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Post by farmermike on Jul 5, 2017 10:22:17 GMT -5
I attempted my first ever manual cross pollination on tomatoes yesterday. I have 4 early determinate red tomatoes in a big pot together; Silvery Fir Tree, Forest Fire, and 2 no ID (one of those from seeds received in a trade with William). I clipped off all the open flowers, and emasculated all those just about ready to open. I got some nice hooked tweezers from the cosmetic section of the drugstore, which helped with separating the unopened flower parts. I also removed all but one sepal on each flower, so it will be easy to recognize which fruits have been hand pollinated. Then I took my electric toothbrush out into my indeterminate slicing tomato patch and used it to buzz the flowers of Berkeley Tie Dye, Blue Beauty, Black Beauty, and Lucid Gem. I used a dark colored jar lid to catch the pollen that fell from the buzzed flowers. Then went back to the emasculated flowers and swabbed the tips of those stigmas around in the collected pollen. I'm not really sure if the emasculated flowers are receptive yet, so I'll keep trying to pollinate them for a few more days in a row. Does that technique sound right? Any suggestions from those with experience doing this? I suppose I won't know if any of the crosses took (instead of being selfed) until I grow out the F1. I am assuming that the F1 plants will be indeterminate and red-fruited, since those are the dominated traits. I'm hoping I can find a spot indoors to grow out several F1 plants under lights this winter, and have F2 seeds for next spring.
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Post by farmermike on Jul 4, 2017 18:50:00 GMT -5
What varieties are each of you growing? Or if you are growing TPS, what varieties was the TPS from? My tuber grown plants are mostly the commonly available commercial varieties: Yukon Gold, Red Norland, "red, white, & blue mix" from Home Depot, that I have been maintaining from tubers for several years. I probably shouldn't expect much seed production from those -- although the no ID blue from the HD mix seems to be pretty drought tolerant. I also have Terra Rosa and Purple Viking, but neither are very vigorous or productive -- though they each have some interesting qualities. My TPS grown plants are: Joseph's Bountiful, and Fenton Blue, Pinto, Russet, and Offspring of Papa Cacho (from jondear ). I'm not totally sure what to expect from these, but they are certainly growing well. I ought to at least get some tubers to plant next year, and at least one of the TPS plants is just beginning to form flower buds. My kids pulled all the labels out of the pots at one point, so I lost track of which is what. At least they left the plants alone.
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Post by farmermike on Jul 3, 2017 19:59:51 GMT -5
I still haven't had ANY potato plants even open flowers this year. A few individuals have formed clusters of buds, but all have aborted and dropped off before getting anywhere near opening. Not sure what I need to do to grow some of my own true seeds. Maybe I need to be watering a lot more, or give them more shade or better soil.
My TPS plants are in pots in partial shade and are still going strong, so I'm hopeful that they still might flower and produce berries. I had great luck with the TPS I sprouted this year, so I think that may become a large part of my potato growing (not to mention breeding) in the future. Just need to figure out a way to make my own, so I don't have to rely on trading for or purchasing seeds.
Anyone know of any really heat or drought tolerant potatoes that might produce true seed in a hot Mediterranean climate?
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Post by farmermike on Jun 29, 2017 14:37:11 GMT -5
My first sweet corn just started tasseling at around 50 days (direct seeded May 5th). This patch contains plants from my Painted Hill crossed with SE pollen last year as well as Joseph's Cherry Sweet from steev, Orange Sweet from Joseph Lofthouse, Treaty of Paris from jondear, and SE+ sweet mothers from reed. Thanks everyone for contributing to my sweet corn project. There are also a bunch of new SE and SU varieties mixed in there. My plan is to de-tassel the SU and let the SE pollinate them. I may have to abort this plan, though, if the SE pollen has run out while the SU are still silking. My long term goal is to select for holding ability (delayed conversion to starch) both on and off the plant. Hopefully, the SE gene will provide this ability in the population and the selection method will increase the amount of SE genes over the generations. Maybe I should just be selecting for sweetness to find the SE gene? I expect to be working on this project for many years -- and enjoying the fruits of my labor along the way. Here are a couple of my Painted Hill cobs from last year. I ate these raw and they were as sweet and tender as any SE cob, but I picked them at the perfect point in the milk stage. They had great color expression in that stage! Painted Hill is a really nice early sweet corn, in my opinion. Some day I hope to have corn just like this, but with the slowed starch formation from the SE gene.
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Post by farmermike on Jun 23, 2017 0:28:01 GMT -5
Not sure what happened there. The " s20.postimage.org/mt9q4ynxl/image.jpg" part is all you need. Paste that into the dialog box for adding an image. I use the text from the box that says "Direct Link". davidp, I've tried a bunch of different methods of posting images here and I keep going back to postimage.org. It sizes the photos for you. Try the method above before you give up!
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Post by farmermike on Jun 22, 2017 15:49:31 GMT -5
I have to admit that I have fond childhood memories of Arundo. Growing up with a patch of it in our backyard, my brothers and I spent many a summer afternoon dueling with "bamboo" swords. Of course, we thought it was bamboo at the time, but real bamboo would have been much less gentle to get whacked with.
But back to Arundinaria! I only recently learned of this plant and am interested in trying to grow it, but I'm not sure how it would do in my dry climate. I have experience with lots of other Asian and South American bamboos, but most are either very aggressive, frost sensitive, or water needy.
