floricole
gardener
39 acres, half wooded half arable, land of alluvial
Posts: 108
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Post by floricole on Nov 18, 2011 19:46:03 GMT -5
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Post by richardw on Jan 8, 2012 14:00:47 GMT -5
Hi floricole
Ive been growing and selecting one carrot line for 30 years,its sold under the name of Benhorn,orange coloured.
In that link you posted there a couple of points made that i disagree with,one the seed is not black but a brown colour and no way you would get 3000 on a teaspoon,its not that small.Also its says (so you don't necessarily need to eliminate all Queen Anne's Lace within a 1/2 km radius) dont know about you but i think you dont really want thin white horrible plants turning up in your carrot sowing if you can help it,also i think half a k is too close by way of isolation,i know this because one place we lived at in the past i would have to pull out all wild carrots out within 2kms before they flowered and i still had a small amount of crossing,the last ten years living where we are now the thin white rooted plants have disappeared because there no wild carrot with 4km
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 8, 2012 14:52:34 GMT -5
The estimate of number of seeds per pound seems high to me also. Around here it's about 300,000 per pound. The article says 450,000 per pound. My carrot seed is out at the farm today, otherwise I'd count it out....
I don't mind in the slightest if pollen from wild carrots gets mixed up with my carrots... I even encourage it. I grow ten thousand carrots per year, and I hand select each carrot that is used for my breeding program. I hand select every carrot that goes to market or gets eaten by my family. It's as easy to separate out a wild carrot as it is to separate the carrots from the morning glory or other weeds. Perhaps I have an advantage because I am not trying to maintain varietal purity. The wild carrots have a lot to offer to my breeding program, because they are winter hardy without protection, and they are very well adapted to my climate, soil, diseases, and pests.
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Post by templeton on Jan 8, 2012 17:11:41 GMT -5
Joseph,
I love your 'do what works' approach. Very refreshing!
I suppose with such a large planting, most of your crossing is within your crop. Perhaps those with smaller plantings might have more problems.
You've got me thinking now about crosses with the wild annual daucus glochidiatus we get here -a little micro flora thing, grows about 2 inches high, with hardly any root - but smells very carroty.
T
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 8, 2012 17:47:10 GMT -5
I suppose with such a large planting, most of your crossing is within your crop. Perhaps those with smaller plantings might have more problems. I'm only planting about 50 carrot roots per year as a seed crop, but I have lots to choose from  . I plant in a block, not in a row, to keep them as close to other selected carrots as possible. I don't have much Queen Ann's lace around here. My biggest non-selected pollen source is volunteer carrots from previous year's seed crops. Some of them bolt the first year. |
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Post by raymondo on Jan 8, 2012 19:58:25 GMT -5
I would like to save carrot seed but there is Queen Anne's Lace everywhere here, including all through the neighbours' yards. Too much trouble.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 8, 2012 20:29:38 GMT -5
Joseph, Do you dig your carrots and replant them in Spring for seed? or do you leave them in the ground?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 8, 2012 21:44:54 GMT -5
Joseph, Do you dig your carrots and replant them in Spring for seed? or do you leave them in the ground? This year, I dug the carrots, selected the ones I want to go to seed, and planted them into a new bed. I buried the crown about 3" under the soil. Next time I'll lay them down horizontally instead of planting them vertical. That will let me get them deeper under the soil with less effort. They sent up new growth before snow-cover arrived. I had meant to mulch them with straw, but that didn't happen yet, and it probably won't, even though the coldest part of the winter is still ahead of us. Hoping that 3" of soil and whatever snow-cover we have when it gets cold will provide enough protection against freezing. In the past I have overwintered carrots where they grew, with a straw or leaf mulch. I have overwintered them in a soil covered pit. I have overwintered them in a bucket of sand in the garage, and in a bag in the refrigerator. My minimum required storage time is 5 months. My current strategy (first time I have done it this way) is intended to minimize labor and to attempt to develop a landrace of carrots that overwinter easily in my garden. When I lived in a warmer area with a longer growing season, I would plant the seeds immediately after collecting them. Then just before frost killed the tops I'd thin the patch to leave only the largest (thumb sized) carrots in the bed. They got mulched and overwintered in place. This allowed me to grow one generation per year instead of the one generation every other year that I get here. In my current garden I grow turnip seed in this manner. |
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Post by bonsaioutlaw on Jan 9, 2012 0:20:16 GMT -5
