compared to these F2 buds). I suspect the cream calyx/yellow pod may actually be coded by the same gene. If they are separate genes, they are certainly slapped together pretty tightly on the chromosome, and inherit together. It's not affected by flower colour - you can get white flowers or purple bicolour flowers on a yellow-podded pea, it's just the calyx and pod colour that are inseparable from each other.<br /><br />When I say that green calyx means green pods, it may also mean purple pods … or partial purple. That's because purple podded peas are in fact green podded. I know that sounds weird, and I've had to explain it so many times on plant breeding forums it's obviously something a lot of people find hard to follow. If you look closely at a purple pod, the very tip where it attaches onto the plant is green. Break it open and it will be green inside. The purple pigment, no matter how intense it looks, is merely on the surface, and the base colour of the pod is green. This is also the reason why all purple podded peas turn green when cooked. The water-soluble anthocyanin pigment is just sitting on the surface and is washed away in hot water.<br /><br />I admit it did take me a while to work this out. The first time I grew F2 seeds from this cross, it produced red, green, yellow and purple pods in varying proportions. I couldn't understand why a cross between a purple podder and a yellow podder yielded so many offspring with green pods. Neither of the parents appeared to have green pods so where did they come from? The simple answer is that the purple parent <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> green podded, with the green hidden under the layer of purple. In the great gene reshuffle, some of the offspring end up with green pods without the genes for purple overlay, and so they stay green.<br /><br />The same principle applies to red pods. They are simply yellow-podded peas with a purple overlay, which combines visually to make deep red. It's not possible to have red pods unless the base colour of the pod is yellow. That's how I know the two buds shown above are not going to give me red pods. A red-podder bud will invariably have a cream calyx, not a green one.<br /><br />While I shouldn't condone the practice of peeking inside unopened leaf clusters to look at bud colours, I naturally can't resist it. And it's been very encouraging. Because two of the upcoming F2 plants which are not ready to blossom yet are showing cream buds among distinctly yellowy foliage. Even when they're tiny, the cream colour is unmistakable. The cream buds don't necessarily result in red pods, some will just stay yellow, it depends whether the genes for purple overlay are also present. But they do open up the likelihood of it. Also, one of the cream buds is showing a speck of pink colour on the calyx. While I don't have a genetic explanation for it, I have noticed a strong correlation between pink markings on the calyx and red pods. So I'm feeling lucky with this one.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654653760/" title="Cream buds ... red pods? by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4008/4654653760_e975ef69fb.jpg" alt="Cream buds ... red pods?" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Maybe it's not very clear in this photo, but this developing bud has a cream calyx - ergo yellow pods. Also a tiny pink spot on the calyx which is a good sign.</i><br /><br />It's still pot luck whether any of the plants in this small sample will give me exactly what I want, but the solution is in there if only I can grow enough F2 plants. Which brings me on to my convenient back-up plan …<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Growing out more F1 plants to make new F2 seed.</span> I still have a number of F1 seeds saved from when I made the original cross. The seeds are good, healthy mature ones too. I started off a batch of about ten F1 plants this year. The beauty of peas and their efficient self-pollination is that you don't need to do anything except grow the F1 plants and save seed from them. They are veritable F2 seed machines. Every pea they produce has a unique individual genome, its own personal reshuffling of all those genetic goodies. Somewhere among the reshuffles is bound to be the specific five-gene combination I'm looking for.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654032183/" title="Purple/red mangetout pea F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/4654032183_7f510f1a5f.jpg" alt="Purple/red mangetout pea F1" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>F1 hybrid of Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded. Flowering like billy-o and hopefully making lots of nice F2 seeds for me.</i><br /><br />What's interesting about these F1 plants is that they are showing massive hybrid vigour, or heterosis. It's a phenomenon brought about by having a mixed up genome, a by-product of heterozygosity. Its cause has always been something of a mystery, though I'm told that some recent research has put it down to an enhanced ability for photosynthesis. Whatever the reason for it, my own observation is that it only happens in certain crosses - though there are degrees of it. And it's for one generation only - you don't tend to see it in F2 plants. This has been especially marked in my current crop, because I sowed the F1 and F2 seeds from the same cross side by side in the same rootrainer tray, and they are now growing side by side out in the garden. And from the moment of germination, the F1 plants rocketed away from their F2 nephews. They grew faster, had thicker stems, established themselves in the outdoors quicker, produced substantially bigger leaves and grew taller. They were also earlier to flower - and still having a burst of surplus energy to get shot of, have thrown out a lot of sideshoots too. Pea sideshoots are usually feeble, spindly things, if they ever get going at all. These are nothing of the sort. They are full-size, chunky, vigorous new branches which look set to flower and make pods.<br /><br />Something else peculiar about the F1 plants, or one of them at least. I've been writing about the leaf aberrations in my peas this year, which I'm beginning to conclude are probably weather related. I mentioned the fasciation (thickening of the stem) in one of my other hybrids, despite the fact that it's a trait caused by recessive genes. Well, now some spontaneous fasciation has occurred in one of these F1 plants. To my knowledge, there are no fasciation genes in this hybrid, which is not related to the other one - they are completely separate breeding lines. Which leads me to assume that pea fasciation is not solely genetic, and can arise as an environmental reaction. What's even more weird is that the plant in question managed to unfasciate itself by splitting into two stems. A single stem with a well developed sideshoot is one thing, but this is a pair of twin stems growing at the same rate in different directions, equal and opposite.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4654030273/" title="Purple/red mangetout pea F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4654030273_5a5abaae41.jpg" alt="Purple/red mangetout pea F1" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>This F1 pea developed spontaneous fasciation (stem widening) and then split into two separate but equal growing tips. This is not normal for peas!</i><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Edit: I've just done some homework on fasciation, following a link from <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.com/">Rhizowen's wonderful blog</a></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, and it seems that spontaneous fasciation from environmental stress is a well known phenomenon - actually more common than genetic fasciation. It's caused by damage to the growing tip by virus, bacteria, insect nibbling or frost - and a reversion back to normal growth is also common. In this case, frost is almost certainly the culprit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other avenues.</span> I had just eight seeds left from my original red podded pea. I sowed them, and three fell victim to marauding gastropods. The five survivors are doing well though, and although there will be no edible pods among them, they will enable me to make some crosses. The priority will be to cross them with my two Luna Trick lines, which are genetically similar, being derived from the same original parent variety, but represent a superior form of it with good-flavoured and fully edible yellow pods. Another batch of twenty or so are on the go, thanks to my big haired friend Graham, who grew some last year and gave me back some seeds from the best of them. Again, they won't have edible pods, but they will be priceless for making crosses and might also make the basis for a red-podded shelling pea. Also of course there's the Peachy line which has edible pods which are part-red. That might turn into a variety in its own right, and will certainly be useful for making crosses with the pure red (if it ever gives me any pollen).Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-56203073015820376162010-05-29T22:24:00.003+01:002010-05-29T22:48:55.075+01:00A tomato round-upI never got round to blogging about last year's tomato crop, so here is a very brief summary of it before this year's crop reaches the point where I have to blog about that instead. I didn't grow very much last year, so here are the three best ones. Bottle tops are included for scale.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4350937377/" title="Essex Wonder tomato by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4350937377_49bac463fe.jpg" alt="Essex Wonder tomato" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Essex Wonder</i><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Essex Wonder</span> - I got this one from the Heritage Seed Library, mainly for sentimental reasons. I grew up in north Essex which has (or had) an extensive market gardening and glasshouse industry. Essex Wonder was a popular market gardener's tomato from the 1930s to 1950s, extensively grown in the area before dropping from the catalogues and fading to near-extinction. I found it to be a very pleasant if rather "normal" tomato compared to the weird freakish stuff I usually grow. The fruits are almost perfectly spherical and bright red and come in a range of sizes from mini-cherry to golf ball, all with a pretty decent flavour.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4351686392/" title="OSU Blue Fruit tomato by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2714/4351686392_5d46f5232e.jpg" alt="OSU Blue Fruit tomato" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>OSU Blue Fruit</i><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OSU Blue Fruit</span> - oh this is special! Bred by Jim Myers at Oregon State University in the US, it's a dark anthocyanin-skinned purple tomato which, given enough direct sunlight, turns coal black when it's ripe. At the moment it isn't available commercially (as far as I know); they're working on improving its flavour and shape, and this prototype is doing the rounds among curious collectors and amateur breeders. I got mine from Michael Johnson in Nottingham.<br /><br />The fruits are only purple/black on the outside. Cut them open and they are red. They also stay red - or a deep bronzy red-black - on any part that doesn't get full sun, because they need strong light to develop their colour. That includes the area underneath the calyx at the top of the fruit, so they have a little red star on the top when you harvest them. They are supposedly more reliable at developing the full colour when grown outdoors, but I grew mine in the greenhouse and they came up a treat.<br /><br />As with many exciting plant breeding developments, the mechanism behind the blue fruit is relatively straightforward. There are three wild species of tomato which contain some anthocyanin pigment in the fruit, each involving a different gene. Two are dominant: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Abg</span> comes from <span style="font-style: italic;">Solanum lycopersicoides</span> while <span style="font-weight: bold;">Aft</span> is found in <span style="font-style: italic;">Solanum chilense</span>, and the recessive <span style="font-weight: bold;">atv</span> comes from <span style="font-style: italic;">Solanum cheesemanii</span>. All of these genes have already been bred into cultivated tomatoes over the years, without producing fully blue fruits. What the OSU team discovered was that if you combine all three of these genes together you get a cumulative effect which intensifies the pigment. Voilà blue fruit.<br /><br />The downside of OSU Blue Fruit is said to be its flavour, which has a reputation for being "inky". Anthocyanins are normally tasteless, but they're often accompanied by other compounds and biochemical changes which can affect the flavour. Consequently I wasn't expecting that much from it in the way of taste. But I was pleasantly surprised - it was actually pretty palatable. I'd be lying if I said it was up there with the best tasting tomatoes, but it certainly wasn't poor either … it was as good as or better than most of what you'd find in the supermarket.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4351685220/" title="Pugliese Green tomato by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4351685220_57346066ab.jpg" alt="Pugliese Green tomato" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Pugliese Green</i><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pugliese Green</span> - this Italian variety was given to me by Jeremy Cherfas over at <a href="http://agro.biodiver.se/">Agricultural Biodiversity</a>. Despite the name, it's very much a red tomato, and doesn't look significantly different from other red tomatoes, though it has a certain intensity of colour. There is one thing that makes it stand out though - the flavour is stupendously good. I'm even able to nibble at it raw (see below). It's fruity and juicy and succulent with just the right balance of gel and flesh, and will probably become a flavour benchmark for me. Thank you Jeremy.<br /><br /><br />That was last year's crop. Meanwhile the 2010 crop is going nuts in the greenhouse making the most of the unlikely sunny weather. Here's what I've got crammed in there …<br /><br />OSU Blue Fruit<br />Tangella<br />Isis Candy<br />Anna Russian<br />Green Zebra<br />Green Tiger<br />Darby Striped Pink/Yellow<br />Darby Striped Red/Green<br />Pugliese Green<br />Essex Wonder<br />Pink Freud F3 (one of my own experiments)<br />Banana Legs x Green Tiger F1 (another bit of hand-pollinated jiggery pokery)<br /><br /><br />The horrendous affliction of late blight means that it's no longer practical to grow tomatoes anywhere but inside the greenhouse, where they're sheltered from the warm summer rain which brings the deadly spores to the garden. Normally it's not worth trying to grow any outdoor tomatoes any more, but <a href="http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/">Patrick</a> kindly sent me some seeds of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tomatito de Jalapa</span>, which is supposed to be blight resistant. There are genes for blight resistence in certain wild species of tomato, and some of these are being bred into garden varieties. From what I gather, this has been working OK with small cherry tomatoes but is not much cop when it comes to the big-fruited types. So if you want blight resistance you have to have tiddly little fruits. Which is fine by me, I don't mind. I have little knowledge of what Tomatito de Jalapa is like or how assiduously it fends off blight, but I'm looking forward to experimenting with it. The greenhouse is full, but the beauty of this one is that I can grow it outdoors.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4606324873/" title="Tomatito de Jalapa by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1190/4606324873_63721e1a37.jpg" alt="Tomatito de Jalapa" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Tomatito de Jalapa seedlings, as photographed a couple of weeks ago. They have since been potted up individually and are growing like rockets.</i><br /><br />I've also got another tomato that I pinched from a restaurant. I don't know what variety it is, but I had to have it. At this point I need to confess something. I actually hate raw tomatoes, and can't eat them unless they're mixed with something else. I love them cooked, and I love growing them, but when it comes to snacking them off the vine - forget it. They actually make me gag. But a couple of months ago I was in a little basement restaurant in Cheltenham called Café Rubik, which does very nice food. The curse of being vegetarian though is that everything you order always comes with salad. Chefs seem to assume that all vegetarians are health freaks and don't want to eat chips or anything stodgy and interesting, so if you're vegetarian simply because you don't want to eat dead animals but <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> want to eat stodgy interesting and unhealthy stuff without dead animals in, you're out of luck. So, confronted with the mandatory pile of bleak greenery, I was thinking "fuck, how am I going to get through all these raw tomatoes?" But when I nibbled the edge of one I was surprised to find it rather fruity. I nibbled a bit more. It didn't taste of tomatoes at all, it was like a tangy little fruit - a cape gooseberry or something. I then astounded myself by eating a whole one, and actually enjoyed it. This really was a momentous event because I've never eaten a raw tomato like that before. It was unprecedented.