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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Feb 26, 2018 10:46:45 GMT -5
I'm with T. Even with very active bees that were attracted to my peas i don't know that they've been able to get into the flowers to cross them. Though with so many human crossed peas perhaps i would never notice. Some solitary bees can bite into pea flowers so who knows. But i have seen an odd trend online in the gardening forums of people claiming the snap peas they bought were all crossed up with shelling, snow, and snap pods all in the same patch. Though i had originally thought that was just the short coming of the common snap peas /stringless trait. Since it is environmentally controlled and thus you are supposed to only get good snap peas in warm weather. And theoretically would get snow peas from the exact same plant in cooler weather. But perhaps something more complex is going on. Or indeed snap peas have a higher outcrossing rate or higher mutation rate than normal. No idea really. All i know is that snap pods are supposed to be genetically linked to dwarf plants. (sugar magnolia is the only one i know that bucks this trend and is a slightly different snap pea in some undecribable way). I have had a really hard time finding snap peas that thrive in my climate, but i don't know why. Slightly off topic, but this year i am growing out a pea mutant from JIC that might have open keels. This would facilitate higher outcrossing peas and could be clever for breeding true landrace peas. There was a fair amount of interest in that if they are what they claim. I think i shared some seed with ethin, so hopefully we can investigate and share this unique trait with others who are even more interested in outcrossing peas. The downside potentially is that yields might be lower from pollen that dries out faster. |
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ethin
gardener
Plant Breeder and Graphic Designer in Cache Valley Utah, USDA Zone 4b
Posts: 214
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Post by ethin on Feb 26, 2018 14:42:03 GMT -5
Slightly off topic, but this year i am growing out a pea mutant from JIC that might have open keels. This would facilitate higher outcrossing peas and could be clever for breeding true landrace peas. There was a fair amount of interest in that if they are what they claim. I think i shared some seed with ethin , so hopefully we can investigate and share this unique trait with others who are even more interested in outcrossing peas. The downside potentially is that yields might be lower from pollen that dries out faster. Yes keen101 you set me some of those. Hopefully they grow for me and are as advertised. An open flower may cause the pollen to dry quicker but at the same time hopefully they will be more attractive to pollinators so it might even out in the end. I noticed last year one of the Lima bean had open flowers, the petals where still the same basic shape but where very narrow and somewhat shortened causing the flower to be very open with the anthers and stigma exposed at the center, not sure if it was genetic or environmental. Perhaps something similar could be achieved with peas. I'm with T. Even with very active bees that were attracted to my peas i don't know that they've been able to get into the flowers to cross them. Though with so many human crossed peas perhaps i would never notice. Some solitary bees can bite into pea flowers so who knows. One thing I've observed in my garden is if a flower is attractive enough the pollinators will lean how to use it. when I first started growing snapdragons 7 or 8 years ago there where only two types of bees in my garden that could get in them, bumblebees with just there weight and anther bee that would ram the flowers at full speed to force their way in. The honey bees would ignore the snapdragons until late fall when they where running out of options but they where too small and weak to get inside them. A couple years ago I noticed that the honey bees had figured out that they could get in if they went to the corners of the flowers lips, now the honey bees visit the Snaps all season long. So even if we can't make the pea flowers more accessible maybe if we make them more attractive the pollinators will learn to do the rest. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 4, 2018 11:12:08 GMT -5
Day, honestly it really is addicting. To be honest i had nearly no interest in peas at all. I thought mendel worked with all the cool ones and there were no more cool ones. Then i say Rebsie's blog in 2008 with the red-podded pea. I was drawn to it. Not only did i find yellow podded peas (like what mendel had workd with) much more cool and interesting than i thought, but i was also captured by the fact that using it could create such a wonderful red pea. Something the world had never seen before. Just by crossing two random peas together. This has led me on a larger pea crossing jouney than i ever thought. And also increased my interest in other crop species, like tomatoes that i had no interest in either. One pea i'm really excited to trial this year again is the rogue i found in my pea patch last year. 'Heavily-Branched'. It really stood out despite being jumbled in a mess of somewhat unsorted peas all growing on top of each other like a jungle. It had about 5 tillers or "suckers" from the bottom, each of which grew to full height of like 6 or 7 ft. The main branch had some fasciation or thickening but was not completely fasciated in umbel or crown pea fashion but had pods all along the stem. It had pink flowers. This plant had both traits observed from 'salmon-flowered' and 'mummy white', of which i attempted to cross in 2015. I found the umbel or crown mummy peas easy to use in crosses as all the flowers appear at once. I believe this pea was a F2 recombinant offspring that had traits from both. Mummy pea was the one that while being a umbel or crown pea from fasciation also had unusual pea pods along the stem. I wondered if crossing the two could be interesting and i think i was right. But i never would have expected the weirdly branched pea i saw last year. But it was amazingly productive when i actually collected seed from it. So it just goes to show you that you can stumble onto things you never expected. Another pea i am trailing that might be interesting is one that is a mutant that might have an open keel structure that the bees could get to easier. IF true, this variety could be used to create a hybrid population that has a much higher out-crossing rate in peas. Basically a true pea landrace. That might be interesting and useful. But we will see. If it looks useful i will continue to share seed of that with others who want it. But there are literally loads of other traits just in peas that i find interesting. crazy huh? a vegetable crop that i originally thought was boring. lol.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 11, 2018 0:00:03 GMT -5
Day Rosakrone NEW. www.realseeds.co.uk/peas.html@everyone else, i would love to get some seeds for this crown pea variety. I don't think this company ships to the US from the UK. I think last time i used robertb to ship me shiraz and bijou. (bijou may still be in my 'large podded' population).
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