Selecting Radish Landrace

[Joseph Lofthouse]

This summer I am growing a radish landrace, and adapting it to my garden. I planted seeds from as many varieties as I could locate including the Homegrown Goodness landrace, and a radish mix from my local seed store.

I planted about 350 feet of row. Out of those I selected for the following criteria

1-Quickest swelling roots.
2-Non-cracked roots.
3-Slowest bolting.
4-Odd or unusual plants

Examples of odd or unusual included a red tapered root, a purple root, and different shaped leaves. By the time I was done selecting I was left with 59 plants... They are just now starting to bolt. My work for the next few weeks is to meticulously weed the garden to remove radishes that I planted as row markers or that came up as volunteers.

[canadamike]

Dammit Joseph, I have ordered loads of radishes to play with them in the fall. I did not know there was another person in north america interested in playing with them. One thing is promised, there will be plenty of the red flesh gene floating around.

Joseph, did you have seeds of the ''18 days'' radish from France? If not, I could send you some. It is a small french breakfast type that is so fast to grow it always ends up mild.

I ate mountains of it in France without any stomach burns...

[synergy]

Being a novice I had no idea you needed a vast volume of plantings to select from, well now that makes perfect sense to cull and select for the best traits from a broad genetic pool , no different than the horse breeding I know .

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The large planting was primarily driven by having enough radishes for market. It's a nice benefit that it really helps with selection and genetic diversity.

Growing seed is troubling to me. Because I like to please people so when they say "Do you have radishes yet?", I have to say no. Even though the prettiest and earliest radishes that I grew this spring are right there in the garden ready for harvest, but I can't pick them because they are part of a breeding project.

[synergy]

Well I admire you tremendously. I live in a different climate this year is not all that typical but we are prone to lots of frost free days but often overcast, lower light and cool. Punctuated with three seasons of saturated wetness ( they don't call it coastal rainforest for nothing) on clayish heavy soils . The naturalized or native plants here thrive and the 'cherished' heirloom seeds, uh not so much at all, my gardening experience of failures is teaching me I need types adapted to this climate , even this microclimate here. Thus I am thinking landrace development is THE way to go. For your ongoing work you are going to have outstanding seed, that is worth more than gold to my way of thinking. Hopefully your yields will bring you better and better bounties.

Besides realizing I have to grow the right type of plant for my conditions , I am ammending the soils and i am making progress in the patches I have been working . Also methods like hoop houses and coldframes I think are just going to be a must for growing conditions here.