<br /><br />Well obviously there's only one thing you can do in those circumstances, and that's steal one to take home and get the seeds out of it. I waited some while for a moment when the waiter wasn't looking, but he seemed to be looking all the time, so in the end I just grabbed one and shoved it in my pocket. He looked a bit surprised but didn't say anything. I took it home and fermented the gel and got quite a few seeds from it. Although received wisdom has it that tomatoes need to over-ripen to the point of inedibility in order to produce mature seed, I've always had perfectly good results saving seeds from eating-stage tomatoes, and indeed other vegetables. If you like the taste of it scrape some seeds out of it, that's my motto.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622186871/" title="Tomato "Café Rubik" by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4622186871_e06f4048e9.jpg" alt="Tomato "Café Rubik"" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>The original Café Rubik tomato, as pilfered.</i><br /><br />Sure enough the seeds germinated rampantly and have grown into very healthy plants. They all look the same so far too, which is a good sign, as it implies that it's a true-breeding open pollinated variety and not a hybrid. I've no idea what variety it is, though presumably it does have a real name. It might even be a well known mainstream commercial variety for all I know. But I've called it <span style="font-weight: bold;">Café Rubik</span> in lieu of an identification. Not much to tell from its outer appearance … it's round, and red, and tomatoish. I'll post pictures of the plants as they grow in case anybody recognises it.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-59019752243168055902010-05-19T23:56:00.003+01:002010-05-20T00:32:53.064+01:00Leaf weirdnessWell it was only a few days ago that I blogged about the likely genetic expression in my <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alderman x Salmon-Flowered</span> F1 pea. And already the plants are thumbing their noses at me and proving me wrong.<br /><br />Let me begin my explanation by showing you a picture of their dad.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622187893/" title="Salmon-Flowered pea by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/4622187893_9a2af84b4c.jpg" alt="Salmon-Flowered pea" height="500" width="375" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Salmon-Flowered</span> pea growing in my garden in 2007. This is an umbellatum type pea which bears all its flowers in a clump at the top. This happens because the new stems formed at each successive leaf node fuse together and are drawn upwards into a big fat monster stem, for which the technical word is <span style="font-weight: bold;">fasciation</span>.</i><br /><br />I mentioned that fasciation is caused by a very particular combination of three recessive genes. Because they're recessive, and they need to present themselves all together in order to do their thing, I wasn't expecting to see any sign of fasciation in the F1. I thought they would be masked by the dominant alleles of <b>Alderman</b>. Shows how much I bloody know about it.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622056527/" title="Pea showing stem fasciation by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3416/4622056527_692622b646.jpg" alt="Pea showing stem fasciation" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622056969/" title="Pea showing stem fasciation by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4622056969_6ca1b6fbaa.jpg" alt="Pea showing stem fasciation" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Young <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alderman x Salmon-Flowered</span> F1 plant showing early but unmistakable signs of stem fasciation. In other words, it's going to be an umbellatum phenotype with a clumpy flower posy at the top.</i><br /><br />I don't know why this is happening - I was expecting the growth habit to be more in keeping with the hybrid's mum, Alderman. Multiple-recessives do have interesting effects, but you see that in the F2 plants, not the F1. What's most odd is that I have some young Salmon-Flowered plants on the go at the moment and they are not yet showing anywhere near as much fasciation as this. Perhaps Alderman has one or more of the recessive fasciation genes hidden unexpressed in its DNA. Perhaps the recessives don't have an equivalent dominant allele and are able to express themselves freely. I haven't got a clue (suggestions welcome) so I'm just speculating. At any rate it's showing itself consistently in all the F1 plants.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622057439/" title="Pea showing fasciation by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3407/4622057439_90da18b04a.jpg" alt="Pea showing fasciation" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Alderman x Salmon-Flowered</span> F1. The leaf stems have divided and doubled themselves, a feature of umbellatum peas.</i><br /><br />Meanwhile though, I'm seeing some leaf aberrations in my other peas too, and those are even more devoid of an explanation. It takes many forms and it's mostly happening among my hybrids, but not exclusively. I've no idea what causes these effects. Cold weather? Virus? Genetic mismatch? Mystical cosmic rays?<br /><br />Pea leaves usually come in pairs, but here is a gallery of weirdness.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622664636/" title="Pea leaf aberrations by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4622664636_44ae5d4b3f.jpg" alt="Pea leaf aberrations" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Trefoil. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet x Kent Blue</span> F1.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622658988/" title="Pea leaf aberrations by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4622658988_befa115a59.jpg" alt="Pea leaf aberrations" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Quatrefoil. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Magnum Bonum x Carruthers' Purple Podded</span> F2.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622055547/" title="Pea leaf aberrations by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1166/4622055547_83f702545f.jpg" alt="Pea leaf aberrations" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Another quatrefoil. This one is bearing one of its leaves upside down, and has two sets of tendrils, one on each side. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded</span> F2.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622054605/" title="Pea leaf aberrations by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3342/4622054605_9340bc95dd.jpg" alt="Pea leaf aberrations" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Quatrefoil at the main node, creating a butterfly effect. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Red-podded</span> pea (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded</span> F5).</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622053295/" title="Pea leaf aberrations by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4622053295_b4f271e4a6.jpg" alt="Pea leaf aberrations" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Magnum Bonum x Carruthers' Purple Podded</span> F2. This hybrid is the one that is showing by far the most leaf weirdness, with a number of the plants showing what I can only describe as a "cabbaging" effect … with surplus leaf growth bunching up around the growing tip, and sometimes even terminating the tip in a leaf-and-tendril dead end. But curiously, it is only affecting the plants that were grown from light-coloured (cream or green) seeds. I sowed the dark coloured seeds separately in the same tray and those are all normal.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622665172/" title="Pea leaf aberrations by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4622665172_5033966818.jpg" alt="Pea leaf aberrations" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">May Queen</span>, an old English variety, with two leaf nodes fused together. Each node has a fully formed pair of leaves and a single flowering stem, but all squashed up together.</i><br /><br />At least I haven't suffered any losses (yet) in the recent spell of unseasonal frost, except for a pot of bush basil which 'melted' overnight when the temperature got too low for it. Apart from that, I've been lucky - thanks to Cheltenham's sheltered climate and my garden being hemmed in by trees and houses. Garden pests have been taking their toll though. After an abnormally dry spring which kept the slugs and snails in hibernation for weeks longer than normal, a few days of heavy rain brought them all out and they were ravenously hungry. The <span style="font-weight: bold;">Luna Trick</span> F4 crop suffered some quite severe damage, with about a quarter of the plants gnawed down to stumps within 48 hours. The damaged ones will make new shoots, but it will set them back by several weeks. Sluggy bastards. I even had a potato haulm completely devoured in the space of two nights - gone and vanished without trace. The culprits for this damage tend to be either the large brown garden snails or the tiny keel slugs who live in the soil and are barely noticed at the crime scene.