How are your peas doing?

[ferdzy]

Thanks, Keen, I hadn't made the connection. I order from Annapolis and might try it.

Or the other thing I might do: we've been growing Dwarf Grey Sugar (a Chinese snow pea) for the last 2 years. Except, it isn't dwarf. Ours grew to 8' last year, and a good solid 6' this year even with the drought. I wrote the company about it and they assured me it was Dwarf Grey Sugar. Anyway, we are quite pleased with it as it was a prolific producer of nice little snow peas. I shelled some out to save for seed when we pulled them, and I found a pod with 5 grape-purple seeds in it. I'm going to grow them out next year and see if they stay purple.

I will have to try Wando again some time. It gets good recommendations but the one time we grew it, it was bad seed. I don't know what it was - it had white flowers and pink flowers, tall plants and short plants, and in general looked like mixed floor-sweepings except I don't think any of them were all that good either. Ho-hum; a large, well-established company is where those came from.

[littleminnie]

I am trying fall peas. They came up well. As soon as I can I am going to finish the cages and put a thin black cloth for shade on it. Wish me luck!

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I think i'm done crossing pea flowers for now. Most of the peas are not producing any new flowers (Biskopens being the main exception), but it's getting pretty warm now. On the plus side i think i was able to make many crosses this year. The down side is that all but one were done without labels. So i will just have to watch the mother plants next season for any off types unless i can identify crosses from the dried F1 seed. I may try a fall crop, but i'm not sure yet. Some are starting to dry down. Others are still green as can be.

I do have two peas that are not conforming to what the label says. One is a Dwarf-gray sugar looking plant growing among the Carouby De Maussane plants. It is possible it is a cross i made in 2012. Does anyone know if the giant pod gene is recessive? If so, then this phenotype from a cross would make sense. Unlike the other Dwarf Gray sugar plants this year these pods are not curved, and so maybe even more of an indication of a cross.

The second is a yellow podded pea growing among the few Honey Podded i tried to plant late. It has flowers and so far a small pod that resembles Opal Creek, so at this point i'm just assuming it was a stray seed from Opal Creek and not a cross.

Peas that just didn't do very well and most likely will not grow again:
Shiraz - Dwarf, not very robust unless pampered, poor snow pea, determinate. Not impressive.
Amish Snap - grew extremely poorly two years in a row. weak.
Honey Pod - i don't think they produced any seed this year, so i think i'm out.

Purple Passion i will grow again, but for another season i have about the same amount of seed produced as i planted. Not very sustainable, and the plants themselves are very weak and tiny. Their only hope is if i can cross them with another pea to produce plants that actually have good genetics. There dark purple seeds always amaze me though. They have darker purple seeds than even Biskopens the dark red seeded pea. Unique.

Results of others:
Carouby De Maussane and Bijou were about the same. One pod of Bijou was very soft! Grew ok, not great this year. Flowers were hard to catch before they had already pollinated themselves. Not very many flowers produced. Still look like a great snow pea. And the giant pods always amaze me. Have somewhat yellow pods already, but bred to be pure yellow would be interesting! Worth growing again. Tallness varied. In general both were tall. One of the first to die in summer heat.

Sugar Magnolia - Overall an excellent pea. It produced a good number of flowers and pods. It seemed to grow fairly robustly. Didn't really have any problems with it. My trellis wasn't big enough, so they eventually toppled over in the wind one day, but probably my fault. Tall. 6ft. Snap, but of an acceptable size. great expression of purple pods. Hyper-tendriled (aka semi-leafless).

Dwarf Gray Sugar - did decent. A nice little pea. quite charming. worth growing again. somewhat dwarf. about 2-3ft tall.

Mighty Midget - Super dwarf. Did good. Nice full size pod on a 1" plant! unique. didn't produce many seeds though. I may need to request more seed from USDA GRIN. large wrinkled green seeds. Similar to tom thumb, but presumably tastier. Earliest to flower because of it's super dwarfness. Would be excellent to grow in a coldframe during the winter.

Tom Thumb - super dwarf. produced a good amount of seed. 1" plants.

