Towards new colours in turnips

[Klaus Brugger]

The morphological and colour diversity of turnips is similar to that of radishes, but I feel like less breeding work is being done for colourful turnips.

I'm currently working on a turnip population originating from black-skinned, red-fleshed, and yellow-fleshed germplasm. My goal is to get new colour combinations in good tasting fall/winter turnips. I'd especially like to combine red anthocyanin colouration of the flesh with yellow flesh colour, the latter being a trait to my knowledge not present in radish.

I started by crossing black op cultivar 'Negro Azucarado' with red hybrid cultivar 'Collie'.
'Negro Azucarado' has a thick and "pithy" black outer layer very similar to that of black winter radishes, and a sweet, dry, and pleasant-tasting white flesh. 'Collie' has a red skin and some red colour in the flesh.

The first filial generation got me purple turnips with a nice metallic shine, a bit of black outside, and/or a bit of purple inside. Taste and texture were nice and I preferred them to that of 'Collie'.
The last picture shows the hybrid with its parental cultivars. The black individual is typical for 'Negro Azucarado', the more greyish ones I consider off-types.




I then did kind of a "backcross" with a 'Collie' F₂ plant that had nice pink flesh. The resulting "BC₁" generation (let's call it that way) gave turnips with apparently rather high anthocyanin levels and still really good eating quality. This could be the starting point for further selection towards a uniform, high-quality, intensely purple turnip – something not currently on the market at least in Europe.


Multiple genes seem to be involved in the black outer layer of 'Negro Azucarado'. In my segregating progeny population(s), differences in thickness and pattern of this layer can be observed. A thin, transparent black layer on an intensely purple tuber/root can give the impression of an even darker, almost black shade of purple without giving a feeling as rough or pithy as the thick black layer of 'Negro Azucarado'. Such a thicker layer can be quite cool looking too, but it's not what I'm currently after, even though it may have some protective function. The following six pictures show BC₁ plants.



Last spring I did some crosses with 'Goldana' (yellow skin and yellow flesh) to finally get some yellow genetics into the mix. The yellow colour is more or less recessive, so it won't be (at least) until next autumn that I'll be able to see if my desired combination of red and yellow flesh will come true. However, last year's generation ('Goldana' × (('Negro Azucarado' × 'Collie') × 'Collie')) produced some nice turnips already.

This year I also want to try some crosses between turnips (Brassica rapa) and swedes/rutabagas (Brassica napus). Literature suggests that this should be relatively (!) easy – another potential "advantage" of turnips over radishes.

[galina gardiner]

Love your new turnip colours. Good luck crossing in yellows.

You are undoubtedly familiar with the Gilfeather Turnip, an already existing cross between turnip and swede. 

[Klaus Brugger]

Love your new turnip colours. Good luck crossing in yellows.

You are undoubtedly familiar with the Gilfeather Turnip, an already existing cross between turnip and swede. 

Thank you!

I've read about the Gilfeather Turnip but I couldn't find much about it's actual genetic make-up other than it reportedly having both B. napus and B. rapa in its pedigree. The more recent breeding work of Tim Peters and others with B. napus and B. rapa for leafy brassicas ('Gulag Stars' etc.) is encouraging, too!

[galina gardiner]

I had heard about Gulag Stars but since I have many of the Kaleidoskope Homesteaders kales, never really paid attention.  I missed entirely that they are also a cross between napus and rapa. 

[Steph S]

Exciting work, Klaus!
Turnips are much better tasting than radishes, but just as easy to grow.
Love the colors and beautiful patterns..  The pink is really stunning!

[Klaus Brugger]

Last year was the first year that I was actually seeing yellow-fleshed turnips with red anthocyanins in the flesh. I really like the combination!

[galina gardiner]

That red star pattern in the second photo is really special.