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Post by raymondo on May 1, 2013 16:49:14 GMT -5
I understand Ray, I have crossed it last year with a couple of other purple heritage varieties and have been reading up on techniques to get around the DNA problem. I will be working on a couple of things that have been suggested in various breeding papers. There are back doors that breeding scientists use when they need to work some more on their own creations. It will be fun to see if they work, and if it doesn't, I will have had fun trying. Any references Rowan? I would enjoy reading up on the techniques. |
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Post by rowan on May 1, 2013 17:19:10 GMT -5
I will have to find them but there are techniques of overcoming the sterility like environmental stress, which is no good to me because it doesn't solve the problem.
But I will be starting off with just selection for type and removing all sterile plants to see if I can do it in the simplest way - search for the thread by Joseph who has discussed that in this forum for carrots. I am hoping he will come onto this discussion to tell how that has worked for him so far.
If I keep having trouble I will have to look for a variety or line with sterility restoring (Rf) genes. If I can grow two generations per year I should have some answers in a couple of years. This is my first 'real' breeding project except for playing around with breeding a purple 'parisian' type carrot which has been a very simple experiment because all the things I am selecting for are dominant.
I am still learning but I am finding this so much fun that I will have to think of a new project shortly.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 1, 2013 17:36:59 GMT -5
Selecting carrots for male fertility is easy: Carrot flowers with anthers look fuzzy. Even from a distance it is easy to tell which are male sterile. I just pull them up or cut them off. Before I was aware, my carrot patch was 70% male sterile, and it grew fine that way. You'd just have to be sure to include some male-fertile seeds in the population each year. I didn't try to undo the male-sterility, I just started selecting male-fertile offspring. Fertility restoring nuclear-DNA is common in onions. I don't know if it exists in carrots.  Male Fertile Carrot |  Male Sterile Carrot |
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Post by rowan on May 1, 2013 19:19:34 GMT -5
Hmmm, might end up being easier than I expected if just selection works.
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Post by castanea on May 1, 2013 21:04:37 GMT -5
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Post by castanea on May 1, 2013 21:07:14 GMT -5
At the Portland Oregon Saturday farmers market there is a seller who has at least 3 types of pure purple/black carrots. He refuses to say what varieties they are or where he got the seed. Typically he will either cut off the tops or severly mutilate the carrots so that they won't grow very well if at all.
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Post by rowan on May 1, 2013 22:20:09 GMT -5
I sometimes buy some seeds off that Ebay seller (who by the way, has a number of Ebay names). I know that they buy fruits from the local markets and sell the seeds out of them. Don't trust them on proper variety names and are very free with the word 'heirloom'. They have no idea of the varieties, only what they are called by the original sellers at the market stalls.
I buy seeds off them because I want some local seeds from Turkey but I am fully aware of their shortcomings. Not sure where they get their carrot seeds though, probably a bulk seller. I have conversed with them on occasion and they do say that they don't grow them and don't know much about plants. I congratulate them on their initiative though, I would love some people from South America and Africa to do the same thing with local fruit seeds.
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Post by raymondo on May 1, 2013 23:46:28 GMT -5
They have quite an array of melons. Very tempting. Also sumac. That might be interesting.
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Post by oxbowfarm on May 2, 2013 6:40:39 GMT -5
It seems likely that the hybrid purple carrots would be hard to use being totally or very close to totally male sterile. But there ought to be some germplasm out there that is useable, supposedly carrots were purple before they were orange, according to my new Navasio book. He also states that the non-orange carrots tend to be much stronger flavored with wild type terpenes and other compounds as they have been much less selected for flavor quality than standard orange carrots.
If you bought some of that Turkish carrot seed and mass crossed it with the hybrid purples you could have a purple landrace carrot population but it would have a lot of CMS in the population.
It looks like they have a few purple/black accessions in GRIN as well.
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Post by richardw on May 2, 2013 14:19:44 GMT -5
If the purples are so what lacking in taste could ya not mass cross high flavoured orange carrots with the hybrid purples,then selecting back for the purple and as well as taste.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 2, 2013 14:57:16 GMT -5
If the purples are so what lacking in taste could ya not mass cross high flavoured orange carrots with the hybrid purples,then selecting back for the purple and as well as taste. I think that it's the purple color itself which has a somewhat disagreeable taste... It works in fruits, because they have enough sugar content that it seems right to balance the bitter with the sweet... It's harder to forgive the purple taste in vegetables which don't have as much sugar. |
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Post by billw on May 2, 2013 15:25:14 GMT -5
I'm not sure about carrots, but it appears that some plants can be reverted to fertility by callus culture. It is easy to do, so might be worth a shot if other methods fail.
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Post by 12540dumont on May 2, 2013 16:31:19 GMT -5
Ahh! It's the terpenoids that make the carrots taste soapy. La la la la, thanks, I learned something today. soil, temperature, weather, and storage that affect terpenoids, as well as color.
And my onions..first bloomers are not CMS! Loaded with bees!
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Post by raymondo on May 3, 2013 6:56:57 GMT -5
The bees may just be after nectar. Look at squashes. The female flowers have no pollen but there are always bees.
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Post by canadamike on May 10, 2013 23:51:07 GMT -5
I kind of think like Joseph....the taste is usually not as good with purples, and I thing the chemical coumounds that are responsible for the colour might be part of it..one thing sure, in blind taste, purple carrots will rarely win. Been there done that.
There is one though, almost pure purple, but with a white core, that, to me, taste better than the others, and I have tried many accessions from GRIN of mosty asian carrots ( from the countries ending with ''stan'' and Tuekey and this region.
It is called MORADO or BLACK SPANISH and is available from THOMAS ETTY AND CO'' in England. I distributed alot of them to the folks here in 2008 or 2009. IN my soil, much much tastier tan the other purples, not as sweet as the usual orange nantes, but everybody loved it, The taste is only minimally different, but very pleasing. The core is white with purple splashes or streaks, absolutely beautiful and also small, the tip of the carrot is white, not surprisingly since it is an extension of the core. It is by very very far my favorite purple carrot and sure one I would use in breeding. So long folks, it might take time before I come back...
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