If I wanted to do some selective breeding is there a way to do this? I know they are insect pollinated, but is there anyway of rubbing the flowers from two different carots to cross just those two?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 9, 2012 1:54:22 GMT -5
If I wanted to do some selective breeding is there a way to do this? I know they are insect pollinated, but is there anyway of rubbing the flowers from two different carots to cross just those two? Carrot flowers are perfect flowers, meaning that they have male and female parts in the same flower, and the flowers are tiny, but with steady hands and a strong magnifying glass they could certainly be selectively cross pollinated. You don't have to cross all tens of thousands of seeds on a plant. Selecting a few blossoms in one small section of one umbel would provide plenty of seed for a breeding project. The non crossed flowers could be snipped off. Or you could use the pollen swamping technique: Plant one plant of one variety and surround it by a dozen plants of the other variety. Save the seeds from the one plant. You should get two kinds of offspring: pure plants of the one, and hybrids that were pollinated by the others. If the two varieties are different enough and inbred enough to distinguish the pure (self pollinated) variety from the cross, then you are good to go. Emasculating the one by removing pollen bearing anthers before they shed pollen would increase the percentage of hybrids. The percentage of hybrids in the saved seed could also be increased by cutting off most of the umbels of the one before they shed pollen. I do mass selection on cross pollinating carrots as follows: - Plant about 50 roots of many varieties all jumbled up together.
- Save the seeds from them.
- Grow the seeds to maturity.
- Select roots that best represent what I want a carrot to be.
- Repeat year after year.
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Post by bonsaioutlaw on Jan 9, 2012 13:34:53 GMT -5
If I had them growing in a screened off cage where no insects could get to them do you think I would get any viable seed if I did not hand pollinate?
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Post by richardw on Jan 9, 2012 13:54:13 GMT -5
[quote author=joseph board=seedsa thread=5798 post=64495 time=1326062830 I'm only planting about 50 carrot roots per year as a seed crop, but I have lots to choose from . I plant in a block, not in a row, to keep them as close to other selected carrots as possible. I don't have much Queen Ann's lace around here. My biggest non-selected pollen source is volunteer carrots from previous year's seed crops. Some of them bolt the first year .[/quote] That's really interesting,because i haven't had a single first season bolter for 7 or 8 years in my Benhorn variety but have had some show up within another heirloom line that ive been given to take on growing just in the last few seasons, i really don't like having them cross with my main seed block so i always pull them. |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 9, 2012 14:17:43 GMT -5
Thanks Joseph, I'm trying to think how I'm going to do the carrot trial. I'm thinking of planting these in blocks and digging out a few out of each block so that I can taste them. Then removing anything I don't like and leaving the rest in their beds. Leo's thought is that I should dig them all up, and take the best ones and replant them in a fresh bed and let them bolt when they bolt. I sort of have a 2 carrot season, those I plant in fall and those I plant in early spring. Fall carrots typically bolt in late spring. Where as some Spring carrots bolt in the summer or early fall. Some hang on until the following Spring. As soon as my right hand lets my left know what it's doing, I'll put up the trial for you to look at. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 9, 2012 15:14:44 GMT -5
I like digging carrots before allowing them to go to seed. It allows me to select against man-roots. I attribute the man-root phenomena to the hardness of my clay-based soil. That might not be an issue in a softer soil.
My intention next time, is to dig the carrots, taste each selected carrot, and deselect any that don't taste how I want them to.
I attribute the bolting of the volunteer carrot seedlings to several phenomena.... Perhaps they germinated in the fall or very early spring, and got enough cold to be right on schedule with a biennial life cycle. Stress: Because if a volunteer carrot is growing, it's because it is in a weed covered section of garden, not in a cultivated area. Some of my first year carrot seed bolts every year, but I only save seeds from well behaved biennial plants.
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Post by bonsaioutlaw on Jan 9, 2012 16:29:39 GMT -5
I am surrounded by queen ann's lace and I want to save seeds from White Belgium Carrots. I really want to figure out a way to easily do this. Hand pollination does not sound like it is going to be easy. I heard in England they have a fishing maggot that one can buy to put in with the caged carrots that when they hatch into flys act as pollinators. Any ideas?
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. I plant in a block, not in a row, to keep them as close to other selected carrots as possible. I don't have much Queen Ann's lace around here. My biggest non-selected pollen source is volunteer carrots from previous year's seed crops. Some of them bolt the first year.
