Lentil crossing Lens culinaris, seed coat color

[Ocimum]

Hi,

Lentils, Lens culinaris, have tiny flowers, and although they can be manually crossed, well, maybe there's an easier way.
According to different sources, they have between 1 and 6 % of outcrossing, depending, as usual, on genotype and environment

Let's say I have two lentils varieties, a black and a green one. I plant a mixture of them in 2020. The seedcoat is only maternal DNA, therefore it should not be possible to differentiate the F1, in the harvest yet, right?

But if now I harvest the seeds, and plant the green and black ones in separate fields in 2021: if I get different colors than sown in the 2021 harvest, these would be the F2.
That would also be possible with more than 2 varieties, as long as it is not necessary to know the father.
Someone sees a better or faster way of hybridysing them? Or a way to increase outcrossing rate, like that the flower opens before it sheds pollen?

[reed]

But if now I harvest the seeds, and plant the green and black ones in separate fields in 2021: if I get different colors than sown in the 2021 harvest, these would be the F2.
That would also be possible with more than 2 varieties, as long as it is not necessary to know the father.
Someone sees a better or faster way of hybridysing them? Or a way to increase outcrossing rate, like that the flower opens before it sheds pollen?

I think anytime a different seed coat shows up from the one you planted you have a cross. For example if you plant a white seed and get a black one you have a cross. I also suspect a cross can happen that by chance the seed coat still looks the same but the plant is different in some other way.
I encourage crossing in common beans just by mixing up my plantings. We have a lot of bumblebees and they seem to be pretty good at crossing beans.

You get all kinds of new ones in the following, I guess F3 generation. For example if you get a plant with black seeds, harvested from a white seed you might get 1/2 dozen or more different ones from those black seeds.

[Steph S]

This work on lentil seed coat color genetics might be helpful:
https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article-abstract/81/6/484/819702?redirectedFrom=PDF
At least for grey, tan, brown and green lentils, color is a product of the interaction of two distinct dominant genes.  Wierd!    Green is a double recessive.
F1 of the cross of black and tan are mostly mottled, with a few parent color thrown in.

This one says that black is dominant to other colors, but has incomplete penetrance, which means that the F1 can have a black coat, or not. 
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1003917115138

So it looks like you may be able to identify a cross from the seed coat color, most of the time (7/8).   The bigger problem will be,  how often do you get crosses.  Like peas, they generally self pollinate before flowers open.   So even if you have a lot of pollinators interested in them, they may be late to the party.

[Ocimum]

Thanks.
Actually, each time the colors of the parents are different, I should be able to see outcrosses in at least one parent, dominant or recessive

This paper here https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1439-0523.2006.01290.x which studied outcrossing in 3 varieties got between 0.06 and 5.12 % of outcrossing. Meaning that if I mix a few varieties, I should be able to get a few % of outcrosses.

I wonder which flowers planted around would help attract the right pollinators.

[Steph S]

Cool!  Especially that the degree of outcrossing is heritable.  That would be handy to work with!

Many herbs (including some common or widespread weeds) have tiny flowers on a scale similar to the lentil (as seen on google )  The creeping types of Speedwells are just as small.   Some are early spring, others a bit later.  Prunella vulgaris is a common weed/herb also low growing and small flowered which blooms in summer.  These are the sort of plants that grow in your paths or any bit of bare ground that's commonly walked.  Mother of thyme and other ornamental thymes that bloom profusely  are very attractive to pollinators and can be walked over as well, or grow on the side of your path.   
Most of the taller classic herbs have small flowers as well, including culinary herbs like basil and perennials like thyme, hyssop, oregano, lemon balm, the mints, and others like mugwort, taller speedwells, vervains, betony, and so on.   Except for thyme which is early summer, these are mostly late summer flowering.  Oregano is very invasive so caution for that.
Bumblebees work the small flowered herbs (which get loaded with spikes of tiny blooms) as much as the smaller pollinators do - and also like the vetch that is a weed in my garden, but I wouldn't recommend you grow that on purpose near your lentils, as I believe they are susceptible to the same fungal diseases.  Vetch is terrible for mildew whenever it's humid in summer, some clovers are as well although some are not.   I find the red clover here is susceptible but I have a yellow clover that isn't.  The clovers are also made up of many small florets no bigger than a lentil's.

I suppose you're in a dry climate?   
I adore lentils and would certainly grow them if I thought they had a chance here, but I doubt it.   If you find anything like resistance to fungal diseases, let me know. 

[Ocimum]

I'm not in a climate that's that dry, it's central Europe, but with the droughts in the last few years it seem interesting to try new things. I've seen some ripening, even if not in the dryest year.

Just go for it, I'm sure you can get a few to set pods.

I think next year I'll go for basil for the flowers, just hope the flowering overlaps. The Thymus spp. I have are also flowering nicely, but they are in another area, with the other perennials.

[Steph S]

If you have a perennial garden with small flowered herbs anywhere near the area you'll be growing the lentils, then you should be fine with pollinators that already live in the area.   Assuming no pesticides used of course.
Good for you to try something new - you should be dry enough in summer for lentils to do well.
I'm in Newfoundland, where the climate overall is cool and wet.  Our trend has been colder and wetter summers due to the effects of Greenland ice melt, icebergs etc.  so the prospect for lentils is not great.  We can't grow beans here as a reliable crop either.  So I'm looking towards peas as a winter staple.

[Ocimum]

Steph: you may want to have a look at this publication, page 15. My eyes started sparkling, and yours may as well with the resiscance to fungal diseases
https://www.icarda.org/publications/6541/caravan-16-international-year-mountains

[Steph S]

Nice to see the good work by ICARDA!      It would be amazing to have access to that sort of material.   I would definitely try a lentil that is cold tolerant and fungus resistant!  Any color or kind.

I have a tomato that originated in Turkey and was noted for cold tolerance.   It's one of the parents in a line I'm growing out this year.   Just goes to show what a variety of climates you can have in one country.   
The cold tolerance described for the winter lentils, down to -30 C, definitely covers our most extreme temperatures.  But we have a lot of winter thaws usually, so the snow cover is not reliable.  Still it would be worth a try, but the spring planting may work better.   

[Adrian]

I have note that when the lentil was grow in down sap (automn winter), she grow but she ramifing less and she is more sensitive at the slug.
She not ramifing after an attack of slug.
When she is grow at the spring or the summer she ramifing after an attack of slug.

[Steph S]

Thanks, Adrian!  That's important to know.  (Plenty of slugs here, of course.)