Messages

1

Plant Breeding / Re: TPS 2019

« on: 2019-03-23, 03:19:21 AM »

Yeah, by now I have a whole list of potato variety synonyms. And another list with things to grow out side by side, where I am suspecting it's two varieties sharing a name.

Now I'm wondering if All Blue was a third variety originally and the imported B.C. and S.B. just got lumped into it because they are all blue hahaha I'll grow Blå Congo and Salad Blue this year. I can do a side by side picture comparison of them for reference. The differences between the two are quite obvious. It should be possible to tell if there is a third one hiding in the All Blue mystery.
Anyone growing All Blue? I know Tim isn't

The daylength is indeed rapidly increasing for me. Daylight today is 12h 25m, in 4 weeks it's 15h already and on Midsummer it's almost 19h. Not real midnight sun, but pretty long.
The only issues I have at hardening off time is the strong spring sun burning seedlings if I'm not careful. I got triple glass windows at the house, UV rays are not going through. So any plants going from the house outside have to be placed in shade for a while. Ideally I bring them out during a cloudy week.

2

Plant Breeding / Re: TPS 2019

« on: 2019-03-22, 12:28:08 PM »

@Rowan 3 crops of diploids in one year sounds wonderful! My high dormancy diploids are really struggling with the long storage. I hope they survive until planting time.

@Bill they might be considered synonyms in the US. Sadly names of varieties get confused and lumped into a familiar name a lot when they travel. But they are actually 2 different varieties in Europe. Blå Congo is an old Swedish variety. It's often called Blue Swede or Blue Congo in other European countries, but it's from Sweden. It's on the floury side, a mid season variety. The plant habit, flowers and tuber characteristics are different from the UK Salad Blue. Tuber skin colour is a warm purple on Blå Congo and a cool blueishpurple on Salad Blue. Colour saturation in the tuber is less uniform in B.C. than in S.B. The UK Salad Blue is also a very waxy salad potato, not floury at all. Both are different in taste too. Blå Congo has a good strong oldfashioned potato flavour, getting earthy if overfertilized. Salad Blue is very mild and well balanced.

I always grow them like that daylight in march is ok here, as long as it's not too cloudy all the time. I find that more light isn't really necessary for potatoes.
They get repotted once or twice before I can plant outdoors. Since I plant them deep each time, just letting the top leafs stick out, they make lots of roots on the leggy stems. I think deep rooted TPS give a better harvest than shallow plants.

3

Plant Breeding / Re: TPS 2019

« on: 2019-03-22, 02:55:41 AM »

They are up after a week and germination was quite good in all of them.

4

Plant Breeding / Re: TPS 2019

« on: 2019-03-13, 07:02:35 AM »

That's sad that climate change makes them increasingly difficult to grow for you. I could not imagine having to stop growing them... worst nightmare kind of thing for me. Just love potatoes lol
Have you tried first earlies? They are tricky to breed with, but they make a crop very quick. They are done in June for me or can be planted late as an autumn crop, ~4 months before fist frost. That avoids any hot dry months if that's the issue.
My TPS does not have a chance of getting old because I sow them as soon as I can. But I also heard they stay viable for some years.

5

Plant Breeding / TPS 2019

« on: 2019-03-13, 02:42:51 AM »

It's about 6-8 weeks before I can plant outside.
Which means that it's time to get my TPS started I'm very excited for this potato season.
What I'm sowing this year are some intentional crosses and a few seeds from bonus berries which set on their own.

Blå Congo x Salad Blue - looking for colourful early to mid season potatoes with high berry setting ability
Highland Burgundy Red x Blå Congo - looking for something starchy
Apache x Blå Congo - doing another round of these, had some plants of this cross last year and results were promising, must grow more
Mayan Gold x Inca Bella and vice versa, mixed seed, diploids - hopefully something with decent tuber dormancy will show up
Salad Blue selfed - just want to see what colours and textures it's hiding in its genepool
Linda OP - selfing unlikely, guessing on Salad Blue or Blå Congo as pollen donor, might be interesting, Linda is a really tasty and healthy growing variety
Unknown Early OP - selfing unlikely, pollen donor could be anything really, can't pass the rare occasion when an early potato successfully made seed
Heiderot F1 keeper seedling OP - ah well why not, more red potatoes will be nice

What TPS are you sowing this year?
Anyone else who is starting seeds now?

6

Plant Breeding / Re: Quality Ornamental / Food Crops

« on: 2019-03-09, 06:34:44 AM »

Dried poppy seed heads are very popular here.
Also rye seed heads with some centimetres of straw on them. Not entirely sure what people do with them though, for Christmas crafts I guess.

7

Plant Breeding / Re: Salsify

« on: 2019-03-01, 02:26:48 AM »

That struck me to be odd too, considering they grow wild in the Mediterranean areas which are not exactly famous for being frosty.
It's probably similar to carrots, they don't mind a cold start but that does not mean that they won't germinate during warmer times.

8

Plant Breeding / Re: Salsify

« on: 2019-03-01, 12:40:00 AM »

Great looking plants Richard!

