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Post by imgrimmer on Jun 16, 2014 16:53:26 GMT -5
I have a blue podded pea in my garden, I could not remember where I purchased it. It is has a nice taste as a snow pea but it is small, and only a few pods and the plants are very tall I guess some are 1,50 to 2m in total. I like them but I can`t feed my kids on them  So are there any big podded, less tall early snow pea varieties? My other idea was to cross it with oregon sugar pod 2 which is doing very well for me, so how long will it take me to breed a new variety, ages ? I would prefer the faster way, if there is such a pea, but I am affraid once I had this thought... |
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Post by templeton on Jun 16, 2014 21:04:46 GMT -5
Imgrimmer, there are commercially available purple snowpeas. I haven't been able to try any of these due to import restrictions, which is why I'm trying to breed one. 'Shiraz' from Thompson and Morgan looks like a semidwarf double flowered disease resistant variety <http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bean-seeds/pea-shiraz/gww4959TM> Sugar Magnolia is a sugar snap pea that comes with good reports. Blue Podded Blauwschokkers Garden Pea at Baker Creek, but it's not a snow or snap For lots of good info have a look at Rebsie Fairholm's Daughter of the soil blog - she hasn't updated for a few years, but it's great info. If you are serious about pea breeding, then the John Innes pisum database has lots of great information about which pea genes do what. My blog 'Templeton's Mendelania' has my work on an Australian Purple Podded snow pea. I'm growing out several F5 generations at the moment, and they look like they are going to be stable for colour and low fibre. My purple sugar snap is also coming along. A problem with purple snows is getting good flavour - they can be a bit grassy or chalky. How long to get a good one? Depends what you start with. You need 3 dominant genes to get purple pods ( A, Pu, and Pur), and two recessive genes to get proper snows ( p and v). If you start with a purple podded and a snow or snap that has purple flowers or purple leaf axils, then both parents will have the A gene, which decreases development complexity by a factor of 4. Carol Deppe's 'Breed your own vegetable varieties' has a great series of chapters on just such a breeding experiment. |
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Post by steev on Jun 16, 2014 21:24:31 GMT -5
Blue-Podded and Carruther's Purple Pod are both good snowpeas (could be the same, for all I know); Blauschokkers are fibrous.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 16, 2014 22:32:10 GMT -5
so how long will it take me to breed a new variety, ages ? - One year to grow the parents and make the cross.
- One year to grow the children.
- One year to grow the grand-children. This is the first year that selection can be made. The desired type may or may not show up in this generation. If the desired type does show up seed is likely to be quite limited.
- One year to grow the great-grand-children. By this generation lots of seed is becoming available and there are plenty of opportunities to select for the desired type. You may be able to narrow the planting down to certain family groups that are more likely to produce the desired types.
- One year to grow out enough seed to have sufficient quantities for planting/sharing. There will still be some off types for the traits that are due to dominant genes. Any traits that are due to recessive genes are fixed as soon as you find one example.
If you are lucky enough to be able to mature two crops of peas per year then cut the required time in half. |
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Post by templeton on Jun 17, 2014 0:48:45 GMT -5
Spot on, Joseph.
I can't recommend enough that you read Carol Deppe's stuff on this. She explains it better than I can. But there are a few practicalities I can expand on.
I can get two, sometimes 3 generations a year, but there are some complexities in growing 'off-season'. When trying to do original crosses, cool is better than hot - in hot weather the flowers shed pollen at a really young age, too small to pull apart and emasculate, so your first generation growing the parents should be at a pea friendly time of the year.
A crossed pea pod in my experience often only gives 3 or 4 viable seed, giving 3-4 children plants (F1). From these plants you need to get enough seed to do a nice big F2 (grandchildren) growout. You want a fair bit of seed, so that there is more chance of the desirable traits showing up - I grow about 40 or so plants, but like to keep about the same amount back in case of tragedies. I would grow more, but I haven't got the room. I like to get at least some of the dominant traits showing up in the F2 generation to allow for some selecting.
I look at around 3 months to get good seed off a plant, depending on the weather. Pre-soak the seed for quick emergence.I plant first crop in August/september before austral equinox, and pick seed late November, early summer. I've tried sowing in early December for a shade summer crop, but with disappointing results.
Sowing in late February, toward the end of summer gets me quick maturity, if I can keep them alive through the heat and dry, often picking seed in late April. This is usually too late to get a third crop off.
A slower but more reliable timing is usual spring planting, then a planting round the autumn equinox, hopefully after the autumn break makes conditions and plant care more tolerable. This can lead to problems with the pods maturing in mid winter, and germinating in the wet pods as they dry off.
There is also seasonal variation in disease appearance, so breeding for disease resistance requires the disease to be present if you want to select for resistance.
It's great fun, easy to do, and there's lots more to be done.
Red snows (yellow X purple)
Red snaps,
Semi-leafless (self supporting and better air flow)
Long pedicles (easy to see and pick)
Double or triple flowered
early and late
Tall and dwarf
disease resistance
Big podded snaps
pest resistance
'umbel' trait (all the peas growing on the top of the plant)
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Post by imgrimmer on Jun 21, 2014 2:55:34 GMT -5
thank you templeton and joseph! this is really interesting, I think I will read a little bit more about this topic.
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Post by imgrimmer on Jun 23, 2014 13:09:06 GMT -5
I`ll try shiraz for now.
Yesterday I watched a wild bee pollinating flowers of my blue podded pea, unfortunately I forgot the name, but it is not a snow pea, one plant among has sweet pods and is less fibrous, all the other plants have tasteless pods. My plan was to skip this variety but now i need to test what will happen.
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