<br /><br />The other garden pest damaging my peas at the moment is a ginger cat with a big arse. It's a funny thing about cat social mentality - he wants attention and doesn't care whether it's positive or negative as long as he's getting it. He enjoys cuddles but is really just as happy when I'm yelling and chasing him off with a broom. Since he discovered he can get lots of noises and arm-waving from me by crashing over onto my pea seedlings, he's taken to doing it repeatedly. And the more I go "aaaargh!" the more he does it. I'm trying to reverse-condition him by walking away and ignoring him, but it's easier said than done … when someone slaps their capacious backside down on baby F4 plants that represent four years' breeding work, sometimes you just have to leap around and shout.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4622187567/" title="Mez by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3349/4622187567_63cf63fe5a.jpg" alt="Mez" height="375" width="500" /></a><br /><i>The Arse of Doom</i>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-83782737376456294072010-05-14T17:51:00.006+01:002010-05-15T00:51:11.680+01:00F1 hybrid peas and axil splodgesI thought I'd put up some pictures of the F1 hybrid peas I've got going, even though they don't look all that exciting at the moment. They aren't flowering yet but this is a good time to admire their axillary pigmentation.<br /><br />I don't read up as much as I should on pea genetics, but it certainly seems that the genes controlling the expression of colour in different parts of the plant tend to come as a package deal. From what I have bothered to read, I know that there are distinct and separate genes for pink splodges in the leaf axil, for purple or pink bicolour flowers, purple seedcoat speckles and purple pods - plus another gene which switches colour production on or off for the whole plant. The purple pod genes (there's actually two of those) are often inherited separately, but the rest seem always to go together. It's quite useful in some ways, because the axil splodge enables me to predict flower colour several weeks before they flower, or even to select for flower colour before I sow by going for the dark-coloured or speckled seeds. Although they're different genes they are presumably all squidged right up together on the same chromosome.<br /><br />The axillary splodges are made by just one major gene, but there is a lot of subtle variation in how they are expressed.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4606324011/" title="Golden Sweet x Kent Blue F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1207/4606324011_775b476e5e.jpg" alt="Golden Sweet x Kent Blue F1" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><b>Golden Sweet x Kent Blue</b> F1</i><br /><br />I made this hybrid in 2007 and the seeds have been sitting around ever since waiting for me to do something with them. The plants have a very intense blotch in the leaf axil, with a distinctively purple hue.<br /><br />I'm not sure what I'm expecting to get from this hybrid, it's one of my suck-it-and-see crosses. Both parents are heritage varieties of some considerable vintage, which usually makes for interesting hybrids. Certain traits can be predicted in the F1: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet</span> is yellow podded, but there is no trace of yellow colouring in these F1 plants because it's a recessive trait and will be hiding for now. I expect to see yellow pods in a quarter of the F2 offspring next year, but not in these. Bicolour purple flowers are pretty much a certainty though, as both parent varieties have them. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kent Blue</span> has the unusual feature of changing its flower colour. The flowers open as normal mauve and maroon bicolours, but within a day or so they change to a sky blue and midnight blue bicolour. They also have very pronounced veining on the back of the petals, which is very pretty. Whether these traits will show up in the F1 flowers remains to be seen. I'm also curious to see what happens to the pods in terms of width and knobbliness. Both parents are edible podded varieties of a slightly primitive type (i.e. not as sleek and fibre-free as a modern cultivar). There are two recessive genes responsible for edible pods and the way they interact is quite crucial. Depending on which ones I have here, the hybrid may be completely fibre-free (better than either parent) or they might be totally inedible. It may seem strange that you can cross two edible-podded varieties together and end up with inedible pods, but it does happen (and has happened to me!) It's one of the endearing little quirks you get in a multi-factor cross with recessive genes.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4606940376/" title="Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1275/4606940376_a6f433af12.jpg" alt="Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded F1" height="500" width="332" /></a><br /><i><b>Golden Sweet x Carruthers' Purple Podded</b> F1</i><br /><br />This hybrid is the parent of my red-podded pea. The red pods showed up in a small proportion of the F2 seeds, and so I'm growing another batch of F1 plants in order to produce more F2 seed, in the hope of getting some red edible podded recombos. These plants are from the original batch of seeds from the cross I made in 2007, and despite the seed being three years old they are showing considerable hybrid vigour, overtaking all the other peas in the garden.<br /><br />The axillary pigmentation is very flamboyant, forming two distinct pinky-red rings with a white band in the middle, and something of a Bowie lightning flash at the top. This is an exaggerated form of the double axil ring inherited from <span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet</span>.<br /><br />As I've already grown some of these F1 seeds I know what to expect from them, but a lot of it is easy to predict anyway. Both parents have purple flowers, which are dominant, so the F1 will have them too. Both parents are tall, and that's also dominant. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Carruthers' Purple Podded</span> passes on the two dominant genes for purple pods, so the F1 hybrid will have purple pods. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Golden Sweet</span> contributes the yellow-pod gene, but that's recessive, so none in the F1 generation. It's when these genes segregate out in the F2 that things get exciting, because when the two purple pod genes happen to come together with the yellow pod gene, that's the magic formula that gives red pods.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4606323417/" title="Alderman x Salmon-Flowered F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3084/4606323417_bb5a3fcf06.jpg" alt="Alderman x Salmon-Flowered F1" height="500" width="332" /></a><br /><i><b>Alderman x Salmon-Flowered</b> F1</i><br /><br />Another 2007 hybrid which has sat in a box and never been grown before. This one is a cross between one of the best heritage shelling peas and a botanical curiosity, so it is venturing into uncharted territory. See how subdued the axil colour is on this one. It's a soft muted pink and sits tightly within the axil without spreading out into the leaf. The upper stem and tendrils have a rosy blush too, and the leaves have red edges. These traits are all inherited from dad, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Salmon-Flowered</span>. There are no obvious colour genes in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alderman</span>, though it may have some unexpressed ones lurking in its genome waiting to burst forth in an unexpected carnival. On the surface it's a fairly normal green-podded pea, chosen for its excellent flavour.<br /><br />What makes <span style="font-weight: bold;">Salmon-Flowered</span> such a curiosity is that it's an <span style="font-style: italic;">umbellatum type</span> pea. These were popular in past centuries, once known as crown peas, but they are now rare. Instead of producing flowers and pods up the length of the stem, they bear all their bounty in a whopping great clump at the top. They look so different from normal peas that they were formerly classified as a separate species, <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Pisum umbellatum</span>. This has now been dropped, however, since it was discovered that they are botanically the same as other domestic peas and their bizarre form is merely the result of a combination of three recessive genes, whose exact function and interaction is still not fully understood.