Topic: Peas

[Robert_Brenchley]

Pea moths have been having a thin time the last few years, along with other insects. I've seen very few the last couple of summers.

[galina]

No, I don't think it's anything to do with how dry the pods are, all the rest of the pods are purple except these 3.
Purple podded peas - Desiree.
Front pod is Green/purple mottled and back two from same plant are totally green.
I am going to try and save the seeds, but there are only 2 in the mottled pod.

For the record, Onward produced an average of 8 in a pod, Golden Sweet also produced up to 8, the Purple Podded - Desiree never seemed to have big enough pods, peas all squashed together, average of 5 to a pod roughly.

You are right this is nothing like the fading to green that you get on mature purple pods.  This looks like a mutation on that part of the plant.  Mutations are fairly common in peas.  I have never seen anything like the half purple half green pod.  Yes I would save the seeds and grow them out next year.  Fascinating.

I had a mutation to pink flowering one year.  Just the one plant.  And that mutation is fully stable.  There are other mutations that only appear during the growing year and are not carried forward by the seeds.  

Thanks for showing us.

[Mortality]

No, I don't think it's anything to do with how dry the pods are, all the rest of the pods are purple except these 3.
Purple podded peas - Desiree.
Front pod is Green/purple mottled and back two from same plant are totally green.
I am going to try and save the seeds, but there are only 2 in the mottled pod.

For the record, Onward produced an average of 8 in a pod, Golden Sweet also produced up to 8, the Purple Podded - Desiree never seemed to have big enough pods, peas all squashed together, average of 5 to a pod roughly.

You are right this is nothing like the fading to green that you get on mature purple pods.  This looks like a mutation on that part of the plant.  Mutations are fairly common in peas.  I have never seen anything like the half purple half green pod.  Yes I would save the seeds and grow them out next year.  Fascinating.

I had a mutation to pink flowering one year.  Just the one plant.  And that mutation is fully stable.  There are other mutations that only appear during the growing year and are not carried forward by the seeds.  

Thanks for showing us.

Interesting stuff, I can't wait until next year, definitely need to grow these again and some different varieties.  ;)

[betula]

Sunshine through the peas...................

[betula]

Snack attack..............these taste lovely this season

[Jeannine]

Mmmm look good.

I have another question for you pea people.

Noticed in a seed catalogue today while reading about varieties

think it said...has two pods at every nodule..then I saw another one in a different catalogue that said that one variety had three.

I sorta think I have this figured out but what is usual on a pea. I think that would make a big difference to yeild.

Sorry for all my dumb questions but you are making me understand peas better.

XX Jeannine

[tomatoada]

What was the variety with 3 pods please.
My Hurst  Greenshaft is covered with pairs and looks to be the best crop of peas I have ever had.  So would be interested in growing peas with 3 pods.
Most peas have only one pod.  I am sure someone will  give more info..

[Jeannine]

Hi, going back to look at the pea lists it seems I mis read a description
I read the following as having three pea pods which I mentioned above but I was not right,it actually reads

Clamart Trois Gousses...means triple pod. sorry I guess I read that quickly

However the triple ones I mentioned are


Triple Treat ( has been known to produce quads)
Aristgreens
Triplet
Snwebird

The double podded ones were

Fenn
Frizette
Frosty
Green Arrow
Harrison's Glory
Hightower
Kanalta
Magnum Bowman
Mesa
Midseason Freezer
Mizhik
Pomorska
Spanish
Blizzard
Golden Sweet
Giant Melting Sugar
Ho Lohn Dow
Sweet Snap
Chetopa
Desiree
Golderbse
Groninger Blauwschokker
Imposant Brown
Nadja
Ostgota Gulart
Przebowska Oliwkowa
Svallovs Belloart
Zeiners Gold

 Now can someone tell me what heat units are in relation to peas please???

XX Jeannine

[chriscross1966]

The Telephone are into full swing now and I had a decent picking off them last night. Decently filled pods (6-7 peas on average) and the flavour is excellent. I had them with a few broad beans and french beans with some cheese and potato salad..... I love fresh peas and these are some of the best I've grown.... also because there's little vegetable growing going on in the gardens around me and then we're surrounded by industrial/trading estates I've hardly seen a pea moth.... just the one on one of the metoers...

chrisc

[plot51A]

Had absolutely terrible germination with my Telephone for some reason so none this year. Good job the Champion of England and Alderman were OK! Impressed with Champion of England - nice pods, 8-9 peas in most, good flavour. Will certainly grow again.

[galina]

Hi, going back to look at the pea lists it seems I mis read a description
I read the following as having three pea pods which I mentioned above but I was not right,it actually reads

Clamart Trois Gousses...means triple pod. sorry I guess I read that quickly

However the triple ones I mentioned are


Triple Treat ( has been known to produce quads)
Aristgreens
Triplet
Snwebird

The double podded ones were
....
 Now can someone tell me what heat units are in relation to peas please???

XX Jeannine

Heat units -  I am sorry this is not a concept used in the UK.  Could you please put this question differently?

Peas don't like hot weather, but there are differences in how well they can deal with heat.  I am impressed by Ne Plus Ultra (first time grown this year).  Weggiser is the mangetout that resists heat best.  And Alderman and Magnum Bonum are hanging in there well too.  Lancashire Lad, on the other hand is wilting and the large mangetouts, Schweizer Riesen, Court Estate Gold and Eat All are coming to the end unless the weather changes radically to rainy and cool.

On the other hand, peas can stand a few degrees of frost, especially the round-seeded varieties.  The sweeter, wrinkle-seeded varieties are less frost tolerant, but even they have some tolerance.

