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Post by templeton on Sept 24, 2014 6:50:20 GMT -5
Last autumn I planted seed from my mass cross coloured balls carrot project - I think these are the F2 plants. The plants were just putting on a spring burst. They were broadcast onto approx 1metre by 1 metre plots. The parents were a mixed tight plot of Paris Market growing very closely to all the coloured roots F1 roots from my first multi coloured mass cross. So one of this batch was F1/2 seed, mass crossed with F1 coloureds on a Paris Market maternal parent. The rest were F2 mass crosses, I had sorted the F1 plants by root colour, giving 3 batches of F2 seed: deeper purples, mauves, and tinges of mauve. Original parents white, yellow, orange, purple, short medium and long. Knowing how to name these sensibly is a bit hard with mass crosses (I think we had a discussion about this on another thread somewhere). these are a mix of mass crossed (MX)F1XF2, F2XF2, and probably F1XF1. The pics show the roots from the Paris Market parent, the tinges of mauve, mauve, but no pics of deeper purple. A couple of close ups of some nicer ones. Apart from throwing out tiny skinny roots, these are the whole suite of phenotypes coming out of each growout. Numbers a bit uneven due to poor emergence in a couple of batches. Paris Market F1s  Tinges of Mauve  Mauve  And how is this beauty! this one's a keeper if only for vigor.   |
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Post by templeton on Sept 24, 2014 7:20:46 GMT -5
Now this presents some questions about how to proceed. I want to replant my selections and grow them out for another generation of seed. As I half hoped, there's some very pretty roots here. But I suppose I should stick to my plans, colorful round, tasty carrots.
Dominance for traits is difficult to establish in this mixed up mass cross.
There is some clear 'blunt tippedness' going on, probably from the original 'Baby' parents.
The balltrait seems to been inherited by many of the progeny from 'Paris Market'. There was a bit of 'French Round' in the first mass cross, which maybe where some of the ball shapes in the colored parent batches come from.
But the colors are all mixed up - it is very hard to pick out what's going on apart from white dominance in the F1s which I noticed last season. Haven't cut any open yet to check for color penetration, but one of the mis-shapen 'Mauve' roots (pic 2, far right) was chewed in half by something, and appears to a have a very colorful core.
If I want to establish a number of different colored lines, I need to be careful of the 'founder effect', starting a population from too small a base.
I'm also a bit limited for space and time.
Since white is dominant, I might grow out the pale balls as a separate block. Then maybe a mauve block, and a more pigmented block, picking round ones, and suplementing them with blunt colored if I need to make numbers up. And the big fat one has to go in there somewhere.
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Post by raymondo on Oct 12, 2014 5:52:38 GMT -5
Hope they produce lots of interesting segregates. Love the colours on the last two templeton. |
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Post by reed on Nov 13, 2014 10:01:52 GMT -5
Man, I'd love to grow some carrots like that big orange one. I bet that thing would be tasty roasted on a fire on in the oven. I planted a bunch of different kinds this fall just to see if any would live through winter and make seeds next year.
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Post by darrenabbey on Dec 26, 2014 5:35:20 GMT -5
Your project caught my attention because in my 1x2 meter mixed-variety patch of 2 years ago, "Paris Market" was a total loser. Other types grew much taller and kept it from being productive. Next spring, I'll be growing out a large batch of the seed I got this year from my winners (by productivity, survival through winter storage, diverse color, etc.). Hopefully, I'll get such a nicely diverse population as you have.
As for how you should proceed… You could take the project in two separate directions by growing them in alternate years, taking advantage of the otherwise annoying (from a breeding perspective) biennial nature of carrots.
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Post by philagardener on Dec 26, 2014 12:41:26 GMT -5
Has anyone had luck lifting a spring crop of carrots, chilling them in a refrigerator and then replanting mid-summer to get flowering in a single season? That could speed things up considerably.
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Post by reed on Dec 26, 2014 13:31:58 GMT -5
I'm in my first attempt to get carrot seeds and will definitely try that next year.
**I think Baker Creek had one that was described as sometimes going to seed in one year, don't remember what it was called. I can't find it now on their web site, must be in the printed book. I'll look for it again. I wondered if it might be mixed in with others to make one season seeding possible.
