Topic: First pea flowers!

[galina]

Silverleaf, that's an impressive list of work tasks ahead.  And of course it multiplies when you get to grow out the F2s.  Thank you for unscrambling the genes.  Well according to their photo the flower colour on the standards is ranging from white on the inside slowly changing to a violet on the outside.  Not the standard purple colour.  Did look quite different to me 
Seems to have a multitude of different features all combined in one small plant.  Expatriette is so different. 

Do you have any seeds with orc?  Orange podded peas?  I think you said they were muddy orange, rather than attractive. 

[Silverleaf]

I think next year I'll have to grow out a small selection of the F2s rather than all of them. There will just be too many for the space I have otherwise!

I can't decide whether to grow all the rainbow lines together as a landrace and simply culling the white-flowered ones. Eventually I'd hopefully see all the colours I want after letting them self for a few years, and from then I could start culling the ordinary wild purple types as well.

Or I could treat them as 16-ish different lines, and keep them separate.

I've got a year to decide anyway...

[Silverleaf]

I don't have any orc peas I'm afraid. I might request some from GRIN just to see what they're like - my geeky self loves the idea of a gene with the name of a fantasy goblinoid creature. ;)

[Silverleaf]

I have four Expatriette seeds. With any luck I'll have some to share later in the year, and you're most welcome to them!

[galina]

I have four Expatriette seeds. With any luck I'll have some to share later in the year, and you're most welcome to them!

Thank you very much.  Could I possibly have Visionary instead?  Or Unity with the cr gene?  These two are top on my wish list when you have plenty of seeds or seeds from the crosses with Telephone.   

[Silverleaf]

I have four Expatriette seeds. With any luck I'll have some to share later in the year, and you're most welcome to them!

Thank you very much.  Could I possibly have Visionary instead?  Or Unity with the cr gene?  These two are top on my wish list when you have plenty of seeds or seeds from the crosses with Telephone.   

Sure! Barring disasters, I'll put some aside for you in the autumn. Let me know if you're interested in any others as well.

I do love the colours of Visionary and Unity myself. The dark Visionary purple is just gorgeous, and I'd love to breed that colour into a nice tall pea. I think I'll probably also cross Visionary with an antho-producing tall pea as well as Telephone though, since I suspect that the dark colour comes from two genes - ar (violet flowers) and cov (dark blue-green foliage). Not having to deal with the a (no antho) allele from Telephone will increase my chances of getting the colour I want.

It's such a shame so many tasty tall peas have white flowers. It's most inconvenient when breeding for colours! ;)

[jimc]

Seeing it is hard to eat colour or the flower colour has long gone when you get to the peas, how about breeding for more peas in the pod. I have tried to select for 10 peas rather than the regular 8 but always seem to get some of both in following generations.

[galina]

Noticing a plant of Champion of England with 11 peas in some pods rather than 8, I got quite excited in the same vein as you jimc.  Asked Ben of Realseeds about this (who sell them) and yes, there is some heritability to more peas in pods, but there is also an overall load the plant can carry.  For selection the overall number of pods is at least as important as the number of seeds within a pod.  Mike Ambrose from the National Pisum Collection at JIC said similar (specifically about mangetout) and also that there is length of production versus plants shutting down earlier because they have done their stuff.  I am currently looking at good branching in my pea plants and double podding vs single podding, but need to be mindful to check whether well-branched pea selections do come up with the goods in the end, not just need more space and resources.  I should start counting pods, which is difficult to do when some end up with the pigeons and others get eaten by the humans.  Just wanted to say that it isn't as easy as counting peas in a pod.  With my peas, there is always a fairly dramatic drop in pod size and seeds per pod near the end of the season and part of the selection has to be for plants that carry on the longest with well-filled pods or good looking mangetouts.   

I beg to differ on flower colours.  Peas are such decorative flowering garden plants that (together with beans) they really add beauty to a garden.  Looking at all possible flower colours and all possible pod colours is such a novel idea.  Likewise looking at other features like modified tendrils and the strangest of all, the Crown Peas.  Jayb has shown us pictures of her Crown peas that are just so beautiful.  Maybe it is a 'girl thing', but the combination of good utility with beauty in the growing space, is very appealing indeed.     

[Silverleaf]

Seeing it is hard to eat colour or the flower colour has long gone when you get to the peas, how about breeding for more peas in the pod. I have tried to select for 10 peas rather than the regular 8 but always seem to get some of both in following generations.

As admirable as that is, with my Rainbow Pea project I'm specifically aiming to create peas that are pretty as well as tasty.

Number of individual peas produced isn't really my focus - that comes later when I have the types I want stabilised somewhat.

The idea came when two friends of mine (a couple) disagreed about how to use their new garden. She wanted to use all of it for veggies, he wanted some of it to be dedicated to flowers and prettiness. And I thought, why not both?

I think peas and their flowers are beautiful. So this project is to eventually create a mixture (like the sweet pea mixes you can buy) of peas with different flower, foliage and pod colours so you can grow them in the flower garden and they'll look attractive enough that they aren't out of place there.

There are lots of possible pea flower colours. Why not take advantage of that instead of just white all the time?

[Silverleaf]

I beg to differ on flower colours.  Peas are such decorative flowering garden plants that (together with beans) they really add beauty to a garden.  Looking at all possible flower colours and all possible pod colours is such a novel idea.  Likewise looking at other features like modified tendrils and the strangest of all, the Crown Peas.  Jayb has shown us pictures of her Crown peas that are just so beautiful.  Maybe it is a 'girl thing', but the combination of good utility with beauty in the growing space, is very appealing indeed.     

I don't know about it being a "girl thing" - with the couple that inspired me it was the male who wanted flowers instead of veggies. *shrug*

For me I think it's a combination of being a genetics geek who is fascinated by all the ways a plant can be altered by mutations, and being an artist. Why have a blank sheet of white paper when you could instead fill that sheet with interesting colours?

[jimc]

Thanks Silverleaf and galina for your indepth studies and being able to sort out the genetics of this plant. I find it very interesting what you have been doing and look forward to the rainbow pea seeds sitting on the shelf in the garden shop one day soon.
It is interesting that most of our vegetable and flower seeds in the supermarket/gardenshop/hardware store have been imported from England so yours could be the next new thing. I look at them but usually buy local seed from specialty seed suppliers.
I think a 11 seed pod sounds good, less pods to shell, but if you don't get as many from the bush it is a loss.