Watermelon Radish × Purple-Skinned Radish

[Klaus Brugger]

Hi,

I just wanted to quickly share some pictures of a radish project I'm currently working on.
In 2019, I crossed 'Red Meat', a classic watermelon radish with white/green exterior and red interior and 'Malaga', a small bordeaux/purple radish. I also did 'Red Meat' × 'Diana'. My goal was to eventually get a short-season spring radish with red or purple meat. The F₁s were quite heterogeneous (as were the open-pollinated parents) and often showed a nice green interior where the tuber had been exposed to sunlight (first picture).

I only grew F₂ plants of 'Red Meat' × 'Malaga' (all the other pictures). I wanted maximum anthocyanins in the whole plant so I already selected seeds that had a purplish or reddish color. It seemed to work, in a way, since most of my F₂ plants were nicely colored – just not on the inside. It seemed like in my population, red/purple flesh was rather strongly linked to white exterior of the tuber and low anthocyanin levels in the leaves.

I'm not really sure how I'll proceed now. I kind of want to continue working with the F₂ tubers I have. I'm thinking about selecting for an intensely red fall radish. I also really like the combination of purple epidermis/cortex and green flesh but I think a cross with 'Green Meat' would get you better results in this respect. I will definitely try to stabilize the "spotted" phenotype that some of the bulbs exhibited (last picture). But maybe that's a story for another thread sometime.

Edit: Sorry, I think I just posted this to the wrong board. I just read Brassica something something  .

[Garrett Schantz]

If you wanted even more purple on the plant, you could try crossing it with purple podded rat-tail radishes.

[triffid]

Klaus, I must say I look forward to your posts as the quality of content is A*.

'Bora King/Bluemoon F1' is a Korean winter radish with purple flesh which you may find useful. But the radishes you have so far are beautiful. The speckled one is particularly quaint.

[Klaus Brugger]

If you wanted even more purple on the plant, you could try crossing it with purple podded rat-tail radishes.

That's a good idea for sure. I also thought about crossing with purple microgreen radish. The problem for me is finding material where I'm positive that I can work with it and still be in compliance with both intellectual property rights and Nagoya regulations. Not that easy, it seems. :-/

Klaus, I must say I look forward to your posts as the quality of content is A*.

'Bora King/Bluemoon F1' is a Korean winter radish with purple flesh which you may find useful. But the radishes you have so far are beautiful. The speckled one is particularly quaint.

Thank you, I really appreciate it!
Also, thanks for the 'Bora King'/'Blue Moon' tip. Do you think these two are the same cultivar? I'm a bit hesitant about working with hybrid varieties (including 'Green Meat', for that matter) because of male sterility. I'm not really sure yet how common CMS is in radishes though.

As for the speckled one: There's actually a historic cultivar called 'Triumph', or 'mottled forcing' (https://pgrdeu-preview.ble.de/rlistgemuese/showabbildungen/sg_id/28800) that apparently has a similar phenotype. Doro pointed out that there's also a Finnish turnip called 'Enon Kanta' where some plants will have speckled bulbs (https://www.enonmansikka.fi/kaskinauris-enon-kanta). I'm planning to grow 'Triumph' and 'Enon Kanta', as well as some F3 plants of my own speckled ones, this year. If everything goes well, I will do a write-up in autumn and start another thread about speckled crucifer bulbs ...

[Ferdzy]

Those are lovely! Iève always been sad that watermelon radishes won't grow for me; something missing in the soil, I guess. Other radishes do okay.

I was just looking at the Ferme Tournesol catalogue yesterday - they list (but are sold out) a radish that they bred with a black skin and jewel toned interiors. Really interesting!

https://boutique.fermetournesol.qc.ca/collections/bred-by-tourne-sol/products/br504?variant=31805855727747

[triffid]

I'm not sure whether they're the same cultivar, but they are both F1, so I understand your concern regarding CMS. However, I'm fairly certain that Green Luobo is OP.

Thanks for the info on the speckled cultivars. To see the phenotype in turnips too is exciting.

Ferdzy, those black-skinned radishes are also very cool! I've read that the black-skinned types are estemmed for their leafy tops.. or is that black turnips?