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 26, 2014 14:57:42 GMT -5
I have found in my carrot trials that some carrots were annual. Mostly the ones I didn't like. A dark purple that tasted of diesel. Yuck. Temp, if it was up to me, I would not plant the white ones at all. And I would taste them all and plant by best taste. When we replanted our carrots, I cut about an inch from the end to taste them. I peeled a tiny bit off and then sliced. They replanted fine. Not a problem to taste a chunk. I did not re-plant any that we did not love the taste of. Cute little project. Make sure you put at least 60 roots back into your test plot. Less than 60 give me a problem. (I lost some to gophers). Give them enough space, 6 inches apart so that you can good a stand of greens.
I eliminated any that had poor germination, weak tops or poor flavor. Have fun! And Merry Happy!
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Post by oldmobie on Dec 26, 2014 16:26:02 GMT -5
Has anyone had luck lifting a spring crop of carrots, chilling them in a refrigerator and then replanting mid-summer to get flowering in a single season? That could speed things up considerably. That's pretty close to what I did here. I didn't grow the carrots my tops came from, they were store bought. I assume they were from that same spring. They got refridgerated. They made it to full bloom for me, but I pulled 'em up because they seemed male sterile. |
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Post by templeton on Dec 27, 2014 1:03:33 GMT -5
I replanted in a somewhat haphazard way, establishing 3 different blocks in different corners of my garden. Since I was in 'close to meltdown' stage over work issues at the time, I didn't keep great notes - drat! I think I did one block of 'very coloured mostly rounds', another of 'very coloured not so rounds', and 'very round somewhat coloured'. Didn't get around to tasting them either, Holly.
Time pressure saw a big pile of these sitting on the back lawn under a bit of shade cloth for a week or two while I found time to sort them - there were considerable casualties to slimy rot. But a few are happily flowering at the moment - I'll collect plant-to-bag, and pull the roots to select for roundness and colour post-harvest.
I've been on an annual cycle with this project - I'm too impatient to wait for two years. With no winter freeze, I can sow in SH late summer (March April, but I might go earlier this year time and water permitting),grow through autumn with slow growth over winter, then a final flush in spring before they try to flower in SH mid/late spring, round October. This might - no, probably will - give a population with a tendency to annuality, but since I'm trying to get quick growing Paris Market type carrots, I hope to be able to rogue the early bolters and still have a useful variety. We'll see.
T
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Post by ilex on Dec 29, 2014 20:07:46 GMT -5
I'm in my first attempt to get carrot seeds and will definitely try that next year. **I think Baker Creek had one that was described as sometimes going to seed in one year, don't remember what it was called. I can't find it now on their web site, must be in the printed book. I'll look for it again. I wondered if it might be mixed in with others to make one season seeding possible. ECHO carried an anual carrot for the tropics. They have one listed now with no description, so not sure it's the same. It's called "Uberlandia", developed in Brasil. Not high quality. I think it would be fairly easy to develop a good tasting early bolting carrot. I think quite a few hybrids go this direction. It's faster to develop anything with fast bolting plants, so they select for that. |
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Post by ilex on Dec 29, 2014 20:17:15 GMT -5
Has anyone had luck lifting a spring crop of carrots, chilling them in a refrigerator and then replanting mid-summer to get flowering in a single season? That could speed things up considerably. Actually, here in Spain, carrots were planted late summer/early fall and they bolted in spring. Do you count that as 1 season? That's how I grow them, in fall to spring, and they all bolt in spring. Some that bolt before the rest are culled. Some old local varieties are trickier and can't be sown before mid summer or will bolt. Sown after summer they will grow ok. This year I will try spring sowing some surplus seed and see what happens. |
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Post by philagardener on Dec 29, 2014 20:47:07 GMT -5
That would work too and is even simpler!
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Post by reed on Dec 30, 2014 4:13:53 GMT -5
Fall planting for seeding the next year is what I'm trying right now in Southern Indiana. So far so good, the ones still in the ground look pretty good and I also put some in the refrigerator and ate some. They are Royal Chantaney.
My favorite carrot, based on reading because I don't have a lot of experience is a big carrot that makes a lot of food and that keeps good in the ground and then makes seed the next year and tastes good. That is what I will be selecting for big, hardy, tasty carrots.
The Territorial catalog has Ox Heart, and Giants of Colmar that sound good to work into my mix. I think I might plant a row of each of them and a row of Joseph's and see how they all turn out. Then I just have to figure out when to plant, early spring like I always have, or late summer like I did this year. Maybe I should do both and see how it works, it's my first try at carrot seeds.
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