<br /><br />Well I don't understand them either, but as they are all recessive I can probably assume that none of the umbellatum traits will be apparent in an F1 hybrid. Even in the F2, it may be a very small minority class (where all three recessives combine). Never mind, there is other excitement to discover. Such as flower colour. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alderman</span> is a white-flowered pea, and white flowers are recessive. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Salmon-Flowered</span> is ... er ... salmon flowered (two-tone pale pink and salmon pink) which I believe is also recessive. What happens when I cross these two shrinking violets? God knows. I'll have to wait and see. They may be pink, they may be white - or they may be neither. As I said above, a multi-factor cross with recessive genes can throw up surprising and counterintuitive results. I'm looking forward to seeing what turns up.Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-31789796959236887772010-05-07T17:24:00.004+01:002010-05-09T15:06:22.469+01:00Now this is good customer service ...<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4585300204/" title="Potato minitubers by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4585300204_904c17cafa.jpg" alt="Potato minitubers" height="378" width="500" /></a><br /><br />Always looking to explore unusual heritage varieties and seek out material for breeding experiments, I was pleased to see that <a href="http://www.alanromans.com/">AlanRomans.com</a> were stocking minitubers (that is, small laboratory-grown seed potatoes) of an old and hard to find blue potato called <b>Congo</b>. I'm interested in Congo because it's blue-fleshed - blue all the way through - and I have a strong interest in vegetables that bear this colour pigment because of its nutritional benefits as well as its glorious beauty. As well as being historically interesting and quirky, Congo has a reputation for being a good berry setter. That would make it an excellent variety to experiment with in breeding work, because it would ensure a good supply of TPS. I could have some real fun crossing it with other varieties, but also growing out its own self-pollinated TPS, which would in itself yield some interesting segregation for different traits (if you've read my article about TPS below, you'll know that the tetraploid arrangement of the potato genome gives it something of the nature of a genetic fruit machine).<br /><br />So I ordered a pack of five Congo minitubers - not the kind of quantity that would give a good yield for the dinner table, but plenty enough to get the variety established in my garden and see what it has to offer. When my order arrived a couple of days later it contained not one minituber pack but two. The handwritten note explained that they only had 15mm-ish tubers left in stock rather than the 20mm-ish ones they preferred to supply, and so they sent me 6 rather than the 5 I ordered. Additionally, they sent me a pack of 5 minitubers of another rare and special variety, <b>Red Craigs Royal</b>, as a freebie. The Red Craigs Royal tubers had already started to chit and were at a stage where they really needed to be planted. This is really good customer service - it's a great way to keep people like me happy, because I get to add another precious heritage spud to my inventory and ensures that I will want to order from them again next time, and it shows that their attitude to heritage varieties is well motivated, in that they would rather give unsold stock to a good home.<br /><br />As far as I'm aware, nobody in the UK is doing more than Alan Romans in conserving and promoting heritage potatoes. You may have seen these varieties making an appearance in Thompson & Morgan's catalogue, and in Waitrose - but all that is down to him. And it's not a simple case of reintroducing them on a whim either ... the laws and regulations relating to the sale of seed potatoes (and culinary ones) are complex and restrictive, and he's had a heck of a lot of bureaucracy to struggle against. It wouldn't be legal to sell field-grown potatoes to gardeners without an expensive process of certification, and minitubers are his latest solution to this obstacle. They are produced in a laboratory environment from disease-free plants held in vitro. Although they are small, they can be grown on and will soon build up a decent yield. The sterile environment in which they're produced may make them a little vulnerable when you plant them in the unfettered ravages of the soil, but they seem to cope and I've managed to grow laboratory-raised plants under organic conditions without too many problems. The bottom line is, if it wasn't for the laboratory process these rare and interesting varieties simply wouldn't be available at all.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4584674699/" title="Red Craigs Royal minitubers by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4584674699_467710c4cc.jpg" alt="Red Craigs Royal minitubers" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Red Craigs Royal</span> minitubers. The original Craigs Royal was introduced in 1947, bred in Scotland from a cross of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Craigs Defiance x Gladstone</span>. This red-skinned sport appeared in Perthshire in 1957 and quickly became extremely popular for its good yields and excellent flavour - only to be plunged into obscurity a few years later as the market moved on to other things. It's a second early type with a floury texture. As for its usefulness in my breeding projects, well, I'm not sure what to expect because the European Cultivated Potato Database lists it as a poor producer of berries but also as having high fertility pollen.</i><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4584674275/" title="Congo minitubers by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4584674275_cfae7535bf.jpg" alt="Congo minitubers" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Congo</span> minitubers. They don't look very exciting at the moment, but they are full of potential. There is a degree of confusion over this variety because there are two Congos. This blue-fleshed one is of British origin, thought possibly to have been created by a shepherd in the Scottish borders in the late 19th century. The other Congo is from Sweden and has white flesh (edit - <a href="http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/pressroom/goteborgs_botaniska_tradgard/image/view/congo-en-helblaa-potatis-10532">or maybe not!</a>). As if that wasn't confusing enough, there are suggestions that the blue version has many synonyms and may be known around the world as All Blue, British Columbia Blue, Russian Blue, Himalayan Black and McIntosh Black, amongst others - though they may be variants rather than identical clones. Congo is a very late maturing variety - so here's hoping the blight pestilence will be merciful.</i>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-65124189312440187682010-04-29T18:07:00.002+01:002010-05-16T14:14:22.419+01:00Sowing potatoes from TPS<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4360318948/" title="Salad Blue potato flowers by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4360318948_8a0baffc9c.jpg" alt="Salad Blue potato flowers" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Flowers of <b>Salad Blue</b>, one of the few potato varieties which produces copious quantities of true seed.</i><br /><br />I have a very exciting new project underway. My good friend <a href="http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/">Patrick</a> sent me some true potato seed - generally called TPS - from legendary potato-tomato breeder Tom Wagner. Tom was the founder of TaterMater Seeds in the 1980s, is the creator of the Green Zebra tomato and various others which are now ubiquitous in seed catalogues, and now dispenses his wisdom on the <a href="http://tatermater.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general">TaterMater messageboard</a>. These potato seeds are from various hybrid and open-pollinated lines in Tom's ongoing breeding work and it's a real privilege to have them.<br /><br />Not many people grow potatoes from TPS, and there's a few reasons for that. It's not as quick and easy as chucking a few shop-bought tubers in the ground … although the long term rewards are greater. The seeds are not readily available either. I've never seen them for sale anywhere, and you generally have to save your own.<br /><br />First I should explain what I mean by true seed. When you buy a bag of spuds for planting, they are normally sold as seed potatoes. But it's a bit of a misnomer really. A seed potato (i.e. a tuber) is a root cutting - or clone to use the US term - of the original plant. Tubers are genetically identical to each other, as they only reproduce by mitosis - that is, they are a vegetative extension of the parent plant. Although spontaneous mutations can and do happen, they're uncommon enough that you are pretty much assured of getting a harvest that exactly matches the tuber you planted.