Looking for breeding stock for Colorado adapted peas

[gilbert]

I would like to buy F2-F3 for peas, particularly snap peas. I know peas are hard to cross, so I'd be willing to pay a fair price for them. Peas are difficult to grow here because the spring and fall are so abrupt. And I'm so busy in the spring that it is unlikely I will ever have time to make crosses, but I'd like to create a local landrace.

On the other hand, if anybody has some peas available that they think would work well in this climate, I'd be interested in those too!

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

hi gilbert, what kind of soil do you have? What conditions are you planting in (ie. full sun or partial shade?)?

I'm only about an hour, maybe two north of you and i've actually found that most pea varieties do well here, or at least okay, though not all. The biggest factor to me has been whether i plant in full sun or partial shade. With the somewhat clayish soil and the fact that the high altitude air often wicks away moisture from the soil that is why i often have trouble with many crops including peas and tomatoes. Though planting peas in semi-shade seems to help dramatically.

I'm hoping to go a mass pea growout this next spring of all the peas i have, and i'd be more than happy to share, though i've also already promised to share seed with a few others that i have yet to make good on. Plus this last year i may have mixed some of my seed and/or forgot a label or two so some varieties i will need to re-identify at grow time.

I don't currently have an abundance of snap peas. Alan Kapuler's Sugar Magnolia has so far been the best here in my garden, which is interesting since it was bred in Oregon. Interestingly enough, Opal Creek, the yellow snap bred by Alan as well does not grow well for me and i'm looking to breed a better one to replace it (or i may just forgo yellow snaps and focus on yellow snow peas instead). I'm hoping to get a good line of red snap peas going this year, some fully descended from Joseph's red podded line, and maybe a few that are not.

Since you mention that the spring and fall seasons are so abrupt, perhaps what you really are looking for are heat and/or summer tolerant peas. The ones in my collection that fall into this category are the various umbellatum or crown type peas (Mummy White, Salmon-flowered, Mummy, etc.), Biskopens the brick-red seeded sweedish pea, and Virescens Mutante (a random line i originally requested from the German Gatersleben Seed bank). If you'd like to be a regular collaborator i'd be happy to try at some point to send you seeds of all the lines i have and we can work together to continue to adapt and breed them.

Joseph and Templeton might have plenty of seed from F2-F6 snap lines they could send you. So far i only grow at a small scale so it's hard for me to increase my seed amount, though slowly i am doing it. I'd like to expand to other collaborators and maybe even with Colorado State University Agriculture department for some of my projects, but i haven't gotten there quite yet.

so all in all, 1.plant in partial shade if you can (if you can't, then provide plenty of water). 2.plant early, like mid or late march. 3.start with good varieties if you can. Though i haven't tried many snap peas, one i would NEVER recommend for Colorado is Amish Snap. It is WEAK. Sugar Daddy i think did not do well for me either. Maybe you just need to stay away from mainstream catalog pea varieties since i think they breed them in temperature controlled greenhouses.

[gilbert]

Hello Keen,

Thanks so much for the advice! I'll look into those varieties. And yes, I think what I really need is heat tolerance; my growing area stays so cold and muddy that planting is almost invariably late, and then the heat starts. I don't have much shade to use, either. And yes, my soil is clay rich.