Post by oxbowfarm on Apr 30, 2018 11:04:31 GMT -5
Pulled four off-type plants out of my first two sucessions of tatsoi, there were about 5 plants out of 200+ that were clearly crosses, almost certainly with Joy Choi pac choi based on the phenotype and my past seed saving.
I really liked the look of the F1 plants, the petioles were narrow like tatsoi but long and white like pac choi and the leaf came to a dramatic and clear transition at the top of the petiole, without all the leafy margins that you often see on pac choi. The plants were fairly large and upright like a pac choi but much leafier on average. I pulled the four best plants and set them in this nursery bed outdoors to try and get some F2 seed to experiment with.
I also planted several F2 plants from my ongoing mustard project, crossing Tim Peter's Oak Fire Mustard with my strain of CesarZ's GoldenFrills/9-Hearts Mustard cross. I'm hoping to get a red version of the CesarZ cross, with the big robust multi-heading frilling plant style, just in red/purple. I really prefer to grow mustards as whole plants, and the modern breeding work seems to be solely focussed on breeding for micro-greens use. I need a big plant for bunching, and the addition of the Chinese 9-hearts/Er cai type plant style really makes for a big plant.
I think the mustards will do well in this nursery, as the plants are still small, but if we get too many hard cold snaps between now and June I may lose the tatsoi/pac choi cross plants, as they are already bolting and have very little cold tolerance left.
