Recent posts

#1

Tomatoes / Re: Montana Tomato Project

Last post by Diane Whitehead - Yesterday at 10:43:14 PM

It's the blue and green stripes I'd like to see a photo of.

#2

Tomatoes / Re: Montana Tomato Project

Last post by William Schlegel - Yesterday at 08:32:01 PM

This year is not very photogenic being heavy on F1s with red tomatoes! Unless you like red cherry and saladette tomatoes some with a bit of blue skin already! So yes- 2027 will probably find me taking a lot more photographs! The 294 descended F2s should be nice!

I only have a couple 294 plants this year- mine arent ripe yet- though other folks are growing them and they look and taste great.

If some of the part sibling 303 crosses segregate back to blue bicolors next year that will be nice as well.

#3

Tomatoes / Re: Montana Tomato Project

Last post by Diane Whitehead - Yesterday at 07:04:29 PM

I look forward to photos next year.

#4

Legumes / Re: Everyone's Pea Projects?

Last post by Diane Whitehead - Yesterday at 06:55:10 PM

I looked through Peace Seedlings list of peas and couldn't see one marked new or giant.   Which is the one that interests you?

#5

Legumes / Re: Everyone's Pea Projects?

Last post by AndrewB - Yesterday at 12:22:18 PM

The Kapulers at peace seedlings have a new giant snap pea. I haven't grown it yet,  but it sounds intriguing.

I have been wondering for years if Bijou/ Carouby de Massaune/ Green Beauty crossed with a true snap would produce a large snap.

#6

Tomatoes / Re: Montana Tomato Project

Last post by William Schlegel - 2026-08-15, 10:31:21 PM

I attempted as many as 55 unique crosses today and yesterday with my cherry tomato which is a blue bicolor potato leaf 50% wild accession currant tomato #303 as the father. My plan with this is to get lots more lines that are greater than 50% wild and indigenous and fancy. When the 294 descendants start to segregate next year I'll try to find a striped blue green when ripe to make crosses with. I know from the cross that got me 294 that the crosses between blue bicolors and striped blue skinned green when ripe tomatoes will be highly variable and exciting. I doubt all attempts will succeed but it was a good effort in a year I haven't had much time yet to attempt crosses. In some cases the mother was simply red genetics, in others there is already some fancy parentage and these will have a high potential to segregate to fancy types in 2027.

I've continued collecting tomatoes for seed and it looks like this latest picking is 18 F1s. Highlights include two crosses with 294 and one with the best tasting variant of 339. One of the more important goals next year will be to get fancy segregants from these 294 cross lines. So a larger growout!

From last weekend there are about 11 cross takes

#7

Legumes / Re: Everyone's Pea Projects?

Last post by Carol Deppe - 2026-08-15, 08:08:11 PM

The name of Jim Baggett's pea is Oregon Giant Sugar. You can buy it from Nichol's Garden Nursery. That's the one that is what I am proposing is a new category, to be called flat snaps. Baggett's variety Oregon Sugar Pod II is a snow pea with unwrinkled seed, not a flat snap. It does not have thick walls on pods. I think this variety would be selling much better if Baggett had realized he had created a new market class and named it Oregon Giant Flatsnap.

I think the Kapular snow and snap peas could all be improved by crossing to Oregon Giant Sugar and looking for segregants in the F2s. (I'm not planning on doing that myself, as I am pretty happy with Oregon Giant Sugar flat. And pea breeding is frustrating here in Willamette Valley Oregon, where so much of the dry seed is destroyed by weavils.)



You can tell pea enation virus on the plants because the pods have little disfiguring bumps on them. You can tell powdery mildew because the entire plant including pods becomes covered with it. Obvious and unappetizing. With fusarium wilt peas look unhappy. Fail to germinate or germinate and grow poorly, or wilt and die. Can be very variable in expression. Wide spread enough to have a major impact on pea canning industry in NE.

#8

Tomatoes / Re: F2 between determinate and...

Last post by Steph S - 2026-08-14, 04:10:11 PM

Hi Adrian,

Yea the combination of indet and det genetics produces a huge range of variation in F2.  Growth habit is very complex and the expression of determinate/indet combinations is almost/maybe limitless. ??
I remember an F2 plant I was sure was indeterminate, repeating 3 leaves between trusses six or seven times then suddenly it terminated.  And the side shoots made determinate patterns after seven leaves/nodes.

That plant produced another whole range of growth habits in the F3, from quite small and compact to leggy tall 'determinates' or semi-determinates.

You can really get a lot of different growth habits from these combinations, to choose whichever suits you best.

#9

Legumes / Re: Everyone's Pea Projects?

Last post by Steph S - 2026-08-14, 03:42:18 PM

That's new to me about Oregon Giant Sugar having the thick walls of a snap! 
Just had a look for seeds and the listings are for "Oregon Giant Snow" and "Oregon Sugar Pod".   Not sure which is the flat snap.
It's interesting that a few classic great commercial peas have just occupied a market niche for decades never losing popularity and besting all challengers.  Sugar Snap or Super SS, and the Oregons.
So I have tended to ignore them, but with all those disease resistances and other advantages, maybe better to breed with them instead.

Biggest regret of my season is having no peas.  Trellis by the house got winter crushed and a bad shoulder couldn't rebuild in the spring.  I just bought some Norli that are 47 days dwarf hoping for a few late pods after garlic just pulled, but the only bed that didn't have fusarium rot is pretty shady and animal accessible end of the garden, half colonized by lemon balm seed that was part of the straw mulch..  I think I'll put them in anyway with a row cover and see what happens. 

I love the idea of a flat snap, with all the genetics of interest, your grow out can only be delicious... My purple podded Sugar magnolia/Sugar Sprint snaps were fairly small and not that vigorous or early, so I would definitely consider a side cross with the mighty Oregon Sugar.

#10

OSSI / Re: OSSI Grant program, Offici...

Last post by Carol Deppe - 2026-08-13, 06:50:43 PM

Question 8. I would like to propose a project using marker assisted selection, which I have not done before. Do I need to specify the company I plan to use and other details, or can I figure it out after I get the grant, if I do?
Answer: If you propose hiring a company to do marker assisted selection (MAS) or gene identification in finished varieties you should include in your proposal the name of the company you plan to use, whether the company will provide markers, and if not who will. You need to know these things before you can evaluate whether what you are proposing is possible for you to do at all. And we will need that information when evaluating whether we think you can do what you propose.