Opal Creek - produced a fair amount of pods. snap, but small pods. Flowers are ridiculously closed and tiny to use as female flowers in crosses. The flower traits could be improved. yellow pods are somewhat washed out because of the snap gene. Yellow pods would look better on a snow pea. Produced many flowers though, and for a long time. fair. Not too tall, not too short. ~4ft tall. second earliest to dry and go yellow when summer hits.

Biskopens - might be the tallest pea i have. ~7ft. Late to flower. This year i was able to get some overlap though. Pods are late to produce (mid summer). unique red seeds. field pea, probably good for old style pea soups. good marrofat pea. seems fairly robust in summer heat.

Salmon-Flowered Pea - Umbellatum. seems to do ok plant wise in the summer heat, but the hotter it gets the more washed out the pink flowers become. White and Pink bicolored flowers. Produce an abundance of flowers at one time (useful for doing pea crosses). Produced an abundance of pods at one time (somewhat late in the season).

Mummy White - Umbellatum. seems to do ok plant wise in the summer heat. Umbellatum like salmon flowered, but unlike salmon flowered sometimes has many "side shoots" of flowers that are not in the thick main stem. Quite ornamental and nice looking. Nice open white flowers. Generally produces flowers in pairs.

Virescens Mutante - robust pea. not sure what type of pods. generally produces nice open white flowers in pairs. Seems to not mind the heat. Most of them got eaten by rabbits this year. But one plant i tried to save made an excellent flower in a vase, quite nice to look at. still one of my favorites. Good candidate for breeding.

Midnight Snow - purple snow pea. Still better than Shiraz, but doesn't grow that much better. Better snow peas though. I may have made one cross with it. robustness could be improved.

Dwarf Champion and Dwarf Market - Dwarf peas. ~1ft tall. Look like they may have promise. Planted late. used some of their flowers try and cross to Biskopens. seem to have a decent amount of flowers for dwarf peas. wrinkled green seeds.

Josephs Red-Podded peas - These had much variability, but still exciting to work with. Some seemed to produce good red snaps, some yellow snows, some yellow snaps, some partially red partially snows and snaps. Trying to separate the seed. But one plant is now my new favorite yellow snow pea from this line. I'm actually more excited to grow the yellow podded than the reds HA! The reds were nice though. Looked more purple unless had light shining through the pods. ~3-4ft tall. pods kind of look light purple when drying down. hard to tell dry red pods from dry purple pods. Some good potential lines from this one. I may even get a better yellow snap pea that i may eventually replace Opal Creek with.

Canoe- didn't grow that well this year. Not sure why. Maybe a bad spot. Pods are still the longest I've ever seen. Hyper-tendriled (aka semi-leafless).

Sugar Daddy - snap pea, commercial variety. produced okay. short. white flowers. had a nice pod shap and size for a snap pea. cylindrical pods.

[templeton]

Great variety there, keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.).
One suggestion for following crosses, if you want to - nip off a sepal or two from opposite sides of the flower. The sepals persist while the pod dries down, so a bit of inspection lets you know which ones you interfered with.
Last night I soaked seeds from my purple snow and yellow snow selections (I think I'm up to F7). Yesterday I negotiated with a friend to grow out a small seed crop of these for me. 100 plants of each. Two major risks - 'roos, and his young daughters who love going out to the garden and eating peas off the plant.
T

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Biskopens is still going strong. Some pods i can see red plump seeds showing through the green pods. Definitley heat tolerant. I think some of this batch i was able to cross breed. I think some of few corn plants i've planted have strugled more with heat and lack of water than Biskopens has. Quite interesting. I look forward to continue growing any crosses that have taken place.

Runners up for heat tolerance and good production were:
Sugar Magnolia
Umbellatum types:
Salmon Flowered
Mummy White

[robertb]

My peas were hit by the hot weather a month or so back, and a lot of them stopped growing. So the crop's not up to much this year. I agree about Mummy White; it went straight on growing.

[galina]

Aug 1, 2015 5:18:01 GMT -5 robertb said:

My peas were hit by the hot weather a month or so back, and a lot of them stopped growing. So the crop's not up to much this year. I agree about Mummy White; it went straight on growing.

