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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 18, 2016 20:52:03 GMT -5
Joseph is right, even though those were many of the ones originally added many self eliminated the first season, and many others eventually died out in subsequent years. Only the best survived. And of those left, the tasteless ones are periodically being selected out. I had at least two white fleshed appear last year that had no taste at all. Into the compost they went.
I now have i think 8 watermelon seedlings. Wunderground local weather station says the max temp today was 50F. I think a few of those germinated yesterday or today.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 18, 2016 19:55:39 GMT -5
keen101 those seedlings are inordinately tough! keep us posted on the progress of these through the season. Do you remember what the parent varieties were? The original grex / proto-landrace contained a lot of varieties. When i started i put an emphasis on native american varieties from the southwest and northern varieties. Of the ones i remember specifically adding were yellow doll, hollyhill (hybrid between yellow doll and blacktail mountain), Sweet Dakota Rose, blacktail mountain (did poorly for me as a pure variety), sugar baby, hopi yellow, hopi red, Desert King, Saldana Idaho Watermelon, Navajo Winter, etc. Incidentally it seemed that joseph also used many of the same original varieties when he started his. I was away from home in California for a few years with no access to a garden, so i sent all my watermelon proto-landrace seeds to joseph. Not sure if he folded them into his or not, but the seeds i planted last year were all from seed Joseph was nice enough to send back. Joseph lists some of the original varieties he included in his landrace on his website, which i will try to quote below. But basically 90% of the seeds i have now can be traced to joseph's work. We were swapping seeds every season at the beginning though. The main difference between them now is that last year i got several ripe red fleshed watermelons that i was quite pleased with, while joseph has started to only plant yellow fleshed ones. I've never grown Early Canada myself, but of the ones i have grown, i would recommend Sweet Dakota Rose for a good Red watermelon variety and Yellow Doll for a good yellow. I planted as many varieties of mostly short-season watermelon as I could acquire. The list of varieties included: Ali Baba, Allsweet, AS, Arikara, Asahi Miyako Ibrida, Black Diamond, Black Diamond Yellow Belly Strain, Black Seeded Ice Cream, Blacktail Mountain, Bozeman, Carolina Cross #183, CFMCM 2010, Charleston Gray - Paradise Subvariety, Chelsea, Chris Cross, CIT 128, CIT 182, CIT 183, Citrillus, Congo, Cream of Saskatchewan, Crimson Sweet, Dakota Rose, Densuke, Desert King, Dixielee, Diyarbakir, Early Canada, Early Moonbeam, Giza, Gold Flower, Golden Midget, Green JB, Hokkaido Black, Hopi Yellow, Ice Cream Flavored, India, Janosik, King and Queen, Kitro, Kleckly, Little Light, Mickeylee, Moon and Stars, Navajo Red-seeded, Navajo Sweet - Dayton Nevada strain, Navajo, New Hampshire Midget, Orangeglo, Osh Khirgizia, Quetzali, Red Shine Citron, Royal Golden, San Juan Sangria, Scorik ultra early, Small Red, Small Shining Light, Strawberry, Sugar Baby, Sweet Round, Sweet Siberian, Takii Gem. Tendersweet Orange, Verona, Wills Sugar, Yellow Doll, yellow-fleshed watermelon, Yellow JB, Yellow Jubilee, Yellow & Green Colour Fruit, Медовый Гигант, Огонёк, Подарок Солнца, Сибирские Огни, (Honey Giant, Spark, Gift of the Sun, Siberian fires).
