F1s for the People!

[Tim DH]

I've started crunching the numbers on this year's F1 trials. Starting with the Greenhouse:

Firstly, given the unavailability of my preferred rootstock, I tried two new ones. Arnold and Estamino. Scions on Arnold slightly out produced Estamino, but given all the other variables at play, the result is probably not significant. What IS significant is that, earlier in the season, Estamino proved to be a much easier to work with when doing the actual grafting.

EarlyRedsF1s
The first cultivar to produce 100g of fruit was LatahXQuedlinburgerFrüheLiebe  (20th June). LatahXUrbikany wasn't far behind (22nd June) Latah itself passed the milestone on 28th June.  Sadly LxQFL petered out mid August with only a modest total weight (1,360g) I would expect an Indeterminate plant to have more staying power. LxU had pretty much finished by the end of July, not unexpected from a Determinate, it produced an impressive total weight of 6,156g. For comparison, Latah itself produced 3,655g. I trialled three other EarlyRedF1s in the Greenhouse which were unremarkable. A couple of the EarlyRedF1s trialled outdoors this year may get a run out in the greenhouse next year.

CherryF1s First Suite
Following a good showing last year, RosellaXGalena got a greenhouse place again. This year it suffered, early on, from Greenback. (A couple of other cultivars in the same bed showed symptoms too.) RxG outcropped Rosella, (1,950g v 1,271g) but the flavour wasn't there. RosellaXBrandywineCherry, which didn't get trialled last year, impressed with both flavour and production (2,711g) RxBC will replace RxG next year.

CherryF1s Second Suite
This years parents turned out to be a disappointing lot! Tel Aviv Train was not true to type. Sunrise Bumblebee and Dancing with Smurfs were unimpressive both for flavour and production. Fruit from Reinhards Purple Sugar was hard to tell apart from Rosella, except that it was less sweet. The plant was less productive too. Iva's Red Berry was interesting flavour wise, the fruit was very small. The standout cultivar (apart from Rosella) was Barry's Crazy Cherry. It produced 3,891g of flavoursome fruit.

After I've crunched the numbers for the outdoor trials, then the long winter task of assigning next year's greenhouse positions will start! In theory I was going to set up some new EarlyRedF1s, but the CherryF1 parents this year were so poor that I might just re-run that with another selection.

[Adrian]

Hi Tim DH,
When was the seedling day?
Have it germinated in same time?

[Tim DH]

Hi Adrian,
    I sowed ALL of the Greenhouse scions on Feb27th, then again on March2nd AND March6th. The reason for doing this is so that I have a choice of stem thicknesses to work with on Grafting Day. (First Graft Day was March 19th.)

Tim DH

[Tim DH]

This year I grew twelve plants outside, at home and the same twelve cultivars outside on the allotment. That has given me a lot of data to crunch.

The average yield per plant at home was 2,720kg. The average yield on the allotment was 4,856kg. That statistic alone will give me something to ponder about over the Winter! I think the main difference between the two sites is the large tree in my neighbours garden, but I don't think that can be the whole explanation.

I used a mixture of Arnold & Estamino rootstocks. There were three occasions when I had the same cultivar on both rootstocks at the same site. Crunching the numbers for these six plants Arnold outproduced Estamino by 7%.

Four of the twelve cultivars were cage grown and eight cordon grown. At both sites the cages outproduced the cordons (Allotment 179%, Garden 160%)

Three of the twelve cultivars were Open Pollinated varieties and nine F1s. At both sites F1s out produced OPs (A 131%, G 151%)

My conclusion from that lot is that I will be favouring Cage grown F1s on Arnold rootstock next year.

The outstanding cage grown cultivar at both sites was ForestFire X PolarStar. (A 9,627g, G 4,868g) Curiously this cultivar turned out NOT to be determinate. (Although I didn't realise this until well into the growing season.) It followed the normal determinate fruiting pattern of a large crop early on and then early decline.

The outstanding cordon at both sites was PotemkinF1 (A 4,591g, 4404g, G 2,715g, 2,807g) Tho' at both sites QFLXLatah was comparable. (A 4,521g G 2,624g)

Apart from that, unusually, Late Blight failed to put in an appearance this year. So I can't be confident about how the new F1s might perform in a 'normal' year.

One thing I'll trial next year is a cage v cordon test, with FFxPS and PotemkinF1 each grown both ways.

[Tim DH]

Stumbled across this page today:

https://www.craiglehoullier.com/blog1?month=10-2021

Amongst other interesting things, Craig reviews sixteen Heirloom F1s he's tried.