Pea Pod and Flower Color Morphs

[Tarruvi]

I've been looking into the relationship between the colors of pea flowers and their connection to what pigments are present in the entire plant. For instance, if you cross a purple podded pea with a pink flowered variety, you will get a pink flowered and red podded pea in the F2 generation (the pod colors may vary, and could look more brown depending on lighting and other genetic variables). The gene responsible for the pink flowers could be one of a few, Salmon Flowered or Pink Crown Pea have one of these genes (the b gene, with the other two being ce and rub) that remove blue pigments from the plant.

On the opposite side of this coin, is another gene that removes the red pigments, and that is the ar gene found in varieties like Visionary. As some of the red pigments in the plant are removed, a cross between a purple podded and ar carrier should result in a blue or violet pod, possibly midnight blue? I don't currently have any ar gene seeds in my stock of seeds, so this is all speculative, unless someone has already done the cross? (on a side note, I'd love to hear about any possible seed varieties sold in North America that carry the ar gene?)

I'm currently in the process of breeding an orange podded pea, something that should be possible after getting a red podded (purple pod x yellow pod) crossed with any pink flowered variety. With the absence of the darkening blue pigments, the resulting pod should look orange with only red pigments over the yellow pod. My inspiration for going after these color morphs is the peas themselves, from an outsider's perspective, you wouldn't think much about a green pea sold in stores. But with some research, they wind up looking a bit bland in comparison to the (almost) endless shapes and colors peas can take on. Additionally, there most certainly are more impressive morphs to discover through hybridization of interesting and harder to access genes that aren't commercially available.

Above is a drawing I made of pea pods and their colors. The Green, Yellow, Purple, and Red pods are seen at the top. With the theoretical Brown, Orange, Blue, and Tan pods at the bottom. I made two separate layers for the colors, and color corrected the overlaying purple/red/blue pigments to match their real life counterparts as best I could. The red pod looks a bit more purple, but that is what many look like if there is no light passing through the pod. So, the shade and color of the anthocyanin covered pods would likely be brighter in sunlight. Now onto the last four... Brown and Orange being the result of genes responsible pink flowers introduced to a purple and red podded pea. Similarly, Blue and Tan being the result of genes responsible for blue flowers introduced to a purple and red podded pea.

Given there are multiple genes that can result in pink flowered peas, b, ce, and rub. It likely should be the same for blue flowers, with ar being the only gene that comes to mind, there ought to be more "blue" genes other than ar?