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Post by farmermike on Jun 22, 2017 0:24:25 GMT -5
The most common cane seen invading riparian and wetland areas of CA, is Arundo donax or giant reed grass. It's culms are very flexible, so not as structurally useful as Arundinaria or other bamboo. Native to the Mediterranean and Middle East, it is the most common source of reeds for woodwind instruments, and is used for flutes and pan pipes. Apparently, it is also being used to produce biofuels, due to its rapid production of biomass.
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Post by farmermike on Jun 21, 2017 9:59:41 GMT -5
The chestnut blight didn't destroy most of the trees...the misguided advice from the 'experts' did that. What was the misguided advice the 'experts' gave?
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Post by farmermike on Jun 18, 2017 1:02:27 GMT -5
Having our first real heat wave of the summer! 11pm and still 80deg outside. Forecast for tomorrow is 105F. 😲
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Post by farmermike on Jun 15, 2017 17:37:10 GMT -5
Unfortunately, despite these potentially attractive flowers, I haven't seen much interest by pollinators. My usual tomato pollinators, bumblebees and carpenter bees, seem to be distracted my radicchio breeding project -- which is currently flowering. Oh well, I guess I need to work on making my tomato flowers really irresistible! Haha! I guess I spoke too soon. I just went out in the garden and there was a big old carpenter bee in my early tomato patch. It seemed to be focusing heavily on Forest Fire and Silvery Fir Tree. Then it went and inspected several of the big bold F2 Fern x LA1777 flowers, but turned away and moved on to another section of early tomatoes I received in trades. This seemed strange, so I looked closer at the flowers that did not interest the bee. Here's what I found. I also realized that, since the weather just today turned hot, and the chicory flowers closed up early, maybe the bees had no choice but to visit the less preferable tomato flowers.
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Post by farmermike on Jun 15, 2017 14:34:30 GMT -5
I've been enjoying looking for potential promiscuous pollination traits in my tomatoes this year. Here are a few interesting specimens. This is Amethyst Jewel. The stigma is only slightly exserted, but it has an interesting flared tip to the anther cone. This is an F4 descendent of Sungold which last year had very exserted stigmas. These siblings this year have varying degrees of exsertion. Above are Black Beauty (left) and Blue Beauty (right) -- high anthocyanin beefsteak types with nicely fasciated, open anther cones. This is one from Joseph's landrace with an interestingly split anther cone. I also have some of Joseph's F2 Fern x LA1777 (S. habrochaites). This one has closed anther cones similar to Fern, but the flowers are large and showy and held out above the foliage so that they are visible from way across the garden. Here you can see F2 Fern x LA1777 growing right next to Silvery Fir Tree (safe to assume this is synonymous with Fern). The flowers on the left are highly visible, the ones on the right are concealed within the foliage. Unfortunately, despite these potentially attractive flowers, I haven't seen much interest by pollinators. My usual tomato pollinators, bumblebees and carpenter bees, seem to be distracted my radicchio breeding project -- which is currently flowering. Oh well, I guess I need to work on making my tomato flowers really irresistible!
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Post by farmermike on Jun 11, 2017 11:06:41 GMT -5
I weed an area, then I run into the house, get the camera, and take a quick photo of the area before they all come back. LOL Actually, after the first major spring germination of weeds are dealt with they are a manageable maintenance issue the rest of the season, as long as I keep on top of them. How do you do your weeding, toomanyirons?
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Post by farmermike on May 28, 2017 23:55:45 GMT -5
Found at least a dozen ambush bugs (Phymatinae?) on my beet flowers today! Near the end of his life, my grandpa saw a photo of this bug in one of my field guides. After that he was determined that I find one for him out in the garden. Never found one until today; made me think of him.
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Post by farmermike on May 27, 2017 17:10:23 GMT -5
In fall 2015, I planted a little test row of Baart wheat, and had no problems with it whatsoever. It was only about a 15 foot row, that I planted in late October, and it ripened to a golden straw color in early June after some hot dry weather. The patch was too small to provide much food, but I got a good seed increase. So, last fall (2016) I planted a little bit bigger patch -- about 70 row feet at my ranch, and 30 row feet in my backyard. Everything was going fine through most of the winter. We received about double our normal rainfall, and the wheat thrived while other overwintering crops were rotting in the flooded fields. Then in April it started to flower and form heads. Around mid-May, I decided it only needed a few more weeks to ripen, and began to make plans to harvest and thresh the seeds. About a week after that it had been pretty much devastated by rodents -- almost overnight. I did an emergency harvest, but mostly just to deprived the pests of the remainder. I have a few sheaves hanging to dry now, but I'm pretty sure the seeds are mostly immature. Here's what the damage looked like. Many of the heads were snipped off with the stalk left standing. Many stalks were also bent down to the ground and the head snipped off. I assume the culprits are some combination of gophers, voles, rats, and/or mice. Is there anything I can do to protect my grains in the future? This does seem to be a bumper year for rats and mice -- maybe because of the wet winter. Maybe I just need to do major preemptive trapping campaign right before the grains begin to ripen, to at least reduce the level of damage. I assume I will always have some rodent predation of grains. I really would love to keep growing wheat, because it is one of the few crops I can get away with never watering (or maybe just a little water to get it sprouted in our driest drought years). Right now I am debating whether to even try again next year. Any suggestions/commiseration would be most welcome! I suppose I also need to just read a book on the subject.
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Post by farmermike on May 23, 2017 23:25:03 GMT -5
Milkweed (Asclepias sp.)?
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