<br /><br />TPS is not the tuber, but the actual seeds - which come from the plant's flowers and fruits. As seeds are produced by sexual means, a coming together of egg and pollen from different flowers or different plants, they represent a genetic recombination. In other words, they are not genetically identical to the parent plant. They are newly created individuals.<br /><br />If you sow these seeds they will grow into unique new potato plants, and produce their own tubers. The tubers will be small the first year, and will need to be replanted the following season to produce decent sized yields. So it takes two years, but then you go on growing it from tubers as you would any normal potato, and you effectively have a new variety. Potatoes raised from true seed are generally free of virus and disease (at least for the first couple of years).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4559132792/" title="True potato seed, Salad Blue by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3291/4559132792_713a90af11.jpg" alt="True potato seed, Salad Blue" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>True potato seed, extracted from the berries of Salad Blue. The seeds look rather like tomato seeds, but smaller and smoother. </i><br /><br />Potato varieties don't come true from seed, so you never know exactly what you're going to get. Conventional wisdom has it that any plant that doesn't come true from seed is not worth sowing. But to me, and probably most people reading this blog, the unpredictability is exactly what makes it interesting! Even if you sow seeds which were self-pollinated, you can end up with a lot of variation.<br /><br />A lot of people don't realise that potatoes produce fruits, for the very good reason that most of them don't. Domesticated potatoes have got so used to reproducing through root cuttings - tubers - that they can't be arsed to make viable flowers any more. Some don't flower at all, while some make flowers with sterile pollen, and the flowers just drop off. But every now and then you will find plants which set berries. It's mostly a variety thing, although environmental factors also play a big part. The berries look like small green tomatoes, sometimes with a blush of blue or purple. Some potato varieties produce berries very freely. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Salad Blue</span> (pictured above) is a prolific and reliable berry bearer. As is <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mayan Gold</span> below.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4480179710/" title="Mayan Gold potato seedballs by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4480179710_21d516213a.jpg" alt="Mayan Gold potato seedballs" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Potato berries on <b>Mayan Gold</b>. This variety is a hybrid of Solanum phureja, a little different from yer common or garden spud, which is Solanum tuberosum. The berries are slightly strawberry shaped - indicating that this species is diploid - whereas most potato berries are more rounded, but the same principles apply.</i><br /><br />I'll leave the explanation of extracting and saving TPS for another post, as there are no berries around at this time of year. I will also hold off giving a more detailed genetic explanation, as I'm still on a learning curve with that myself. But what I should explain, briefly, is the reason potatoes grown from TPS are potentially so variable.<br /><br />The cells of most plants (and humans for that matter) have pairs of chromosomes, in which each gene is inherited in a simple either/or relationship. This arrangement is known as diploid. When a diploid organism reproduces, each parent contributes a single chromosome, and the two join together to make a new chromosome pair. Somewhere along the line, nature had a bit of a freakout with potatoes. Instead of reducing down to one chromosome per parent, an unreduced pair of chromosomes managed to get it together with another unreduced pair. The result is a tetraploid - an organism with four chromosomes instead of the usual two. This basically means it contains two complete genomes - and twice as much genetic material.<br /><br />Most of the potatoes we know and love today are tetraploid. Although it's a freak of nature, it's quite a beneficial one as tetraploids tend to be bigger and more perfectly formed than their diploid equivalents. If you're interested in how it works and why it's useful, I recommend the <a href="http://www.polyploidy.org/index.php/Information">Polyploidy Portal</a> for a readable explanation. For the benefit of this post however, I'm going to simplify it to its most basic level. When you make crosses with a 'normal' diploid species, the potential genetic recombination at each allele is very like what you would get if you toss two coins. Plenty good enough for some interesting combinations. With potatoes, however, it's more like the effect of tossing four coins. An exponential increase in the number of possible outcomes. This is why potatoes are so variable when grown from true seed! It's a genetic pile-up bursting with magical possibility.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4559133774/" title="Mandel x John Tom Kaighin F1 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/119/4559133774_53874e886e.jpg" alt="Mandel x John Tom Kaighin F1" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>TPS seedlings from Tom's seeds. These are an F1 hybrid between <b>Mandel</b>, a Swedish potato renowned for its flavour, and Tom's own variety <b>John Tom Kaighin</b>, which has been bred for flavour and blight resistance. Neither of these varieties is readily available in the UK. There is a good chance of some excellent flavoured spuds from these seeds, most likely with yellow skin and yellow flesh, and some fingerling types.</i><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How to sow TPS</span><br />When Tom Wagner visited the UK last year he gave a lot of advice about how to grow potatoes from TPS. Much of this was captured in a series of videos which you can <a href="http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/2009/11/tom-wagner-on-growing-and-saving-true-potato-seeds-tps/">watch or download</a> on Patrick's blog. What I'm attempting to do here is distil some of Tom's basic instructions into text form - but you can find a lot more detail (including a demo of how to extract the seeds from the berries) in Patrick's videos.<br /><br />TPS can be sown in spring from mid-March onwards, in any kind of tray or module, and any kind of seed compost. It doesn't need to be a deep module. In this respect, TPS is the opposite of peas. I sow my peas in deep containers so that they produce a deep root run. With potatoes that isn't what you want, because the aim is not to produce lots of root under the seed, but to earth up the young plant as it grows and encourage it to produce roots along the stem. So effectively, you are encouraging the roots to develop upwards rather than downwards!<br /><br />Potato seeds are small, and so are the emerging seedlings. So you don't want to bury them too deeply. Sow them thinly on the surface of the compost and either press them in or give them a very light covering. I used vermiculite to cover mine, as it helps to keep them moist. Even then I used only a tiny sprinkling, and scooped out the very fine, dusty vermiculite from the bottom of the bag where there are fewer big chunks.<br /><br />Once you have sown the seeds, keep them warm and damp. As with all small seeds, it's safest to water them by lightly spraying the surface of the compost or using a very fine rose on a watering can. If you're not careful you can wash the seeds away. You can put the tray in a polythene bag or under clingfilm to keep the moisture in, but Tom doesn't recommend this as it increases the likelihood of mould forming on the compost.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4558503845/" title="Bolivian landrace hybrid F3 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3634/4558503845_933ec458e3.jpg" alt="Bolivian landrace hybrid F3" height="340" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Another of Tom's hybrids which I'm growing at the moment. This is an F3 from <b>Pirampo x Khuchi Akita</b>. These are Bolivian landraces whose tubers look quite different from modern conventional potatoes … in fact I've never seen anything like them in Europe, so I'm very excited by the possible diversity in this hybrid. Pirampo is pink, and Khuchi Akita is purple skinned and crescent-shaped. Tom made this cross to introduce a bit of historic diversity into the potato genepool. The parent landraces are diploid, but can be crossed with other potato varieties to make tetraploids with lots of diversity.