|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 1, 2011 5:06:08 GMT -5
Been growing Senposai this year and really really love it. Gets a huge flat leaf like a cabbage leaf, but with a nice long petiole like a collard. But the leaf texture is very tender like mustard greens or chinese cabbage vs chewy like a collard. All I have to say at the farmers market is that they are great used raw for veggie wraps and I can sell 2 or three bunches at a time to the "raw-foods vegan" contingent. (This may not be a huge demographic at some farmers markets but I've got a ton of them. I'd never want to eat that way, but as a vegetable farmer I must say I love to cater to their needs.)
In any case, I find Senposai to be a totally awesome crop, especially now that the flea beetle plague has subsided.
My question is what IS Senposai? My understanding is that those clever Japanese crossed Brassica oleracea (cabbage) with Brassica rapa (Komatsuna) to create a stable tetraploid. If so it should have 38 chromosomes right? 18 from oleracea and 20 from rapa? Doesn't that make Senposai a new kind of Brassica napus? Brassica napus is 2n=38 with 18 from oleracea and 20 from rapa (turnips).
I think I'll try crossing it with Russian Frills kale next spring just to see what happens.
On a related note, does anyone know a good online or printed tutorial for doing bud pollinations with Brassicas? I've read about it in Carol Deppe's books and online, but don't really have a good understanding as to the exact process.
|
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Sept 1, 2011 7:28:04 GMT -5
Initially required embryo rescue so I understand. I think you must be right about chromosome number. The original rescued embryo would have had 19 chromosomes so doubling would have been necessary. That would make it a new Brassica napus cultivar, like you say. I'm growing it this time for the first time and like what I see so far. I'm going to let a dozen or so plants go to seed this summer just to see if it will set seed on its own.
I haven't tried bud pollinating brassicas but if it were me I'd probably need a reasonable hand lens.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 12, 2011 4:26:30 GMT -5
I've been digging a little deeper on this one. It's hard to imagine that Senposai isn't B. napus at this point. Ran into this whole interesting theory about a Brassica "love triangle" called the Triangle of U hypothesis. U is the name of the Korean geneticist who came up with it. Basically it theorized based on chromosome number that the diploid species B. oleracea, B. rapa, and B. nigra when hybridized with each other resulted in three tetraploid Brassica species, B. carinata, B. napus, and B. juncea. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_U I think I'm going to have to experiment with B. carinata next year. It makes me wonder if you can get away with crossing these guys without having to resort to crazy stuff like embryo rescue, I'd really like to mess with bud pollinating to try and create something new. Senposai is supposedly a cross of Cabbage and Komatsuna. So what if you tried Red Cabbage crossed to the new Red Komatsuna or red Bok Choi they are coming out with? Tim Peters can you hear me? What do you think of this? |
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 12, 2011 6:17:20 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by templeton on Sept 13, 2011 0:29:22 GMT -5
What might be a dumb question - would it be possible to stabilise this hybrid? Sen posai is my alltime favourite green, and it would be nice to have a homegrown source instead of having to import it (It used to be available in Aust, but it's now not ony of our seed sellers lists that i can find)
T
|
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Sept 13, 2011 5:15:42 GMT -5
T, if it is the result of embryo rescue, then it my guess is that it must have been stabilised before release. It would be far too expensive to keep producing it via this technique.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 13, 2011 6:07:33 GMT -5
It is just like any other Brassica, you can save the seeds. I do notice that the stuff I am growing isn't very uniform for leaf shape, color, naked of frilly petiole, etc. I believe for the most part it has a biennial flowering cycle like B. oleracea although I did notice a couple plants bolting which I pulled. I have a tiny amount of seed left. I could send you some. I am planning on moving my favorite plants from this planting and overwintering them under some low tunnels to get my own strain going.
As far as breeding a red Senposai goes, this may be doable after all. I did hear from Tim Peters via email and he stated that in general B. napus is an excellent bridge species for crossing with either of the parent species although it crosses with B. rapa more easily than it does with oleracea. So he recommended bud pollinating the Senposai with the red brassicas and then mass planting the resulting progeny to allow for as much cross pollination as possible and then select and mass and select and mass. Not as quick and clean as embryo rescue, but more doable for somebody with more time and land than money and laboratory space.
Tim
|
|
|
|
Post by raymondo on Sept 13, 2011 15:50:33 GMT -5
That's all good news. Makes it seem quite doable.
I looked up bud pollination and it doesn't seem too difficult, apart from the timing. I guess that comes with a little observation and practice. You wouldn't need to do too many to get enough seed for a good starting population. The one piece of equipment strongly recommended by my reference (see below) is a pair of fine tweezers.
A useful book which I picked up second hand is
Hybridization of Crop Plants eds. Fehr, W. R. & Hadley, H. H.
|
|
|
|
Post by templeton on Sept 13, 2011 20:49:02 GMT -5
Thanks for the offer Ox, but I purchased several year's supply a couple of months ago from a US west coast supplier.
Some of mine I sowed under a polytunnel cloche over wintera couple of months ago are now trying to flower, I will be pulling them and waiting for the non-bolters to flower
T
|
|
|
|
Post by templeton on Jan 10, 2014 17:29:31 GMT -5
Ressurecting this thread to see if you made any progress with your cross, Tim? Senposai is my favourite green, but that variety i got in bulk (from Evergreen seeds), which Ive been growing from for the last few years seems a bit more prone to bolting than the original stuff i secured a decade ago. Mine is just flowering at the moment, as was thinking of doing some seed collection and growouts.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 10, 2014 20:11:29 GMT -5
I've kind of put this project on the back burner, although I'd still like to try it. The red mustard I had for the pollen parent turned out to be a sterile hybrid. I've not overwintered any more senposai since then. I want to try for a red senposai still, finding a red leafed B. rapa that isn't sterile is my missing component. I must admit I haven't been looking very seriously.
|
|
|
|
Post by ilex on Jan 25, 2014 6:35:13 GMT -5
Should not be that difficult, I have seen some red leaf vivid choi in the garden, so red rapa exists.  |
|
|
|
Post by trixtrax on Feb 1, 2014 23:16:58 GMT -5
I would suspect that vivid choi is a Brassica juncea actually. A boc choi (Brassica nigra x Brassica napa) x B rapa. When crosses are made to one of the parents of the Triangle of U, compatibility tends to be restored to that parent. So, a Brassica napus (Brassica oleracea x Brassica rapa and crossed sometimes with Brassica nigra in Red Russian types) crossed to a Brassica oleracea would then begin to introgress further into Brassica oleracea populations as the Brassica oleracea part of the genome expression is augmented. Some Brassica oleracea kale populations probably had Brassica napus introgression at one time. As an aside, it turns out Brassica napus is mostly self-compatible. One example of this, though a broccoli, is the Purple Peacock broccoli which is a Brassica oleracea broc x Red Russian napus but now is compatible with Brassica oleracea. www.wildgardenseed.com/product_info.php?cPath=70&products_id=185Mustard greens though listed as something else often are actually Brassica juncea and will cross with things like boc choi. The Scarlet Ohno Revival Turnip also by Frank might be a choice to try. www.highmowingseeds.com/Organic-Seeds-Scarlet-Ohno-Revival-Turnip.html |
|
|
|
Post by flowerweaver on Feb 2, 2014 9:26:21 GMT -5
Wild Garden Seeds also has the Scarlet Ohno Revival, if you want to save on shipping. I'm trying the Senposai for the first time this year. My fall into winter greens do well in the mild winters and my early spring greens usually get demolished by insects so we'll see how it holds up.
|
|
|
|
Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 2, 2014 18:03:28 GMT -5
|
|
