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Post by galina on May 19, 2018 5:22:23 GMT -5
Ooops I may have this slightly wrong. Do I have to emasculate the flowers on the variegated Daubenton kale? I suppose if they are self-fertile, it will still be interesting what the seeds produce. Shouldn't think they are the same as the kale I have, even if they haven't crossed with the Portuguese kale. If I do need to emasculate, I'd appreciate practical tips on how to do this. So far I've been playing bee and hoping for the best, but we still have a lot of flowers to go, so could change procedure.
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Post by philagardener on May 19, 2018 5:50:55 GMT -5
Maybe you should bag a flowering side-shoot and see it if it self-fertile. If it doesn't set seed, then you confirm your approach. If it does, you have selfed seed to compare with the OP, and know for the future. You would probably have to open buds and clip out the stamens with a pair of tweezers, and that could be very fussy. Good luck!
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Post by galina on May 25, 2018 8:07:28 GMT -5
Maybe you should bag a flowering side-shoot and see it if it self-fertile. If it doesn't set seed, then you confirm your approach. If it does, you have selfed seed to compare with the OP, and know for the future. You would probably have to open buds and clip out the stamens with a pair of tweezers, and that could be very fussy. Good luck! That is a very good approach philagardener. I am used to opening flower buds and emasculating with peas, but have to be more careful as the flowers are smaller. I guess the flowers may need more than bagging, maybe some artificial bee action whilst keeping insects out before rebagging. I appreciate your comment, thank you. |
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Post by galina on Jul 31, 2018 8:58:54 GMT -5
Well the flowers got smaller, the plant overrun by whitefly (which isn't a problem other than for the flowers). Ladybirds are taking care of them, but no bagging happened. The early flowers turned into nice fat pods, the later ones not so much. The plant itself is still doing well despite having flowered.
I have cut off all dry flower stalks and pods and harvested the seeds. Certainly the early seed is looking nice and plump. For a test I have sown just as few and today the first one has germinated. Fertile seeds, yay!
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Post by taihaku on Sept 24, 2019 10:07:20 GMT -5
I had flowers on both variegated Daubenton and Taunton Deane (another perennial) this year next to each other. Notwithstanding the presence of other flowering brassicas, each other and various bees and things I got empty seed pods  |
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Post by galina on Oct 16, 2019 10:43:17 GMT -5
I did not do much better. The variegated Daubentons did produce seeds, which germinated, very pale yellow and the seedlings died off. The Portuguese did flower and produce seeds which grew ok. So I am hoping that some of the Variegated Daubenton seeds have crossed with other Brassica and are more fertile.
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