</i><br /><br />Most of the seedlings will germinate in 5-10 days. But it's not necessarily a bad sign if they take longer. Like tomatoes, they can be fickle about germinating, and will pop up when they decide the time is right - sometimes weeks after sowing.<br /><br />If you're used to the big chunky shoots that potatoes produce when grown from tubers, you may be surprised - alarmed even - at how small and delicate the TPS seedlings are when they emerge. Although they look similar to tomato seedlings, they are significantly smaller. Have faith - they will grow!<br /><br />Something else they have in common with tomatoes (and peppers) is seed husk retention. Some seedlings emerge with the seed husk still clamped over their heads. You don't need to worry about this though, because potato seed husks are paper thin, and much less of a problem than the tougher tomato and pepper husks. As tiny as the seedlings are, they will soon tear their way out of their helmets without any need of human intervention.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4558502797/" title="Potato seedlings need sunlight by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3270/4558502797_0e8a066e21.jpg" alt="Potato seedlings need sunlight" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>My tray of potato seedlings enjoying a bit of outdoor sunbathing. As they are still young and delicate, I put them in a box to keep the wind off them. </i><br /><br />One piece of advice that Tom wanted to make very clear is the importance of sunlight on the young seedlings - by which he meant <i>direct outdoor sunlight and not a greenhouse or sunny windowsill</i>. The reason for this is that potatoes evolved in a part of the world where light is very intense and the air very thin, and so they are dependent on the ultraviolet light that can only be got from direct exposure. If there's a day when the sun is shining (and of course that is a big 'if' in the United Kingdom, but never mind) it's worth putting the potato seedlings outside in the sun, even just for a couple of hours. That way, they develop into strong sturdy plants rather than stretching out and going leggy. However they are still quite delicate at this early stage in their life cycle so you need to stop the spring winds from blowing across them. Placing the seed tray in a larger box, as shown above, should give them the protection they need while still allowing them to sunbathe in the open. If the weather is rubbish when the seedlings emerge, well, there's not a lot you can do about that, but it's a case of making the most of whatever sunlight there is.<br /><br />I'm going to deal with transplanting in a later post, when my plants reach the appropriate stage and I can take some photographs. In the mean time, I can grow them in these modules until they're a couple of inches tall. The principle of transplanting is the same as that for tomatoes … they benefit from being transplanted at least twice and being buried up to the top set of leaves each time. Because potatoes, like tomatoes, are very efficient at producing feeding roots along their stems. This is, of course, why tuber-grown potatoes are earthed up as they grow. Although the TPS seedlings are tiny, the earthing up method is still the most effective way to grow them.<br /><br />More anon.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Looking to grow a potato variety that is available in the UK and likely to set berries?</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">This list is based on a quick search of the European Cultivated Potato Database, but don't rely on it too much. The ECPD takes its data from available research - but you may find differences when you grow the spuds in your garden!</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">If you want a good chance of berries, try these varieties:</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);"><br />Cara</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Desiree</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Marfona</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Maris Bard</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Maris Piper</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Mayan Gold</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Pentland Dell</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Salad Blue</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">Valor</span>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-19072823260276122542010-04-25T17:47:00.005+01:002010-04-30T13:40:45.672+01:00Garden gallery: some of the herbs I grow<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4551290892/" title="Chocolate peppermint by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4003/4551290892_df6877737f.jpg" alt="Chocolate peppermint" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i><b>Chocolate peppermint</b>, a variety of <b>Mentha piperita</b>. I love peppermint, it's my favourite of all the mints for flavour and for medicinal use. I'm always a little sceptical of 'flavoured' herbs, because some of them really are rubbish and don't taste anything like their names suggest. We would get Pomegranate and Ginseng thyme or Oak-Smoked Cheddar and Somerset Raspberry basil if somebody thought they could make a quick buck out of it. But Chocolate peppermint is good. It doesn't really taste of chocolate of course ... the name is partly for the warmly chocolatey stem colour and partly because the sweet, clean, intense flavour evokes the taste of After Eight mints. But it's tasty enough that I eat the leaves straight off the plant. Love it.</i><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4550652217/" title="Lemon variegated thyme by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/4550652217_718b53087e.jpg" alt="Lemon variegated thyme" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>And another of the flavoured herbs which stands out for me. This is <b>Lemon Variegated thyme</b>, more properly known as <b>Thymus pulegioides Aurea</b> and a product of <b>Thymus x citriodorus</b>. It has large rounded leaves of a deep green with bright yellow margins. I always thought the golden variegated thymes were bred for ornamental rather than culinary use, but this one is a corker. The lemon taste is sharp, intense and well developed with no bitter herby undertone, and a little goes a long way when you cook with it. I have two other citriodorus thymes: Lemon Curd, despite its enticing name, has an uninspiring flavour while Doone Valley, another golden variegated one usually sold as an ornamental, tastes better ... but neither of them are in the same league as this one.</i><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4550653397/" title="Silver Spires rosemary by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4550653397_500294fecd.jpg" alt="Silver Spires rosemary" height="450" width="500" /></a><br /><i><b>Silver Spires rosemary</b>. This is a silver variegated rosemary bred by Christine Wolters of Mayfields Nursery in Guildford. I keep reading that silver variegated rosemary, which was prized in England in Shakespeare's day, has been lost and no longer exists. Well I have it, and it certainly does exist. I bought the plant in 1997, and salvaged it from my old garden when I moved, but haven't seen it anywhere since. Shame, because I rate it highly for looks and flavour. There is a golden variegated rosemary which is more readily available, but this one is quite different.</i><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4549500112/" title="Italian thyme by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4010/4549500112_3c804b5aed.jpg" alt="Italian thyme" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>More thyme. This one is an unknown variety, but I've had the plant for many years and it's the best culinary thyme I've ever found - very intense, refined flavour and dries exceptionally well. I've never seen it in garden centres. It has fine, narrow greyish leaves and grows taller than most popular thymes ... the leaves are looking quite green at the moment because it's on the cusp of flowering. The plant originally came from Waitrose, of all places. It was being sold as a fresh organic herb, the idea being that you don't bother to plant it, just take it home for the windowsill and murder it for this week's dinner. But I did plant it, and it thrived. It came from an organic farm in the Dolomite mountains of Italy, and that's all I know.</i><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4548863233/" title="Rosemary blossom by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4548863233_dc8edb044c.jpg" alt="Rosemary blossom" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Rosemary blossom. One of the joys of this time of year, and the bees think so too.