Red Russian Kale

[robertb]

I grow a strain of Ragged Jack, which is very similar, and have saved seed from it. It tastes good, and produced plenty of seed without any problems.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that some old sources describe Ragged Jack as perennial. It's definitely not that now, but has anyone come across perennial kales similar to these?

[trixtrax]

A Scottish friend from Ontario told me years ago about a strain of Ragged Jack that his grandfather grew that was perennial and propagated by cuttings. But, by the time he told me the story he had said it'd been gone for years. I quizzed him a bit and he told me it looked exactly like typical Red Russian.

Talking to Tim Peters, he was able to create several new varieties of perennial Brassica napus. The problem was that the regeneration after seeding was usually weak. One of his varieties, Western Front, does have some perenniality. I know that Atash was working on a selection of this with better perenniality. B. napus usually self-pollinates, so if you wanted some variation in perenniality, hand pollination of the best perennials would be the way to go. I can give you some seed he gave me that was before his selection. I also have some seed of a Red Russian type from upstate New York where the plant had been growing for 4 years before it died. However, mybighair found that the small sample size he grew was not perennial for him. I'd happily share that, too.

I do have quite a bit of seed of another variety called Bear Necessities developed by Tim Peters, that has the best perenniality of any B. napus I have seen. It is a skeletal juicy kale developed from crosses between a skeletal Gulag Stars selection, a skeletal mizuna (B. juncea), and a strange skeletal B. nigra. At farmers markets, I market it as a fresh eating or juicing kale.

Perennial Brassica napus could be recreated by using perennial selections of the parent species, Brassica oleracea, Brassica rapa sylvestris, and a perennial Brassica nigra (if that could be refound).

[steev]

Interesting about Western Front, which I've not grown, but now have seeded. When I transplant it, I'll put it where it can stay, if it will.

[trixtrax]

I think Atash was saying something like 5% show some perennial trait. This variety is likely only weakly perennial, nothing like Purple Tree Collards. From observing crosses between Purple Tree Collards and Daubenton, both perennial bush kales, there seems to be at least two traits involved in perenniality. Roughly estimating here, 5% did not flower this year, 40% had a low to medium amount of flowering and vigorous regrowth, 55% were biennial or mostly biennial and flowered out to exhaustion. So it seems that perenniality is recessive and easily lost.

I have noticed this type of weak perennial regrowth in quite a few varieties of various Brassica species, wild and otherwise, where after flowering there will sometimes be weak secondary growth. This might actually be flowering stem material that holds on another winter to go at it again and not vegetative stem material. The difference is that flowering stem material will, at the first opportunity, attempt to flower,seed, and finish, while vegetative stem material will continue growing.

Interestingly daylength sensativity or lack thereof, also seems to play a part in perenniality. When normal kale is taken to the tropics it can apparently become perennial since it does not understand the lack of daylength variation enough to flower.

So, in Brassica's it seems multiple factors contribute to perenniality. First, is sensitivity or lack thereof to daylength, then whether the plant has the correct ratio of root mass to non-flowering stem mass to dilute the flowering auxins enough to prevent the induction of flowering or to prevent the plant if it does flower, from completely exhausting itself.

Here is what looks to be a Red Russian kale in Ecuador: agro.biodiver.se/2009/10/perennial-kales-in-ecuador/

[robertb]

I'd be grateful for any perennial brassicas, Trixtrax. I have Western Front seed, but haven't grown it out yet.

[olddog]

Here, RR is the only kale that grows very well, does not have to be separated so far, and grown in large quantities, to prevent inbreeding depression (according to Carol D. ), and I can keep it going for a while, 3 years.
Thanks for the recommendation, oxbow, of the other varieties you suggested.

[ottawagardener]

I like trixtrax's description. I've also noted varying amounts of perenniality or at least multi-year-ality in various brassicas including cabbages, kales and more. Heads of cabbages are typically killed here in winter but I get flowering from regrowth in the stems so have collected seeds from them. If they survive the winter (and various pests) they then can survive for several years whether or not they flower though flowering may well lower their life span. I commonly get three years out of B. napus varieties.

[copse]

I'm growing that (looks like a younger version of what those kids are sitting in front of) in the South Island of New Zealand. I started off by dropping the seeds in a line in a new garden bed dug out in the paddock. It was the first thing to come up, and is now (just on two months from planting) probably 30-40 cm high - the cavolo nero beside it is barely even bothering to grow. I thinned it out and moved half the seedlings into the yard garden beds, where they're growing, but not as well as those in the the original paddock location.

[cortona]

i'm to looking for perennial brassica, i'm working with daubenton and black kale/lacinato and had some results that i'm currently testing, if somebody have some seeds or cuttings to share...it are all welcome!