Most peas have double pods, this is the standard.  If they can breed peas that reliably have 4 pods per node and with a good number of peas inside, that would indeed be a bit revolutionary for pea yield.  The breeders are probably working on it.  On the other hand , a double pod of, say, Lancashire Lad, yielding 20 peas could easily outperform a quad pod with much lower pea count.  (have just checked with photos taken earlier and most Lancashire Lad were single pods, sadly).   I hope the varieties with triple and quadruple pods mention the pea count that can be expected.  Perhaps they are mangetout peas?  Are these commercially available peas?  

[Jeannine]

Hi Galina, many of the seeds mentioned are from the SSE yearbook, The triples I found on the net when I was searching for peas as you know I have over the last couple of weeks. I will go back on line tonight when I have more time and find a source. The only one I remember of the top of my head was the Triple Treat which was from Mandy's Greenhouse in Manitoba but I wasn't sure about buying from her. :-\

The heat thingy was also quoted in among the descriptions in the SSE yearbook. As you know peas are something I know Zilch about and am trying to give myself a crash course. I noticed it several times but no explanation. I can e mail someone and find out though.

example..
Felicitas. 5-6'tall .1255 heat units,5dimpled seed per pod,light brown with some flecking,curved pods 19.05 grams per 100 seeds.Hungary   

I have also noticed 1005 heat units,674,850,1554 and 1134. It seems to be scattered through all the types of peas?? Odd  eh!!

I can see peas being far from the mundane basic little green things I thought they were ;D

I am getting too interested... worries me.. Oh another research project another collection  :o  You pea experts have got me too too interested.

XX Jeannine

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

[Jayb]

These may help, but its a bit techie for me  :)
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2003/alm03may.htm
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/rhodcv/hort410/csheatuj.htm
http://www.skyeinstruments.com/Case%20Studies/Skye%20Case%20Study%20-%20Birds%20Eye%20Pea%20Harvest.pdf

[galina]

Jeannine and Jayb

Thank you for these great urls.  I worked out what they mean.  They have devised a system which is called heat units or growing day units.  Provided a certain amount of units have been reached, peas (or other crops) can be harvested.  Does not include soil fertility, watering or any other variables.  It is just a way of refining the old US system of 'days to maturity' by incorporating actual temperature data.  

There is an interesting table in Jayb's first url which states the minimum, optimum and maximum temperatures for different vegetables:

Critical Temperatures for Selected Crops
Crop Minimum Growth
Temperature (C/F)
Optimum Growth
Temperature Range (C/F)
Maximum Growth
Temperature (C/F)

Cool Season Grains 0-4 / 32-40 24-29 / 75-85 32-38 / 90-100

Corn 10 /50 29-32 / 85-90 43-46 / 110-115

Cucumbers 9-10 / 4850 24-27 / 75-80 35-46 / 95-115

Melons 15-18 / 59-65 30-37 / 86-98 43-49 / 110-120

Peas 3-6 / 38-42 10-16 / 50-60 21-24 / 70-75

Potatoes 6-7 / 43-45 10-16 / 50-60 27-32 / 80-90

Snap Beans 10 / 50 27-32 / 80-90 38-43 / 100-110

Tomatoes (growth) 10-13 / 50-55 16-27 / 60-80 29-35 / 85-95

Tomatoes (for fruit set) 13-14 5 / 5-58 15-20 / 59-68 22 / 72

This table does not format well, but for peas the minimum growing temperatur is 3-6C, the optimum growing temperature is 10-16C and the maximum temperature is 21-24 degrees C.

In other words, we should aim to grow peas as much as possible  in the first two temperature spans, bcause afterwards all we can do is harvest and there will be no further meaningful plant development in the heat of summer.  I went to the World Climate website and looked up Ladner BC, and the average February temperature is 3.7 C and the average March temperature is 6.0C
http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/data.pl?ref=N49W123+1202+0012290G2
If you combine the information from the two websites, it would appear that late February and certainly March are suitable pea growing months near you Jeannine.  The temperature data from Edgbaston near Birmingham are 3.4C in February and 5.4C in March respectively.  This indicates that late Feb and definitely all of March are also the best times to start off peas here in England.  Compare that to French beans, whose optimum growing temperature is between 27 and 32C!

Having said this, peas don't germinate well in cold soil.  It is best to transplant them or at least sprout them indoors.

I have a garden friend whose knowledge I respect a lot and his advice is based on phenology.  He sows his peas as soon as the forsythia starts flowering.
I hope this makes sense and short of taking min and max temperatures on a daily basis (and hoping that all other conditions are optimum) the temperature ranges that peas like to grow in are a good guide for sowing times.  The heat unit numbers indicate which varieties are ready earlier and which mature later, also useful to know.

[Jeannine]

Wow Galina, stunning work you get an A+ for that!!

I guess as North America is so big things like this would make a lot of sense, what a way to go shopping though with units in your head.

I have always fussed, snuggled them in to be warm and got precisely no place.

This year I prepared a bed, chucked in everything I had that was way of of date,not expecting anything to happen, then prepared to use the bed for something else, covered the seeds with soil and forgot about it, we then  had 5 weeks of very cool temps  for May and I was puzzled as to why the peas were doing well when other years I was pulling my hair out wondering what I was doing wrong.

So by sheer chance and neglect I am getting a crop. Well this is a good lesson in gardening.

Thank you so much for all your work, I hate maths but have really warmed to yours!!

XX Jeannine

[Jayb]

Thank you Galina  ;D and Thanks for asking Jeannine, a fascinating topic which opens many thoughts and has already taken me off at a tangent. I tend to garden by feel, so it is always interesting to make more sense of why something works, or not.