</i>Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23047857.post-71646446904588776742010-04-25T17:18:00.004+01:002010-04-30T13:47:23.582+01:00Luna Trick F4 seedlings go forth<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4527839490/" title="Luna Trick F4 seedlings by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4527839490_d8377ca50a.jpg" alt="Luna Trick F4 seedlings" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Luna Trick F4 plants all tagged up and ready to plant out</i><br /><br />Well both my F4 <span style="font-weight: bold;">Luna Trick</span> batches are now planted out in the garden - the standard version and the sugarsnap version. They were sown a couple of weeks apart, in the hopes that their development will be staggered somewhat and I will be less overwhelmed by the workload. Growing peas is not in itself much of a workload … they are independent little dears. But breeding projects have a habit of being very time-consuming, especially this one, because I'm being very careful about collecting individual data on each plant. It takes a lot of effort to label and track every single plant in the project and write down detailed notes for all of them. But it will save me time in the long run because I will be able to select more precisely for the traits I want - and it will teach me a lot about the genetics involved, and pea genetics generally. By labelling every plant with its own number, which includes a code for its specific pedigree, I can identify which lines are true-breeding for dominant traits such as tallness. I'll be able to see which pedigree lines are entirely made up of tall plants and save seed only from those, which should eliminate unwanted recessives very quickly. If I pooled the F4 seed and selected from the whole group, I wouldn't know which of the tall ones were hiding unwanted recessives. So although it would save me a lot of note-taking for this year, I'd be weeding out unwanted dwarf types for years to come.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4550651553/" title="Luna Trick F4 by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2664/4550651553_99543b8ee2.jpg" alt="Luna Trick F4" height="500" width="332" /></a><br /><i>Luna Trick F4 plant, photographed today. This one is the offspring of LT10, which so far looks to be the only line which is true-breeding for tallness.</i><br /><br />As these plants are so important to me, I take extra care with them. They have been raised in rootrainers, which in my experience are far more reliable than any other method for producing strong seedlings and healthy plants. The expense of rootrainers doesn't necessarily make them a good option for pea cultivation generally, but for me they are a worthy investment. The next important thing is soil preparation. I don't bother with fertilisers because peas don't really need them … they have a unique mechanism for producing their own. But what they do benefit from is a digging in of organic matter of some kind. Compost is good. Horse manure is excellent, but in the light of the disgraceful <a href="http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/2008/06/contaminated-manure-alert.html">aminopyralid poisoning of Britain's grasslands</a>, I'm not using manure in my garden at the moment. Removal of perennial weeds such as couch grass root is also important, because it's difficult to weed around peas once they get established.<br /><br />The other special care I provide them with is protection from the weather. Peas are hardy, and I'm not at all worried about the April frosts. The cold nights we're getting at the moment are bringing out some lovely red colour in the leaves of peas capable of producing red colour (which Luna Trick isn't) but it's not harming them in any way. What peas <i>do</i> suffer with though is the cold blustery winds that are so common at this time of year. Having said that, this year has been astonishingly warm and settled, so it hasn't been an issue. They are only really vulnerable to this when they're young and first planted out … the cold winds wither and damage the young growing tips. Once they've got established after a couple of weeks, they are a lot more robust. So what I do for precious peas when first planted out is set up a netted fabric screen round them. Horticultural fleece is the conventional choice, but the lovely old lady who lived in my house before me has saved me ever having to buy any. The house was festooned with about 30 miles of net curtains, which do an admirable job in taking the edge off the winds without losing too much sunlight. I'm growing Luna Trick in a frame made of bamboo canes, so it's the work of a moment to attach the net curtains round it with clothes pegs. I do have to be careful to lay a few unwelcoming heavy twigs around the outside as well, because my cat finds it amusing to charge into the net curtains at high speed.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebsiefairholm/4527840282/" title="Protecting pea seedlings the cheap way by RebsieFairholm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/4527840282_45271cfcfa.jpg" alt="Protecting pea seedlings the cheap way" height="332" width="500" /></a><br /><i>Doesn't that look grand? Well all right, it looks bloody awful, but old net curtains are very effective at filtering the English spring breezes while the seedlings get established. I make no apology for the state of my garden ... the breeding and heritage conservation work is so time consuming I don't have time to make it look pretty as well.</i><br /><br />I keep each of my breeding projects in their own personal filing containers, made from ultra high-tech re-used cat food boxes. When I picked up an empty box the other day for a new project I'm starting, it turned out not to be empty. Rattling around inside were about a dozen lovingly sorted and labelled bags of Luna Trick seed from the best of my F3 lines, and three unmarked whole pods left loose in the box. I'm afraid I do have this bad habit of failing to label things and then forgetting what the hell they were. These seeds were all harvested earlier in the season, when I was selecting the best plants and harvesting the pods as they matured. I remember harvesting them but don't remember shelling them and boxing them up, which serves me right for smoking too much weed in my youth. There were about twelve pedigree lines in labelled bags, including a load of extra seed from my best plant LT10 … so I've sown another fifteen of those. You can never have enough LT10 as far as I'm concerned. And by starting off another batch of them now, in addition to the ones sown about a month ago, I'm greatly increasing my window of opportunity to make crosses with them.<br /><br />The loose pods were something of a mystery, but there had to be a good reason I kept them separate instead of bagging them up like I did the others. According to my pollination records, which can also be a bit sporadic when I'm busy, I did some crosses between the best Luna Trick F3 plants and one of the trial varieties I grew in 2009, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Buerre Cosse Rouge</span>. This latter is quite a special little variety because it has red-sploshed pods … not quite the deep consistent crimson I got in my red-podder project, but reasonably close to it. And it's a sugarsnap type. It does have some frustrating weaknesses though. The plants (in my trial at least) were tiny and not very strong, and the yields absolutely miniscule. It produced miniscule pods that have about three peas in them, and more often than not they withered and fell off before they reached maturity. I didn't even get to taste Buerre Cosse Rouge, because I was struggling to scrape together enough seed just to regrow it this season. In doing these crosses, I had in my head the idea that I might get some red-pod gorgeousness into the voluptuous sweet abundance of Luna Trick. There is a chance - only a chance mind - that these loose pods had been kept separate because they were hybridised ones.<br /><br />Fortunately for me and my slack incompetence, I should be able to find out fairly quickly. My old friend gene <b>A</b> will help me out. It's the gene which switches on the colour pigment in peas. Luna Trick doesn't have it - it's true-breeding for the recessive <b>a a</b> genotype which cannot produce anthocyanin pigment. Buerre Cosse Rouge presumably has the dominant <b>A A</b> type, because it has lots of anthocyanin colour. Crossing the two will give me the <b>a A</b> genotype, in which the recessive colourless gene gets elbowed out. In other words, if the seedlings show any trace of red colouring, I will know they are from a cross. If they turn out to be the normal unpigmented Luna Trick type, then I'll know they weren't from a cross. Thus nature sometimes forgives us for poor labelling.<br /><br />(The seedlings have now emerged and so far are not showing any obvious traces of anthocyanin. Arse!)Rebsie Fairholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17811733792196954188noreply@blogger.com30