Post by Alan on Feb 24, 2007 11:23:31 GMT -5
2007 vegetable breeding projects.
This year I have a number of tomato and corn breeding experiments and segregation that I will be experimenting with.
At the top of my list are my own breeding experiments. I won't reveal the parents of these hybrids, just the name of the Hybrid, its characteristics, and history behind the name.
Absinthe: A large Green when ripe Beefsteak potato leaf variety with orange stripes. Indet. Growth. Named after the drink that inspired so many of my artistic heroes.
Estora: A small pale purple Tomato. Possible dwarf characteristics. Named after the Pagan holiday now known as Easter
Cherokee trail of tears: A purple/black pear shaped tomato. Named after the historical Trail of Tears
Black Hole Sun: A black hollow tomato, mostly of novelty value, but good for stuffing. Named after the sound garden song.
Green Lantern: A 3-4 ounce green with yellow stripes tomato. Hybridized with Burpee's highly overpriced red lightening hybrid. Named after the D.C. Comics character of the same name.
Mer De Nomes Red: This one is already stable and will be sold as plants and seeds this year. A red one to two ounce tomato, lots of juice and a big flavor, large production. Suitable for any use. Named after A Perfect Circles debut album. Earned 9 out of 10 in my three taste tests.
Mer De Nomes Black: The black fruited sister to Mer De Nomes red. Seed will not be offered until next year, but appears to be stable. We will offer the fruit this year for sale.
Micro Tomatoes: I recently acquired a number of very compact dwarf (micro) tomatoes. Unfortunately to my knowledge while there are several different cultivars, they only appear in two colors, red and yellow/orange. I will be experimenting with breeding in new color characteristics this year including. Black, white, purple, pink and green when ripe.
Stabilization (de-hybridization) projects. These projects basically exist to facilitate our self-sufficient lifestyle and business plan. Most of these Hybrids are offered at ridiculous prices to the home gardener who is expected to pay the high prices for these seeds every year. These are just a few of these types of projects for this year, the ones I can remember off of the top of my head. Trust me there are many, many, more.
Burpee's Porterhouse tomato: Large 1-2 lb pink/red tomato. Newly introduced for 2007, though through research we have found it has existed since 2001. We will select for as many of the characteristics of the Hybrid that we can find after growing out the F2 generation seed that we will produce this summer.
Burpee's Brandy Boy: A hybridization of the popular Brandywine tomato. We already have some F5 single seed decent seeds in our private seed bank, but we want to do some reselecting of this tomato to suit our own purposes.
Burpee's Red lightening tomato. A hybridization of the O.P. Red Zebra tomato with more striping apparent in the flesh. This tomato got horrible reviews last year, but I think through selection I can improve it. I will also use this as one of the parents of Green Lantern.
Sweet 100 cherry tomato: Popular and expensive. Darn right I will be experimenting with this in 2007. You don't want to know what ΒΌ ounce of seed costs me for greenhouse plants.
I will also be experimenting with breeding sweet corn. I have a number of rare heirloom sweet corns in a multitude of colors. Red, blue, white, bi-color, yellow, black. I was inspired by another amateur breeder who came out with an O.P. he calls Mushroom's Martian Double red sweet corn. My interest in breeding a corn as such will be for self sufficient farming and for taste, color, and seed saving.
I will be experimenting with breeding Burpee's highly overpriced "Ruby Queen" sweet corn with three of my heirloom red sweet corns and selecting for maturity dates, sugar content, and disease resistance. I am aware that at some point I will probably have to backcross to get the color characteristics that I am looking for (double red, almost purple kernels with orange silk) and the sugar characteristics. However once I get this combination I will have a Bishop's Homegrown Exclusive and cut my corn production price in two.
I will also be experimenting with breeding a particular blue sweet corn with my favorite sweet corn Silver Queen.
As well as these experiments there will be the usual work to do. Saving seeds from over 300 varieties of Open Pollinated and Heirloom tomatoes. Some of which are very rare, some of which I may soon be the only source for. Also, harvesting, marketing, transporting, selling, and storing of produce. Cultivating, digging, hunting, and seeding ginseng, packing seeds, and packing worms and castings as well. Some of the vegetables that I am very excited about this year include:
Carrots: I have a nice selection of yellow, purple, white, orange, and red carrots. I love carrots and this will be my first year growing them. No one at the markets around here carry carrots. Poor soil in this area contributes to this fact. However raised beds and sphagnum moss can fix this. It will be interesting to try and get a Brassica plant to produce seed too.
Squash: A Russian friend recently sent me a number of squash varieties from his homeland. Very Rare ones at that.
Beans: last year I collected a number of heirloom beans from my customers as well as family and friends. Keeping them pure is something that I see as highly important.
Afghani Poppies: A friend from Afghanistan sent these to me. These are the ones we a currently wiping out in Afghanistan to curtail opium production.
Of course this is just a handful of the projects and the work that I will be doing this year, as always there is so much more to do that I just don't have the time to explain in writing.
Once again this year I will also be collecting even more heirloom and open pollinated vegetables and flowers to save seed from and to grow for my own enjoyment and for sale, if you have any heirloom vegetables or flowers you would like to share let me know.
