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Post by troppo on Jul 3, 2018 1:29:37 GMT -5
I aim to start a C.maxima breeding project after re-reading this thread. I tried steves idea of using Blue Banana as a zucchini alternative and actually quite like it although its not very productive when used in this way. So my goals are to select for a plant type that is semi-compact (bush) and pumps out fruit like C.pepo zucchini's whilst still being able to produce some mature fruit, good eating quality/flavour in the immature (zucchini) stage as well as in the mature stage (dry flesh, good storage etc.). This coming spring (winter here in Oz at the moment) I'm aiming to initially cross as many banana-shaped varieties to Golden Nugget (for the bush trait) and then let them interbreed in subsequent generations. I may even work in some kabocha/buttercup crosses to increase the eating quality of mature fruit.
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Post by troppo on May 9, 2018 1:56:55 GMT -5
I used to grow peanuts commercially and have since married into a peanut growing family. 5-6 seeds per foot is pretty standard. When planting in double/twins rows, keep the density the same but spread it out over the 2 rows, ie: 3 seeds per foot in each twin row or 6 seeds per foot in single rows.
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Post by troppo on Apr 16, 2018 18:08:34 GMT -5
My reds did get mostly stable at around F5 I think. Didn't continue this austral spring, and I haven't sown this autumn either, since I got a nasty black spot disease last autumn/winter. I've re-assessed my breeding aims too. I grew a semi-commercial crop with a nearby grower - while the local restaurants were interested in the purples, it was eating quality that they focused on, going for my big yellow snow Joni's Taxi rather than my three purple snows, even tho they were a bit reluctant to put a pale yellow pea on the plate. So I'm thinking I will cross my red and purple snows back to Jonis to get tender huge podded peas. I'm also thinking that production and plant size is important, so double flowers and short plants seem to be desirable too. Yeah, I really needed another 5 year project... T Good to hear that your getting some commercial interest with your peas T. I've got a similar project going where I have a nice double-podded purple snow with semi-short stature (based upon Oregon Giant) that I'm crossing with multiple large-podded, tender snows and a very sweet snap pea selection (all green) to try and get larger, sweeter, more tender purple-pods. Its amazing how quickly a breeding project can double/triple in size in one season.
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Post by troppo on Apr 5, 2018 17:12:24 GMT -5
I used to work in a sunflower breeding program for one of the big ag companies here in Oz. If you are dealing with cms then you need restorer genes to restore fertility. Most commercial grain hybrids are cms-A x R (cms-A = male sterile breeding lines, R = restorer breeding lines). I'm about to adopt a sunflower breeding project looking at developing a dwarf-grain landrace. My plan is to use F1 sterile dwarfs used in flower production and cross them with F1 grain hybrids as they carry the R-gene needed to restore fertility. This population will segregate for sterile and fertile plants, overall I'll be selecting for dwarf, self-fertile plants and then selecting for the seed characteristics I want. As cms is passed down maternally, by culling the sterile plants every generation should eliminate it pretty quickly from the population.
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Post by troppo on Mar 19, 2018 1:50:43 GMT -5
I'm looking play around with Diploids this year to hopefully get some TPS. I was wondering is Mayan Gold a diploid potato? I was kinda hoping to use it as a parent line given its a commercial variety and has the potential to incorporate some of its good traits into some other diploid lines, if it is indeed diploid?
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Post by troppo on Mar 19, 2018 0:19:03 GMT -5
Hi, Just wondering if anyone has a copy of this paper or knows where to get a copy. Seems the only one I can find requires purchase to access.
"A mass-selection method for the acclimatization and improvement of edible diploid potatoes in the United Kingdom"
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Post by troppo on Jan 1, 2018 21:50:42 GMT -5
reed - yeup, acorn is a pepo. I think troppo might be interested, tagging. Hell I might even be interested. Orange fleshed pepo sounds pretty neat! If the next ones we open are the same, tons of seeds, orange flesh but not much of it, I'll post a picture. Unfortunately given I'm in OZ i may not be able to get them through our customs...
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Post by troppo on Dec 20, 2017 23:19:45 GMT -5
troppo - orange flesh spaghetti squash sounds really interesting! I definitely haven't seen that before. I've been trying to cross orange-fleshed C.pepo squash with spag squash. So far I've used Winter Luxury and have selected 2 really nice F2's but I cant seem to find a C.pepo with deeper flesh colour. Sorry dont want to hijack your thread.
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Post by troppo on Dec 20, 2017 2:06:57 GMT -5
I’ll be following this project closely, I’m half tempted next season to cross a couple of crosses. Have run out of room this season with my orange fleshed spaghetti squash project.
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Post by troppo on Dec 18, 2017 23:20:07 GMT -5
I've often thought about conducting a similar project over here in OZ as we are pretty limited compared to you guys with different varieties. One of my thoughts was what would be the resulting effect of increasing fruit size on over yield? As such, does number of fruit per plant decline when selecting for size? Would it be better to select instead for total seed yield per plant rather than individual fruit size? Would it also be better to select for a bush-type plant structure so as to allow narrower crop rows/increased plant densities?
