Though honestly there are three avenues that I see right now for crossing in Solanum peruvianum.
1. Solanum arcanum and Solanum chilense bridging lines.
2. Solanum penellii bridge
3. Embryo rescue
I think I would be pursuing the embryo rescue a little more heavily if I didn't have a three year old and had more free time. Might be nice to have a little bit of a set up too in terms of indoor growing. It would be nice to make about 100 pollinations and then do a big tissue culture day. Its not insurmountable, its just larger scale than I am set up for at the moment.
Then there are of course some preexisting strains with some peruvianum in them, A. proving it can be done, and B giving us something to work with for peruvianum traits should we fail otherwise.
My first year working with the Arcanum bridging lines it seems a promising species for us northern growers. I grew it with our peruvianum and entirely expect some hybrids in the second year grow out. If I could get hybrids with the arcanum x domestic, and arcanum x peruvianum I would think the resulting hybrid swarm should allow some transfer of genetics.
For this potential penellii bridge- we already have penellii x domestic thanks to Andrew and penellii x habrochaites x domestic material due to subsequent crossing with the habrochaites crosses. If we got penellii x peruvianum than we have a existing hybrid swarm it could cross into.
Also someone hinted somewhere that pimpinillifolium might cross more readily with it than domestic... Andrew- you sent me a pimp type with exserted stigmas last year.
In my ~2 envelopes of seed from domestic exserted plants I dusted heavily with pollen I did dust with Arcanum as part of the mix. So that rare fertile 0.2 rate seed could be in there somewhere. I think that I will put one domestic exserted in the Arcanum patch this year and one peruvianum in a purish penellii patch. Also Bumblebees- Wish I could grow out all my seeds- that rare hybrid could be in one of those envelopes