I managed to get 2 black salsify varieties and 3 x purple salsify from different sources.
The seed packs say that it is possible to autumn sow them or to spring sow as soon as the frost is out of the soil and it can be worked. They claim germination is better when the seeds went through cold vernalization.
The best before dates on the packs are rather short, just a year between seed harvest and last sale date/sow date. The seeds seem to get old quickly.
I'm still stuck in snow and ice, probably another 4 weeks until my soil can be worked. But it should be safe to sow now if you can.

9

Plant Breeding / Re: Black oats ID help?

« on: 2019-02-15, 02:11:08 AM »

Hmmm I still can't tell. I guess I will have to wait until summer and look at the plants.

Maybe I'll grow some naked oats at the side, if they cross it can't be Avena strigosa.

10

Seed Saving / Re: Seed winnower - fan advice.

« on: 2019-02-13, 06:33:01 AM »

This reminds me that I have to build a bigger one too
I'm using an old hairdryer as a fan. It has 3 stages which usually is good enough for most seeds.
I have also seen battery driven camping hairdryers, just using it on cool setting should give reasonable battery time.

11

Seed Saving / Re: In Ground -Biennial Roots- Harsh Winters

« on: 2019-02-13, 06:12:08 AM »

We get hard bare frosts with warm spells inbetween during early winter.
Hip high snow and hard frost during mid winter.
And icy conditions with hard frosts and random warm spells inbetween during late winter.
  this kills pretty much anything.

Parsnip is the only root crop that survives winters for me. Not all varieties, but I got a reliable grex going since ~10 years.
I'm also going to try salsify and black salsify this year. They should survive too, just have not tried yet. Hoping for the best

Anything else has to be stored in a root cellar. Buckets of sandy soil work great to keep the roots from loosing moisture. Some varieties will start regrowing long before I can plant them out, but usually that's no problem and they still survive and make seeds.

12

Plant Breeding / Black oats ID help?

« on: 2019-02-13, 04:39:49 AM »

I just got this little seed sample in a trade. It's labled as an old landrace of black oats from South Karelia, Finland.
Sadly I have no experience with oats and the term black oats is used for Avena sativa and Avena strigosa in Swedish. Some darkness to hulls or seeds seems to be enough to call it black oats, so now I'm confused.
Am I right in thinking this should be Avena strigosa?
Or could primitive Avena sativa cultivars look similar?

13

Plant Breeding / Re: New to plant breeding - where to take this chili pepper?

« on: 2019-01-19, 08:45:49 AM »

Honestly just 'wanting to' isn't enough. Post fertilization barriers with the two are too big to just have it happen it in the garden.
I do not think embryo rescue is an option here.

14

Plant Breeding / Re: New to plant breeding - where to take this chili pepper?

« on: 2019-01-18, 09:33:09 AM »

You don't need to separate your two projects. They can grow side by side without mixing.
The Flame Tongue and the New Mexico Landrace are both Capsicum annuum. Just continue to select for the traits you like and your group breeding of the crosses will move you into the right direction with a little help of the pollinators.
The Aji Lemon is a Capsicum baccatum, it does not cross with the Capsicum annuum of your other project. The change in plant habit and fruit size will be due to growing conditions. Some pepper varieties have enough variability in their gene pool to change a little when exposed to climates out of their comfort zone. Wind can be a factor causing a drift towards bushy plants, or cool conditions with lots of sun.

15

Plant Breeding / Re: Are Determinate Tomatoes Weaklings?

« on: 2019-01-14, 03:54:55 AM »

In terms of healthiness the determinate plants can be as healthy as indeterminate ones.
But since they stop growing at some point they do not have the same size of root system. That's good in pots and good to prevent bad splitting issues during heavy rain, but not so good when grown in ground with little water. During the last dry summer the determinate ones were struggling and had to be watered more frequently than the big guys, despite having less leaf volume to loose water. I found that very interesting, first time that we had so little rain to observe the downside of a smaller determinate root system.
I have not noticed a huge flavour difference in det vs. indet. There are good and bad varieties, just like in indeterminate plants. But that might be my cool climate, where the big ones can't max out their full potential. Or it might be the excessively long days (15-19h of daylight during the growing season) where even the shorter and less leafy plants can do plenty enough photosynthesis. Or it might be that most of my determinates are potato leaf and also on the large plant side of the det spectrum at ~1,5m. Probably a combination of all three factors.

Since I have built a taller greenhouse I mostly grow indeterminate plants with 2-4 stems per plant there. Using all 2,5m of precious head space and maximizing harvest in a short season by having more stems. 5 months are not much time and I start to remove new flowers in August, they would not grow to full size before frost comes.
The determinate ones grow in my old little greenhouse or outdoors in pots under a roof. They fill a niche of growing space in my garden and it's nice they don't need a heavy duty trellis.
I do not grow dwarfs at all anymore atm. I can't afford to let headspace go unused in the greenhouse and I can't grow tomatoes in the field with no shelter. It's too cold here and too rainy in normal years. I might try again at some point though. They could be suitable for hilled rows with low tunnels.