selecting for or against purple

[spero]

I just noticed something. In many of the broccoli and kale varieties, there is some plants with purple, and some without. The young plants are just green, and, until now, I thought you had to wait for maturity to see if there was purple or not. I have new broccoli seedlings breaking ground (in flats) this morning. In those first hours, before the plants green up, you can see which have purple in the cotyledons. -JS

[ottawagardener]

Cool!

[canadamike]

Too bad you are a man, I would kiss you

[spero]

No kisses Mike, my wife vetoed the idea.

I found that th purple was easy to see right after the seedlings emerged. The purple could still be identified on the back of the cotyledon for a day or two afterword. This is more work as you have to get down to plant level to see under the cotyledon.
In my broccoli, I am selecting for a purple tinge to the head, but not a purple broccoli. So on day one I am selecting FOR purple, then on day 3 I am selecting AGAINST purple visible on the top of the leaf. If this is successful, it is a big step for color selection. I just planted 6 more flats.

[ottawagardener]

Seriously, this is one of the most interesting threads on here for me right now. I have nothing to add other than I'm waiting for more results.

[spero]

I planted 5 flats extra thick with the broccoli seed. For 2 days I thinned every 2 or 3 HOURS (during the day). I have never thinned so often before. If it is sunny, the plants green up pretty fast, and the easy identification for purple only lasts hours. But it seems to work.

[lieven]

I've been working with a Graffiti x Purple Peacock cross, the first being a purple cauliflower & the second comeswww.wildgardenseed.com/index.php?cPath=70.
My aim: purple broccoli, sure; also a longer harvesting period, better resistance to all sorts of problems, including frost & most of all: satisfying my curiosity.
Big broccoli heads come second to me: beauty, including the oakleaved or serrated foliage, is important to me as well. Seedling leaf shape is easy to select for. Oh, and why purple? Anthocyans don't just add beauty to the garden, but also antioxidants to your body!
Seedling color is more pronounced when exposed to the elements - especially cold & sunshine : greenhouse seedlings are rather bleak & green, and will only show their true colors after they've been planted into the garden.

[raymondo]

The F1 of my Green Glaze (collard) / red cabbage cross had some purple seedlings that were obvious when they popped their heads above ground and they are still purple two months or so on. They have had no 'green' phase. Yet others were obviously purple at first, stayed that way for a number of weeks, but are now just green.

[spero]

followup July 2010
There did not seem to be a clear connection between purple cotyledon and purple tinged head. Selecting only cotyledons with purple, I got perhaps 60% purple tinged heads, as compared to about 50% in the last generation. Numbers were not tracked tightly enough to say if this is a statistically significant difference, but purple cotyledon did not lead directly to purple tinged broccoli heads. - JS.