|
|
Post by darrenabbey on May 6, 2015 9:47:23 GMT -5
A couple years ago I started a carrot breeding project, in the sense of I planted a mixed batch of varieties with the intention of saving seed from the survivors. I had a 3 x 5 ft garden bed of a heavy clay soil set aside for them and then scattered it densely with all the seeds I could find for variously-colored varieties. I didn't do any thinning or weeding, but I did water them from time to time. At the end of the season, I pulled them all out and set aside the largest roots of each color. Some varieties, like "Paris Market" almost totally lost the battle in this garden. Even with the minimal care, I had plenty of carrots to last me for several months (or until I got sick of them).
Last year I replanted out those roots that survived the garden battle and the following winter storage in my fridge. I collected a whole big mess of seeds at the end of the season. I had kept an eye out for queen-anne's-lace, but never found any, so I'm hoping for minimal crossing into the mix.
This spring I planted an area with the gathered seed, as well as a nearby area with seed for "Scarlet Nantes". To my surprise, my seed sprouted sooner and has developed true leaves well ahead of the "Scarlet Nantes" seed. My goal was to find some genetics that would work in my garden with minimal intervention, but I seem to have selected for extra-vigorous growth along the way. I suppose this isn't too surprising, but I wasn't expecting it because I wasn't expecting there to be all that much diversity in the original planted seed.
For those of you breeding/selecting carrots: What surprises have you had while growing carrots? What selection schemes do you use and how have they turned out?
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 6, 2015 10:45:12 GMT -5
darrenabbey: A couple years ago I got tired of the carrots loosing the vigor battle with the weeds. So last growing season I planted two rows of landrace carrot seeds. One row I didn't weed at all. The other row I weeded one time when the weeds were about a foot tall. At that time, I thinned heavily culling any carrot plant that was smaller than average. The once weeded row produced much better than the never weeded row. I harvested both and replanted the largest roots this spring. They are mostly from the weeded-once row because those roots were stored more properly. However the never-weeded row survived the winter in the garden and they are volunteering like crazy. I figure that I'll let them go to seed as well. So for the next few growing cycles, my intention with carrots is to select for quick germination of vigorously growing plants that can out-compete the weeds. I'm tired of loosing the carrot crop year after year to weeds. One year I planted a glorious patch of carrot roots in the fall, intending to grow seed the next year. Even though I planted deep, every root froze during the winter. I would really like winter-hardy roots because my ability to store roots overwinter is iffy. Since then, there have been carrots volunteering from roots every year... I am constantly selection carrots to eliminate male sterility.
|
|
|
|
Post by 12540dumont on May 6, 2015 12:27:52 GMT -5
Darren, Any seed from any crop that I have saved myself is more vigorous here the next year. I did a lot of work with carrots. I'm not fond of the market trend to mini carrots. I'm not fussy as to color, but the "new" black Turkish carrots taste awful here (like diesel). I have also found that carrots do better in a bed planted with lettuce. I plant the carrots to the inside of my beds and either onions or lettuce on the outside of the bed. This gives me much less weeding to do, as well as use the bed more efficiently (as well as the water). Sprouting carrots seem to like the shade they get from lettuce/onions. By the time they are up and at 'em, the onions/lettuce are done. I even have time to start another bunch of lettuce on the edge of the carrots. I have tried to eliminate any carrot that doesn't have a very nice bushy top. Although I do plant some of those Paris carrots, I plant them only when I'm in a hurry to get a few more carrots. They really are to small to do anything but eat in your hand. St. Valerio, Juane de Dobbs, Berlicum and Marketgartener were some of the carrots that I kept to continue with my own carrots.   J is Berlicum I is Juane de Dobbs Biggest surprise with working with carrots is how much variety is out there! By looking at seed catalogs you would not know it. |
|
|
|
Post by 12540dumont on May 6, 2015 12:34:10 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on May 6, 2015 20:50:47 GMT -5
I didn't want to hear that about Black Turkish, as the dozen that weren't culled last year for premature bolting, which I've kept in a large pot, are very vigorous, have sized up well, and are now starting to look bolty. I'm anticipating seed from what are the best-performing carrots I've grown. Perhaps diesel is an acquired taste; I'm nothing if not acquisitive.
My favorite carrot so far is Oxheart (I once managed to grow one on the farm; no seed, though, since I ate it); I enjoy the sight of huge carrot-coins in a soup or stew; having no use for mini-veggies, I like things that get large and still have great quality.
The lettuce-shade is a good idea; I got much better carrot-sprout this year where they were shaded by weeds, so the soil stayed moister at the surface.
