Inducing flowers in parsnips?

[templeton]

Some of my overwintering parsnips have been flowering and setting seed for the past 3 months right through winter. Others are just beginning to send up flower spikes. I've got a second batch of a different variety that went in later, that is growing vigorously, that I would like to cross with the 'soon to flower' older ones. Is there any technique for encouraging, or scaring these younger plants into donating some pollen? Anyone tried light exclusion, or other stresors to induce this?
T

[raymondo]

Dig them up, leave them a day or two, and replant. Don't know if that will work but it will certainly give them something to ponder!

[templeton]

I've pondered this, the only info i can find is that they require 'vernalisation'. Now this could be photoperiod, temperature, both in combination, or something else.
I've thought of covering with a light excluding cover for a few days, dumping a bag of ice on the soil - not this week, 25C days predicted for the next few days - or perhaps defoliation.
Might have to run an experiment...
T

[diane]

Dig one up and put it in the fridge for a while. But how long? And then it has to initiate the flowers. It'll never catch up.

Probably best to save the pollen from the earlier ones to put on the late ones.

[templeton]

Sept 3, 2013 0:05:10 GMT -5 diane said:

Dig one up and put it in the fridge for a while. But how long? And then it has to initiate the flowers. It'll never catch up.

Probably best to save the pollen from the earlier ones to put on the late ones.

Hmmm, saving pollen...good suggestion, but that would put me in the 'seriously addicted to plant breeding' camp, and I'm not sure I want to be there - just yet (avatar image aside
I've thought a bit about the catching up problem, and was sort of hoping that the flower availabilty times would overlap at least to some exent. I guess this might exert some selective pressure on flowering times, but Im not sure what, since the flowering times are weird anyway.
Last season when I grew out the parents in a variety-to-row block, the Krals (my target parent) were significantly later then the other two, and flowering and seedset were both a bit dodgy.
I've been re-reading Deppe (Conversations with a Squash chapter) and casting my mind to the issues of maternal (cytoplasmic) genetic material. If what she says holds for parsnips, and if the characteristics I'm looking for (short fat roots) are influenced by that maternal material, then I might not want to save Kral pollen to cross back to the later varieties. And I'm a bit too impatient to see the results.

So much to ponder...
I might just get some black buckets and smother a few plants for a couple of days.
T

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I didn't pay close enough attention to my Kral parsnip seed bed (the only kind I grow) to give a definitive answer, but it seems to me like parsnips bloom, and bloom, and bloom: In other words that the flowers last for a long time, with first one umbel opening, and later another, for an extended period of time. Still not enough time for the flowers to overlap with the other varieties? You might try pruning a couple of the early blooming plants severely. They might send out more flowers later on.

[richardw]

Ive noticed with my parsnips that some stay alive a lot longer than others over the seed producing period,so maybe T you have a some that can carry on long enough that they can overlap with your other variety.

When were those overwintered parsnips sown,i'm interested in this because ive just sown seed two weeks ago that will be saved for seed production in about 14 months time,those wont grow a flower spikes before or during winter which maybe a indercation of my colder winters holding back flowering till spring.

[templeton]

Sept 3, 2013 14:11:52 GMT -5 richardw said:

When were those overwintered parsnips sown,i'm interested in this because ive just sown seed two weeks ago that will be saved for seed production in about 14 months time,those wont grow a flower spikes before or during winter which maybe a indercation of my colder winters holding back flowering till spring.

I'll list my sowings here - boring for most, but I need to untangle them myself.

21 March 2012 Direct seed Kral (Adaptive), Halblange, De Gurnesey, and Kral (Heritage Harvest). Kral (A) failed to germinate.
23 April 2012 sow Melbourne Whiteskin, and Cobham to cells
First half of June 2012 - sow remaining Kral (HH) to cells in greenhouse
3 August - plant these late sown cells of Kral and Cobham to outside bed

March 2013 Harvest Halblange and De Gurnesey seed
April 2013 Harvest seed original sowing of Kral - maybe F1 crosses in here-

11 April 2013 direct sow first harvested F1? seed of Kral and Halblange, parent to block

March April 2013 Kral planting from first half of June flowering - but no seed.

August 2013 some of this Kral setting seed, others sending up first flower spikes.

I want to induce flowers in the April 2013 F1 sowing plants (Green) to cross with the June 2012 original seed Krals

[richardw]

Ok,so really thats much later in the growing season than when i sow.

I was given some of that Melbourne Whiteskin seed which is the seed i sowed two weeks ago,but it was really old seed and i'm worried it may not germinate,do you have any spear seed T?

[templeton]

So seed sown in June before the winter solstice flowered the following March after the autumn equinox, 9 months or so. I was away for 3 months over winter, so don't really know what happened - but there was ripe seed in early August, at the end of winter.14 months from sowing to seed.
Perhaps the April 2013 sowing which has grown through the winter might flower if I trick it into thinking the autumn equinox has passed?
Interrestingly, the little patch of Cobham (which I guess is Australian seed)next to the second Krals hasn't even looked like flowering.
Perhaps the Northern Hemisphere Kral, used to cold winters and long dark nights is all confused, and the Australian Cobham is doing what parsnips are supposed to do because its locally adapted? Hmmm maybe i should be trying to induce the Cobham to flower.
Or start again.
T

[templeton]

Sept 3, 2013 17:19:39 GMT -5 richardw said:

Ok,so really thats much later in the growing season than when i sow.

I was given some of that Melbourne Whiteskin seed which is the seed i sowed two weeks ago,but it was really old seed and i'm worried it may not germinate,do you have any spear seed T?

Richard, pm me and I'll send you some of all that I've got - can even send some of the fresh Kral - but it's from a narrow set of parents. My Whiteskin might be a bit old too, but you're welcome to it.

[steev]

I note that you're seeding for transplant (I do the same; tsk, tsk), but what information I have says parsnips resent transplanting. I wonder whether it promotes or retards maturation; maybe it just discourages root development.

[templeton]

Steev,
I did plant to cells since this was for a seed crop, and they were mostly transplanted fairly young. Didn't seem to bother them much. My problem has been to get enough plants growing so I've got a wide enough gene pool - the short seed life in parsnip, and the extra half year in age using seed from the Northern hemisphere has made getting a big enough crop a bit problematic. Combined with my lack of experience with 'nips has made this a real learning experience.

[samyaza]

As far south as you are, you do have long nights in winter.

As a biennial, northern climate crop, I think you should try to store your roots in the fridge for a month or two, but be careful they don't dry out. I'd store them in soil in a plastic bag or something.

I don't think they refuse to reproduce down under, but winters must be too mild to fulfill this process of vernalisation. The fact that it grows all year round is an evidence for this hypothesis. Up here, they usually rest from fall to spring, and would never start flowering soon after winter solstice. I think the plant is even reduced to its root so it can't see if nights are long or not. They do need this period of rest to induce flowering when growth take over the second year.

It grows wild here in France on the roadside and wasteland, along with wild carrots.

I suppose you have more or less the same problem with carrots, parsley, celeriac, beets... and will need varieties adapted to your climate.

[templeton]

Thanks, Samyaza.
They do reproduce down here, but the poor plants are all confused because I planted them at strange times, and they were subjected to different amounts of environmental stress. I've just put a big black bin over the top of half of the plants yesterday, to see if some darkness can stimulate them into flowering.