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 17, 2016 16:21:56 GMT -5
I currently have two (what i assume are watermelon) seedlings. It is currently trying to snow today and tomorrow and is very cold and wet. I will let you know if the seedlings survive. The rain turned into snow last night. They predicted about 6", but it seems for the second time most of it missed us. We got maybe 3-4" of wet snow. The two watermelon seedlings are fine. The snow is mostly melted and it's fairly warm with the sunshine out. Google says 39F Daytime / 27F Nighttime. The beans don't necessarily look happy, but they look like they will survive as well. The maize looking seedlings in the teosinte / sweet corn patch look fine too. There are more seedlings today. Watermelon seedlings that can take a light snow are winners in my book. Looking good.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 16, 2016 18:04:03 GMT -5
Please let us know how it works out--I'm really curious. I was under the impression that cucurbit seeds generally die from rot/fungal diseases if they're in the ground unprotected from cold, wet weather. I currently have two (what i assume are watermelon) seedlings. It is currently trying to snow today and tomorrow and is very cold and wet. I will let you know if the seedlings survive.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 16, 2016 17:36:51 GMT -5
no idea. I know joseph usually separates things into two landraces, and early one and a late one. The only pea i've observed to be heat tolerant is Biskopens, which is originally from sweden. I actually think the strain i've been saving for a few years might even grow better than the original seeds did (including heat tolerance). But i've only been growing them a few years too. Some say that plants that are cold tolerant are more likely to also be heat and drought tolerant. Who knows? I certainly don't. Biskpens however is a really late flowering pea and so i'm not sure if it's heat tolerance or if the plant just hangs on better because it hasn't produced seed yet. I could send you some seed after this season if you want. It's not really a shelling pea, but more of a soup pea if anything. edit: If your long term goals are to acquire any that may have heat tolerance i'd suggest trying Native Seeds/SEARCH as thier peas are commonly grown in the hot southwest and are apparently originally from spain. Contrary to what people may tell you, i found the variety 'wando' to have no such heat tolerance.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 13, 2016 14:32:29 GMT -5
keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) Are you sure it was borers that did in the stone fruits? 'Infected bark' sounds more like bacterial gummosis (tree bark on limbs, branch crotches get cracks, lesions and ooze). Looking at your zone, I'm going to go out on a, uh, limb and say maybe it is just a stressful climate for sweet cherries. They're usually considered Zone 6-9. In a place like Colorado that can get nice warm sunshine in the middle of the winter, your stone fruits--peaches and sweet cherries especially--are going to start start waking up and then when it freezes down hard again, they'll suffer bark damage and the fruiting buds will be killed. Even if the tree survives, several winters in a row like that can damage their bark enough to make bacterial or fungal attack much more likely and harmful. Sour cherries generally do well in Zone 5. Peaches are fine if you shade them in the winter so they don't warm up and freeze down again. That strategy might work from some of the hardier sweet cherry cultivars, too. (Of course, not having seen your trees, I can't diagnose this with certainty but that's my first guess. Borers typically attack low on the trunk on young trees.) Hard to say. The chokecherry has had some sort of boring insect for years i think as it has lots of round oosing sap spots up and down it's main trunk. Consistent with borer behavior on pine trees, but i've never actually seen an insect though. But perhaps your right in that a few hard and/or warm winters in a row may have weakened the peach bark to introduce more problems. Much of it had a cracked appearance with some sap scabs all over. Most of the trees affected were very young trees though. My dad said he thought he saw some sort of boring insect low on the young nectarine tree, but i don't know. The young apple trees seemed healthy otherwise and had no bark issues so it's a bit of a mystery of what happened there. Branches just started dying on them like crazy. The peach tree is at least 20 years old and has usually had few problems. Whatever the cause 80% of the affected branches have been pruned back and the remaining branches seem pretty healthy and have lots of blossoms, so we should get a decent amount of peaches this year.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 11, 2016 15:32:23 GMT -5
Peas in the coldframe are rather large now. They look about full size to me. They aren't flowering yet. I hope the two flower at the same time so i can cross the purple seeded but spindly Purple Passion to the strong but extra dwarf Mighty Midget pea. That would make for an excellent cross.
All my breeding peas are now up though and about 1" tall right now. Some seedlings are clearly hyper-tendrilled which i like (aka semi-leafless), such as Sugar Magnolia and Canoe/Markana.
As a bonus i saw early starting of teosinte or teosinte-hybrids peeking out of the soil.
It sure is cold today though. I even have some early planted beans growing fine. Go figure.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 10, 2016 7:32:26 GMT -5
Sounds like a feasable project if one makes sure to be safe about it. After all x-ray experiments are what killed off Rosalyn Franklin, the often forgotten and under appriciated person responsible for DNA discovery. Watson & Crick take all the credit and nobel prize, but it is clear that without Rosalyn's help they would never have figured it out. It seems mutagenic plant breeding may have more merit than i once thought. I like red grapefruits. And i guess the orp gene in peas was produced by mutagenic process. Makes me wonder what kind of interesting mutations could be achieved with high anthocyanin crops. If i were building my own x-ray machine for seeds i probably would go the bulb route with some sort of neon light power supply like what one uses for a tesla coil. I would then build a cement thing akin to DIY furnaces for metal melting (the little bertha furnace comes to mind, or the improved version www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://murdercube.com/files/Workshop/Workshop%2520and%2520Tools/An%2520Improved%2520Electric%2520Radiant%2520Shop%2520Furnace%2520(2002)%2520By%2520Dan%2520Hartman.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwj6zOXriITMAhVB1mMKHdKNBF4QFgghMAE&usg=AFQjCNFznbuadiG3J5kesx6wr3QRCaJuwA&sig2=dhR_F7ft2DUthTSUeYJWXA)But i think i would make sure the cement had a built in layer of lead protection all around it and in the bottom and lid. Lead shot comes to mind whether used as thickly packed shot or as melted lead. Assuming safety could be assured the next step would be to find out how long is too much radiation for seeds. And to perhaps have some with the highest levels, and others with incrementally less.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 10, 2016 6:51:58 GMT -5
I frequently buy and plant huge tomato plants in 2 gallon pots from the nursery... Figuring that they will give me a quick early harvest. They don't produce significantly earlier or better than my homegrown plants that are transplanted into the garden as 6 week old seedlings. The nursery plants are generic generally adapted varieties that have not been selected to thrive under local conditions. If I had the ability to grow out my own tomatoes to that size, and could plant cultivars that are known to me to do well, then it might be useful. Joseph, have you thought about approaching the local greenhouses and letting them know about your tomato varieties? Perhaps they would be interested in your improved strains and you both could benefit.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 8, 2016 21:23:44 GMT -5
I sure hope squash vine borers or other nasty pests move in. Wait... what??? You WANT them to move in??? Because I'd be happy to send you some of mine. I'm assuming that the word "don't" was inadvertently left out of that sentence. !!..Yes, the word "don't" was accidentally left out.. my bad.. funny how one little word can change the whole meaning of a context.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 8, 2016 11:50:14 GMT -5
no idea, but sounds cool. Toronto is a very nice area. The only place i've visited in Canada so far, hope to visit more someday.