|
|
|
|
Post by templeton on May 7, 2015 18:54:08 GMT -5
darren, I've got a little project going that I'm not dedicating a lot of energy to - in contrast with Holly I'm aiming for little carrots that are easy to grow in heavy soil, in a range of colours. I've been doing autumn winter spring growouts turning over one generation a year. No doubt this is also selecting for bolting, which i will have to clean up at some stage. Like all my projects, I jumped in before i really knew what i was doing, and didn't really select my parents with any discretion. I was careful enough to avoid CMS parents. I sowed Belgian White, 3 Colours Purple (which could be anything - Diggers Seeds are notorious for renaming varieties), some Paris Market style, some oranges and yellows. Because of patchy germination flowering times were staggered, and i was slack harvesting the seeds - it's a bit hard telling whats what when they all flower together. I sowed the seed from the little rounds, and the purples i think, and added some rows of new varieties with colour and let them go for another season. I dug up the F2s, delayed, and lots of them rotted. I replanted the most colourful and anything short and fat with a bit of colour into separate beds and harvested a little seed a few months ago from 2 or 3 plants - quite a few of my selected plants have decided not to flower this autumn, so selection has been haphazard and the gene pool is limited. I've just sown the F3 from a single parent - mauve/pink skin, creamy coloured inside, short and round. I'll thin these when they get a bit bigger and i can see the purple colours on the leaf bases.   The steel mesh panels are my curved tomato trellises, they work well to keep the blackbids from scratching my seedbeds apart - parsnips in the bachground not yet up, bronze fennel in foreground separating the carrots from other stuff. T |
|
|
|
Post by steev on May 7, 2015 20:43:18 GMT -5
I like that mesh idea; think I can make fast tunnels with re-mesh panels, maybe a wind-proof frost/shade-cloth sandwich with two panels.
|
|
|
|
Post by darrenabbey on May 7, 2015 23:02:14 GMT -5
I'm still trying to sort out what I want to select for in the end, with regards to carrot size/shape. I knew I wanted to get a diverse mix that would produce good tasting roots, with the absolute minimum of time/effort inputs on my part. (Basically I prefer the idea of being a lazy gardener, when I can.)
The carrots I chose to save for seed were those that grew relatively large for their color, so to maintain some color diversity. My intention was to select those that did well under my conditions, but I would have also been selecting for those that produce large roots in general. These roots went through another round of selection in the back of my fridge... the pretty red roots I set aside mostly rotted out... resulting in a final parent population that leaned heavily towards white and yellow. I added some red/purple roots from the local market into my for-seed replanting so as to inject more interesting color genetics, but they haven't gone through the garden battle yet. I'm eager to see the mix of colors in the garden and in the final selections at season's end.
edit: I really like the mesh idea too. I'm currently setting up a deer fence, as they're the most problematic critters for my place.
|
|
|
|
Post by templeton on May 8, 2015 1:18:16 GMT -5
I like that mesh idea; think I can make fast tunnels with re-mesh panels, maybe a wind-proof frost/shade-cloth sandwich with two panels. cheap chinese gal steel 100mm X 100mm about $20 per 1200 X 2000mm panel. I curve em a bit, stretch a bit of gal wire across top, middle and bottom, and they are almost free-standing curved trellis sections. A cheap wooden tomato stake at each side holds em up. Idea came to me when the panel was too wide for the narrow bed, so i figured I'd just curve it to fit - never looked back. One was lying around when i sowed the carrot seed, and i just chucked it over the bed as a stopgap measure - but it worked fine! T |
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jun 13, 2016 21:02:52 GMT -5
Reviving this old thread as I am considering my carrots!
Last year I got my hot little hands on seeds for about half a dozen heirloom French carrot varieties. I was interested to see that the "de Tilques" had larger, coarser seeds than any of the others. Given that I have so much trouble keeping my carrots moist enough during germination in my fast-drying, sandy soil, I thought they might have an advantage. I do think they germinated faintly better than the smaller seeded varieties, although the difference was not as much as I was hoping. So now I have decided one of my selection criteria will be large, coarse seed.
I had hoped to have a lot of carrots to isolate and keep some of the varieties pure but the interminable freeze-thaw cycles of late winter put paid to that idea, so I am letting the (relatively few) survivors cross. They are pretty much large orange carrots though, albeit of slightly different cofigurations.
So, things I am looking for: large seeds that germinate quickly and are moderately tolerant to fluctuating moisture levels; reasonably large good tasting orangish carrots, an ability to stand in the garden over winter which means tolerance both to relatively extreme cold and also that damn freeze-thaw cycle which is not exactly uncommon either, and ability to keep in the cold cellar for a good length of time as well. Size is definitely a factor there.
Carrots so far in the mix are de Tilques, de la Halle, de Luc, Berlicummer, Flakkee, and Amsterdam Maxi. I got some Jaune de Lobberich too, but my feeling was that I liked both the other yellow carrots I have tried in other years better - Jaune de Doubs and Pfalzer Yellow - and I eliminated it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 13, 2016 23:04:39 GMT -5
I'm also aiming for larger seeds. Last winter when I was winnowing my carrot seeds, I separated them into three fractions... Light, medium, and heavy. The heavy fraction was only about 5% of the seed. That's what I planted as my carrot seed this year. I have been thinning my carrots the past few generations to cull slow growing and/or slow germinating plants. I intend to continue that tradition this year.
|
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jun 14, 2016 6:04:37 GMT -5
Good idea to cull the slow-pokes, but I don't know how I'd do that. I don't have the space to grow carrots just for seed - do I? Hmmm, maybe. *thinks furiously* Well perhaps I could find a spot. Joseph Lofthouse, how did you separate your seed? I was thinking of just running it through a coarse sieve. |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 14, 2016 11:07:59 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse, how did you separate your seed? I was thinking of just running it through a coarse sieve. The seeds fell down an inclined plain into a stream of air.    The setup was even able to separate rocks from seeds... And the cash crops from other crops.   |
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jun 14, 2016 19:08:19 GMT -5
still working on mine, but i haven't made much progress with it. Anyone know about this interesting andean carrot Alan Kapuler mentions? Any chance it will cross breed with our carrots and if so is someone willing to work on that project? www.youtube.com/watch?v=9evVLC0lnsA&t=9m45s |
|