Same here Robert, some plants were straw and are now in the compost bin. However I start early - mid to late February sown indoors and planted out a month or 6 weeks later - as a result I had a good pea harvest this year. It is important to start early.

Worth noting which plants are still going, not only which varieties (Biskopen's is a good late variety and a mangetout to boot!), but which individual plants. Saving seeds from very late pods is a bit soul destroying, because they have so few seeds in them, but it is as valid as saving from the earliest, to spread the time window of pea production by selection.

Keen - yes I had shorter mangetout pods from descendants of large ones. One type had 3 different pod lengths in a batch of F2s. I have no idea about the genes that produce giant pods though, just observation. Does anybody know about the genetics of pod length/width?

[templeton]

I'm impatiently waiting for my purple snow seed crop to fully mature in the greenhouse. The plants look like they are done, lower leaves yellowing (a bit of disease), but not sure when i should harvest the pods. Some will probably not fill or only give small seed, so my yield will be a bit less than expected. I've harvested early before, and found the seed just didnt germinate, so I'm a bit reluctant to pull them to early. But also dont want them to mould.
t

[galina]

Aug 2, 2015 9:34:56 GMT -5 templeton said:

I'm impatiently waiting for my purple snow seed crop to fully mature in the greenhouse. The plants look like they are done, lower leaves yellowing (a bit of disease), but not sure when i should harvest the pods. Some will probably not fill or only give small seed, so my yield will be a bit less than expected. I've harvested early before, and found the seed just didnt germinate, so I'm a bit reluctant to pull them to early. But also dont want them to mould.
t

What do they do when they mold? Actually rotting away or powdery mildew? I am asking because last year I harvested seeds from a late, second growout. The plants were badly covered in mildew and so were the pods, but the seeds were ok and germination was not bad. If it is 'just' powdery mildew, I would not worry, if it is actual rot, then your judgement of how long to leave the pods will be critical. Maybe pick some early, others late. I expect (if rotting mold is the cause) that the seeds will perish last, because they are protected inside the pod, that should give some leeway. Good luck.

[templeton]

galina, powdery not the problem at the moment, I've got a nasty black or brown spot fungal disease, and some of these are seed transmitted. Its not a problem in spring, but occurs over wet winters. First noticed it last year trying a winter growout. I've controlled it with a copper spray, and a follow up with potassium bicarb, greenhouse is worse than the open beds. Mind you, its a good chance to select for resistance! I'll try nd get some pics this morning before work. It is wind distributed, but i dont think my situation has been helped by the copious amounts of peastraw I've spread over the years.

[galina]

Thanks Templeton, not something we have ever seen here. But you are in an entirely different location and it stands to reason that you get different plant problems. Sounds quite nasty, sorry you have this problem.

[templeton]

A few pics of the winter growouts

The outside beds, showing variation in productivity and vigor

The F2 red mangetout growouts in the greenhouse - 2 metres tall

Hypertendril F1 in the middle, purple snow seed crop on right

Purple snow disease with affected pods

disease

maturing pods

[templeton]

The spring growout seed crop - contracted out


F7 yellow snow - note the pretty, deflexed sepals - hadn't noticed the green speckles before this year...hmmm...

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I harvested most remaining peas today. Including Biskopens. It still had some green, but it partially collapsed under it's own weight (unless a racoon touched it in the night (one fork of my sunflower was mysteriously broken). plus it had some powdery mildew of some sort attacking it. I need to go out tomorrow and collect any dry pods i missed. I think there may be some mummy white and salmon flowered left on dry stems. I don't know if i will even bother collecting shiraz, it is not worth growing in my opinion (ever), despite it being a purple podded variety. If it grows well for other people and they like it great, but it's not for me.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Today i found three packets of pea seed i did not plant that i figured would be worth finding them space, so i set up the last remaining mini trellisi (is that the plural word?) and planted them. They were labeled: Partially red podded peas (joseph's line), Joseph's partially red pods, and partially-red snap.

Also the peas in my coldframe are alive and growing. Not really sure if the coldframe helped that much, but whatever.