[Klaus Brugger]

Dan Brisebois, the breeder of these black-skinned radishes, has written a nice blog post about their breeding history:

https://goingtoseed.wordpress.com/2019/11/15/living-the-radish-breeding-dream/. I also really love the "skunk radishes"!

[Steph S]

Beautiful radishes, Klaus. 
The watermelon radish didn't do well for me here last year - took forever to make a radish when they did (many were just a gnarly tail) and texture wasn't nice - maybe weather too hot and dry, IDK.
In fact many radishes seem to be quite temperamental about whether they will produce a nice root or not.  I rarely eat radish myself but grow to share with others in my family, so I'm not exactly an expert grower of them either.  But I will mention White Icicle as a variety that always produces a lovely tender root under all conditions, while other varieties fail.  So it would be pretty awesome to have beautifully colored radish that even I would succeed in growing.
Just saying that reliability is pretty variable in the radish, and well worth breeding for.
Also the radish lovers in my family have found some uses for the greens as well.  Radish leaf pesto is delicious, and for that it doesn't matter that leaves are sometimes prickly or nasty textured.  But not all have prickly leaves, so a nice tender leaf in a radish might enjoy some popularity in other dishes, and might be something to shoot for, especially if the colors are nice!

[Ferdzy]

Steph, funny you should say that. I just saw a radish I would like to get from Eagleridge seeds, for Hong Vit - a radish grown for its leaves, like turnip greens. And I'll tell you what - rutabagas make better turnip greens that turnips. https://eagleridgeseeds.com/collections/vegetables/products/hong-vit-leaf-radish

[Steph S]

Thanks Ferdzy for the tip!  I may get a pack...
As for the rutabagas, the funny thing is we are completely spoiled on their greens as a traditional food in NL.  It is all that was grown here, no real 'turnips' were, but the rutabagas were always called turnips here, and 'turnip greens' is classic with jiggs dinner.

[Diane Whitehead]

I don't get nice roots on my radishes, but let them flower and then eat the seedpods.  They provide a lot more food than the root would have.

[Ferdzy]

So, question: inspired by this thread, I'm looking at getting some Miyato Rose and Miyato Rose-Green Luobo cross radish seeds. Looking up Miyato Rose, I see instructions not to plant it in the spring. Is that because they will bolt?  If they just get hot and woody, then no point in planting early. But if they bolt, then mwa-ha-ha. I think I will.

[Klaus Brugger]

So, question: inspired by this thread, I'm looking at getting some Miyato Rose and Miyato Rose-Green Luobo cross radish seeds. Looking up Miyato Rose, I see instructions not to plant it in the spring. Is that because they will bolt?  If they just get hot and woody, then no point in planting early. But if they bolt, then mwa-ha-ha. I think I will.

Very cool!
'Red Meat' did bolt early without making any bulb when I sowed it in early spring. I still used the better looking plants for pollinations but selection for most traits I care about was not possible ...


Here are two pictures from yesterday of an F₂ plant that does have red flesh and a smaller tuber than 'Red Meat'. I might cross it again to a quick forcing radish to get more spring radish characteristics combined with the red flesh.

[Ferdzy]

Lovely!

I have real trouble getting red fleshed radishes to 1) grow and 2) be red fleshed. I have trouble with colour in my plants in general. A number of beans are faded or not quite right (arikara buff, anybody?). I even have a peony that I know was magenta at our last house and here it is barely a strong pink. My soil is missing something that they need. But I am determined to find some that can do something with it.

[reed]

I don't get nice roots on my radishes, but let them flower and then eat the seedpods.  They provide a lot more food than the root would have.

I do that too and also with turnips. I find a single radish or turnip plant makes a lot more food over a long period of time that way. I use them both to help till and improve the soil, leaving most of the roots to rot in the ground. With turnips we do harvest and eat some over winter.

I do get big roots, some really big from those that volunteer in the fall. They don't have time to bloom before it freezes and we do eat some of them. After a light frost or two they are very crisp and mild flavored. Maybe I'll try to track down some more with the color inside, I don't remember what the ones I planted before were called.

I also don't see many with color on the inside even though I planted some in the original mix. They vary a lot  on the outside, some are dark red, others purple or with streaks, an occasional yellow one but they are almost all just white on the inside.