This year I have a number of tomato and corn breeding experiments and segregation that I will be experimenting with.
At the top of my list are my own breeding experiments. I won't reveal the parents of these hybrids, just the name of the Hybrid, its characteristics, and history behind the name.
Absinthe: A large Green when ripe Beefsteak potato leaf variety with orange stripes. Indet. Growth. Named after the drink that inspired so many of my artistic heroes.
Estora: A small pale purple Tomato. Possible dwarf characteristics. Named after the Pagan holiday now known as Easter
Cherokee trail of tears: A purple/black pear shaped tomato. Named after the historical Trail of Tears
Black Hole Sun: A black hollow tomato, mostly of novelty value, but good for stuffing. Named after the sound garden song.
Green Lantern: A 3-4 ounce green with yellow stripes tomato. Hybridized with Burpee's highly overpriced red lightening hybrid. Named after the D.C. Comics character of the same name.
Mer De Nomes Red: This one is already stable and will be sold as plants and seeds this year. A red one to two ounce tomato, lots of juice and a big flavor, large production. Suitable for any use. Named after A Perfect Circles debut album. Earned 9 out of 10 in my three taste tests.
Mer De Nomes Black: The black fruited sister to Mer De Nomes red. Seed will not be offered until next year, but appears to be stable. We will offer the fruit this year for sale.
Micro Tomatoes: I recently acquired a number of very compact dwarf (micro) tomatoes. Unfortunately to my knowledge while there are several different cultivars, they only appear in two colors, red and yellow/orange. I will be experimenting with breeding in new color characteristics this year including. Black, white, purple, pink and green when ripe.
Stabilization (de-hybridization) projects. These projects basically exist to facilitate our self-sufficient lifestyle and business plan. Most of these Hybrids are offered at ridiculous prices to the home gardener who is expected to pay the high prices for these seeds every year. These are just a few of these types of projects for this year, the ones I can remember off of the top of my head. Trust me there are many, many, more.
Burpee's Porterhouse tomato: Large 1-2 lb pink/red tomato. Newly introduced for 2007, though through research we have found it has existed since 2001. We will select for as many of the characteristics of the Hybrid that we can find after growing out the F2 generation seed that we will produce this summer.
Burpee's Brandy Boy: A hybridization of the popular Brandywine tomato. We already have some F5 single seed decent seeds in our private seed bank, but we want to do some reselecting of this tomato to suit our own purposes.
Burpee's Red lightening tomato. A hybridization of the O.P. Red Zebra tomato with more striping apparent in the flesh. This tomato got horrible reviews last year, but I think through selection I can improve it. I will also use this as one of the parents of Green Lantern.
Sweet 100 cherry tomato: Popular and expensive. Darn right I will be experimenting with this in 2007. You don't want to know what ΒΌ ounce of seed costs me for greenhouse plants.
I will also be experimenting with breeding sweet corn. I have a number of rare heirloom sweet corns in a multitude of colors. Red, blue, white, bi-color, yellow, black. I was inspired by another amateur breeder who came out with an O.P. he calls Mushroom's Martian Double red sweet corn. My interest in breeding a corn as such will be for self sufficient farming and for taste, color, and seed saving.
I will be experimenting with breeding Burpee's highly overpriced "Ruby Queen" sweet corn with three of my heirloom red sweet corns and selecting for maturity dates, sugar content, and disease resistance. I am aware that at some point I will probably have to backcross to get the color characteristics that I am looking for (double red, almost purple kernels with orange silk) and the sugar characteristics. However once I get this combination I will have a Bishop's Homegrown Exclusive and cut my corn production price in two.
I will also be experimenting with breeding a particular blue sweet corn with my favorite sweet corn Silver Queen.
As well as these experiments there will be the usual work to do. Saving seeds from over 300 varieties of Open Pollinated and Heirloom tomatoes. Some of which are very rare, some of which I may soon be the only source for. Also, harvesting, marketing, transporting, selling, and storing of produce. Cultivating, digging, hunting, and seeding ginseng, packing seeds, and packing worms and castings as well. Some of the vegetables that I am very excited about this year include:
Carrots: I have a nice selection of yellow, purple, white, orange, and red carrots. I love carrots and this will be my first year growing them. No one at the markets around here carry carrots. Poor soil in this area contributes to this fact. However raised beds and sphagnum moss can fix this. It will be interesting to try and get a Brassica plant to produce seed too.
Squash: A Russian friend recently sent me a number of squash varieties from his homeland. Very Rare ones at that.
Beans: last year I collected a number of heirloom beans from my customers as well as family and friends. Keeping them pure is something that I see as highly important.
Afghani Poppies: A friend from Afghanistan sent these to me. These are the ones we a currently wiping out in Afghanistan to curtail opium production.
Of course this is just a handful of the projects and the work that I will be doing this year, as always there is so much more to do that I just don't have the time to explain in writing.
Once again this year I will also be collecting even more heirloom and open pollinated vegetables and flowers to save seed from and to grow for my own enjoyment and for sale, if you have any heirloom vegetables or flowers you would like to share let me know.
I don't know if it will work or not, but maybe.