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Post by troppo on Sept 19, 2017 18:10:18 GMT -5
Most of my breeding activities has been to increase the nutrient content of certain vegetables. Here in Oz we aren't as blessed with the large array of OP varieties as you guys in the States. Two of my projects that I'm currently working on breeding are an OP spaghetti squash that has dark orange flesh. We only have a variety called 'Vegetable Spaghetti', which only has opaque flesh. I'm also breeding a red-at-eating Se+ sweetcorn as we only have yellows and whites available here. I've also recently been looking at developing a high Beta-caro paste tomato but I can't seem to find any lines that are high in Beta-caro.
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Post by troppo on Jul 31, 2017 6:50:43 GMT -5
I don't think this is possible but I may be wrong. A colleague of mine is a mungbean breeder and also breeds black gram. Apparently from what he has found these are incompatible with each other and both are incompatible with adzuki bean. His desire is to transfer the disease resistance of black gram into mungbean but incompatibilities between the species prevent him from achieving this.
Have you got any links to the papers/articles that suggest it may be achievable?
Another possibility is utilising some of the Australian wild relative species as some of these are compatible with mungbean and offer huge genetic possibilities. Some I believe are even perennial.
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Post by troppo on Jul 17, 2017 1:02:58 GMT -5
I have been looking to try a similar project (with the same varieties)so I will put mine on hold and be looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I'll be putting some F2 seed in the next few weeks to give them a jump on spring and hopefully get them harvested before the real heat of summer in Dec/Jan. I'll put updates here and over on the Oz forum.
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Post by troppo on Jul 16, 2017 18:43:12 GMT -5
Hi everyone,
So I've been lurking around this forum for awhile now and have started to undertake a few breeding projects and figured I may as well start a thread. Mainly aiming to improve or increase the environmental adaption of certain varieties. One of my projects is improving spaghetti squash. It seems to me that good ol' spag squash has a bit of a cult following attributed by its unique flesh characteristics, although there are others that don't seem to care for it. Myself personally I quite like it but it'll never replace a good ravioli or tortellini. Whilst I enjoy it, I believe there is room for improvement by increasing its flesh colour (nutritional value) and imparting some form of PM tolerance, possibly also making it look more attractive to. So a breeding project started.
The details are pretty simple. We are pretty limited here in Oz, so I searched the net for a nice orange fleshed C.pepo variety to use and settled on Winter Luxury (a nice pie pumpkin). Over spring I planted a couple of SS plants and also a WL plant to act as my male pollinator. Due to the excessive heat wave over xmas all bar one of my cross pollination's failed. Middle of Feb I harvested that one fruit and kept the seed. Although late in the season, we get warm weather up till roughly ANZAC day (25th April) so I planted out some F1 seeds. Out of 20 seeds, after the first week I selected the 10 quickest germinating and after the second week I selected the 4 most vigorous growing plants. With the milder conditions the plants flowered like crazy and I managed to get 7 F1 fruit (all selfed) all in varying stages of maturity which should provide me with enough seed to do some F2 selections this coming spring.
One thing I have noted about this F1 is the change in the foliage of the plants. Whilst regular SS has plain leaves this cross has mottled patterns on the older leaves whilst the newer leaves are silver (note that I have checked and its definitely not disease). Also regular SS has plain skinned fruit with no pattern whereas these F1's have mottled patterns and are currently bigger than SS gets.
Decided to harvest the rest of the F1 fruit at the end of May. Whilst not as big as the first one (3.5kg) they are still pretty decent (ranging from 1.2kg to 2.4kg). All up I have harvested 5 F1 fruit from 3 vines with 2 other fruit succumbing to dry conditions whilst I was away over Easter. The smallest 2 were about the size that I'd like to select for in the F2 stage. I cracked open the large first fruit and discovered it doesn't have the orange flesh (from its Father) that I was after but it had kept the spag flesh trait (from its Mother), but that was expected as it is only an F1 at this stage and the F2 stage is when the magic happens. Will be selecting for orange spag flesh and smaller/single-2 person sized fruit next generation.
At the moment I am undertaking some land prep to hopefully get my squash in at the end of August and get some F2 fruit. I am aiming for only about 20 F2 plants as I am pretty space limited.
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Post by troppo on Jul 16, 2017 18:31:21 GMT -5
I'm another of the Down Under gardeners. I usually drop in here quite a bit but I'm ashamed to say I although I find what everyone is doing stimulating and enlightening I don't post as much as what I should. Some of my activities/breeding projects have fallen by the way-side and have been temporarily suspended as I have recently started a new position and private life has become a lot busier.
I am still proceeding with a few breeding projects: a heat tolerant purple snowpea, orange-fleshed spag squash, and a red sweetcorn. Most of my tomato projects have come to a halt as our last summer we had nearly 2 months of over 40oC temps and no rainfall so I lost a few lines. I have also started looking at peanuts.
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