Purple podded snow peas - some observations

[templeton]

I've been growing out some F2 plants of my purple podded pea project, and thought i would note here some observations.
I've crossed a number of green podded snow peas with purple podded shellies. Some of the green poded have white flowers, and white leaf axils, some have purple flowers and purple axils. The purple axils always seem to go with purple flowers - Rebsie Fairholm noted the same, I think.
The point of using purple flowered snows as a parent means that both parents will carry A, the dominant gene anthocyanin gene.
Interestingly, one af the 20 or so F2 plants was white flowered. Thinking about this this morning, I thought I must have mislabelled something, but on further reflection I think not. What I think I got was a recessive white flowered gene - A was probably there, it just didn't have the dominant gene to express it in the flowers - odd, since i would have expected the parents to be homozygous. Every other purple flowered X white flowered has resulted in purple flowered progeny, so I think A and flower colour must be linked.

On another point, every single F1 plant from a purple podded X green podded has resulted in a mottled purple pod. Ive grown about 50 plants from a variety of parents. I'm a genetic neophyte, but suspect that one of the purple genes, either Pu or Pur is incompletely expressed when it is heterozygous. Is this possible? (The reason I suspect this, is one F2 plant that I know is homozygous for A = AAPu?Pur? has given deep purple pods, but the other plants are either green podded or incompletely purple. I think it is going to be either AAPuPuPur? or AAPu?PurPur. Seems to be the simplest explanation. Will be very interested to see the offspring of this purple plant in 3 months or so. Hope i get enough seed to see some classes falling out.
T

[Darth Slater]

I am still waiting for the red podded...Purple and bright yellow are nice if you guys can get the flavor up to snuff, I bought some seeds from Alan Kauplers site..and due to poor weather and geting them in to late resulted in a not so good harvest..I forgot that I put my beans in even when there is frost out..they can take a pretty good couple of hits.

[templeton]

I've got a red podded project as well, but that will be a 2 or 3 step project to snows and snaps.
I've got an improved yellow snow F2 growout just sown - the yellow podded available here is not much chop, and I'm looking to find a big fat podded tasty yellow snow. Not too many genes involved here.
For a red pod, I'm going for a red shelly first, then try to get snow and snap genes into the resultant. Could use my yellow snow or purple snow as parentas if i find them, and if they are any good. My purple X yellow F2s are just in the ground this week too.
T

[raymondo]

I'm holding off sowing my F2 until it's a little warmer. Still very frosty here. I'll be sowing towards the end of the month I think. With 160+ seeds I'm hoping I'll find some decent purple podded peas to be going on with. I'm hoping to grow them in the trays I use and only plant out those with red pigment in leaf axils. I think I'll cross in another snap as well, Sugar Bon this time because it is supposedly PM resistant. I'll use the same snap to cross with Golden to try and improve the very poor flavour.

[templeton]

Exciting times, Ray, I can barely sleep for the excitement! I rush out every morning, to see if they have grown overnight.
Did you get the link to that Pisum Genetics paper that I posted - my interp is that you can determine if a pea is harbouring Pur from the pigmentation of the funiculus. I'm not sure if they mean the funiculus in an F2 pod will indicate if the F3 seed there attached is carrying Pur - which would be very useful, or if it is just an indicator of Pur in the F2 - which I would have thought was otherwise fairly obvious. I would be surprised if the funiculus is not maternal tissue, so i suspect the later. I will be able to clear this up since I will be dissecting some purple F2 pods over the next few weeks, and will see if they have segregating funiculi in the one pod.



hermes.bionet.nsc.ru/pg/27/PG27_1_4.pdf
T

[templeton]

Checked out some harvested pods from 2 purple podded X sugar snap F1 plants today, (so F2 seed) and not a sign of pigmentation in any of the funiculi, 6 pods all together, some drying off, the rest swollen but green - the pods, that is. The purple parent had fully purple pods, so these F1 plants should have been carrying Pur, heterozygous, tho. Perhaps it's an embryonic trait, fading with maturity. Rats.
T

[raymondo]

The funiculus (funicle) is the plant equivalent of the umbilical cord in mammals, so it originates with the embryo and not the mother. In an F2 pod, the funicle is F3 tissue, just like the embryo.

[templeton]

That's good news, but I'm not sure how useful it will be for discriminating between mature seed at harvest, for the next growout.
T

[raymondo]

I know it's a snow pea thread but I thought I'd post my pics here anyway. I'm after purple snap peas. I crossed Cascadia (mother) with Capucijner (father). I planted sixty F2 seeds and eliminated bush habit and/or green pods from the outset. I later eliminated any that were setting single pods rather than two per node. Any that don't have fully purple pods will be saved separately for future use perhaps. There are two F2 plants both having pods with well developed colour. Neither are snaps (or snows). I'll save plenty of both and look for what I'm after in the F3, and perhaps cross back to another snap like Sugar Bon that has some PM tolerance.

Here's a link to some pics. I couldn't figure out how to put them into the post.

picasaweb.google.com/104411624041186485066/PurpleSnapPeaProject2012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJCek6Pr7OmzRA&feat=directlink