On a related note to Canada, i've been thinking about searching out canada bred cherry trees. I actually remember a conversation her about that a long time back. Cherry trees don't seem to do well here, and i wonder if a hardier strain is needed. Historically i'm told there was a large cherry orchard in this area many years ago. Although last year we had some sort of fruit tree epidemic. All the stone fruit trees bark were attacked (presumably by some sort of borer, but i never saw any. The year before i guess the grafted plum tree died. Last year one cherry tree died, the other cherry tree almost died but came back from roots, the supposed almond but presumably nectarine almost died but came back from roots, one small apple tree died but was trying to come back from roots, and the large peach tree was heavily dying. This winter the peach tree was heavily pruned back to try and cut off any "infected" bark area. It is now blooming and we may finally get peaches this year again.
I wonder if the borer problems are related to climate change. 5-10 years ago Colorado was having heavy pine tree borers that had newly moved into the state which had a dramatic effect on the amount of wildfires we were having. And for the past few years, but especially this year the news is reporting on heavy ash tree borers down in Boulder. Now with out stone tree (and maybe apple tree) presumably borer problems perhaps our climate is just becoming more habitable to new pests that were once not a huge problem here. I sure hope squash vine borers or other nasty pests DON'T move in.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 7, 2016 0:19:34 GMT -5
I'm curious. How difficult are the crosses between domesticated wild tomato species? Are there seed viability / sterility issues? Since i'm not really working with any crosses with the more obscure wild tomatoes i really wouldn't know. My understanding is that the more common ones like Cheesmaniae and Pimpinellifolium cross easily and with no problems. But there are a few others on the forum currently working with some of the other forms. I'm sure they will chime in soon. This post might be interesting though: alanbishop.proboards.com/post/22777alanbishop.proboards.com/post/22777/thread)
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 6, 2016 12:04:40 GMT -5
I've grown Sara's Galapagos, which was very vigorous and hardy, but the fruit was not impressive; it was not very tasty, and VERY small. I wonder if I could cross it with some other tomatoes and get something better. I've sprouted some Sara's Galpagos as well. Never tried it before either. It is not a pure galapagos tomato, apparently some sort of hybrid between a wild type and a domestic. Your the first person to say they don't taste good, although many people say the cheesmaniae dont taste remarkable. The Sara's Galapagos supposedly has retained exerted stigmas though.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 5, 2016 19:46:35 GMT -5
I'll throw in my two cents, but i'm far from an expert in this department so i'd take others opinions over mine. 4/5 of those you might be able to shell and dry. The middle pod doesn't have a chance. Many of my Biskopens peas had to be harvested like that because they were still growing late into july and i decided to finally cut down all the pea vines. Plus Biskpens at 6+ ft high got damaged in a high wind. The point is that i was able to shell and dry most of the seed down in a glass mason jar. Another idea might be to look into harvesting the whole pea vine at the bottom and placing them in rose water to keep them alive to slightly extend the time for the pods to develop. Last year i had a rabbit nibble off my prize Virscens Mutante pea plant and in a long shot effort to save it i placed it in a flower vase with some liquid fertilizer. Surprisingly it survived for weeks and looked very nice with the white attractive pea flowers. I'm surprised pea flowers don't make it into flower vases more often. The cool thing was that the flowers pollinated and grew pods even without roots on the plant! The pods developed about half way mature when the pea vine finally started to rot away. If i had put it in with half formed pods to begin with i might have been able to harvest mature seeds from it. i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af224/keen101/Garden%202015/DSCF7071_zpsiegzu4mk.jpgi1010.photobucket.com/albums/af224/keen101/Garden%202015/DSCF7073_zps7lslqsht.jpgi1010.photobucket.com/albums/af224/keen101/Garden%202015/DSCF7080_zps9nelxn6j.jpgi1010.photobucket.com/albums/af224/keen101/Garden%202015/DSCF7082_zpsqvfeaups.jpgBut planting more seeds than you need might not be a bad idea. Or you could poison the rats if your into poison. Or not. Or both. Whatever works best for you.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 5, 2016 16:23:55 GMT -5
Just curious, anyone know what happened to degzing?
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