Topic: First pea flowers!

[Silverleaf]

And it's not a pea.

[galina]

It is a legume, and edible. Does that help?

Lentil ?

[Silverleaf]

It is a legume, and edible. Does that help?

Lentil ?

Yep! :)

On a whim I sowed a handful of dried lentils on some damp kitchen paper, and quite a lot of them germinated. And I had a little gap at the end of the pea bed, so I thought I'd pop them in there and see what happened. I've never seen a lentil plant so it's quite interesting. They are really small and delicate-looking, only about 3-4" tall.

The one in the picture there is one of those posh tiny green French ones. There's a couple of the larger green ones but they aren't flowering yet.

[galina]

Presumably there is little chance that there could be a wide interspecies cross with peas and lentils.  But has anybody actually ever tried? 

What makes me think you could have already tried to cross them?   

Thank you for showing us. 

Never seen lentils in flower either, just guessed because the flowers looked so small and your hint was helpful!   
 

[Silverleaf]

Presumably there is little chance that there could be a wide interspecies cross with peas and lentils.  But has anybody actually ever tried? 

What makes me think you could have already tried to cross them?   

Thank you for showing us. 

Never seen lentils in flower either, just guessed because the flowers looked so small and your hint was helpful!   
 

I'd have thought they were too unrelated to cross (lentils are Lens and peas are Pisum) and I hadn't even considered trying it.

The flowers are so tiny it'd require some dexterous scalpel work and I wouldn't dream of trying to emasculate one of them to use as the female.

But hey, I could take pollen...

[Robert_Brenchley]

It looks like one of the vetches.

[Silverleaf]

It looks like one of the vetches.

You're right, it does look like a vetch. I have wild common vetch growing in the orchard, and apart from the lentil plants being smaller and more delicate and having pale flowers, they are very similar.

[Silverleaf]

First proper taste of Telephone this evening, from this handful of pods. I thought it was interesting that there's some obvious genetic variation showing here in the shape of the pods.

The pods on the right have pointed ends. The ones on the left are blunt. This is controlled by the bt gene - blunt pods (Bt) are dominant over pointed ones (bt). One of the middle pods is showing a definite curve and another one has some curve too. I don't know what causes that, but most of the pods don't have it.

It surprised me because I kind of think that plants of a particular variety will be identical, and they are not. I guess since pod shape doesn't make any difference to the taste of the peas no-one's ever thought to standardise Telephone's pods - what would be the point when you don't eat them? But it's fun to think there are probably loads of other differences between the plants that aren't even visible.

So how does Telephone taste? Very good. :) They fooled me though, because although the pods looked nice and fat the peas were still a little small - apparently they keep getting bigger after the pod looks mature so you have to wait until they start to look a bit leathery. I knew about this but still picked too early! I know now though... ;)

[galina]

I made the same observation last year.  Cannot remember whether it was with Telephone or Alderman though.  Have to go through notes here.  I was puzzled and wondered whether my seeds were not pure.

You even have a curved pod.  Is that another gene again?

[Silverleaf]

No they're pure, just varied in traits that the original developers didn't care about I guess.

There are four different genes that make pods curved; co, con, cp1 and cp2. I don't know which ones are at work here, possibly several.

Haven't seen any blunt pods in my seed-saving peas.

[Silverleaf]

So a few years ago I bought a packet of Sugar Bon seeds from Lidl for cheap. The packet (and the internet) says that Sugar Bon is short (3ft or so) with snap pods. I don't usually bother much with short peas since I'm very tight on space, but I decided I'd sow a few this year just to see what they're like.

Right from the start it was obvious that the plants weren't going to be short. And when the first pod formed, it was obvious it wasn't a snap pod.

The plants are now getting on for 7ft and producing decent-sized mangetout pods which don't taste bad at all.

It's not Sugar Bon though! I don't know what it is, but I'm adding it to my future mangetout/snap landrace. I probably should think of a new name for it though!

[Silverleaf]

Lentil pods, with a couple of greenfly for scale. ;)

There seems to be 2 lentils per pod, with about 5-6 pods on this plant. I think I have maybe 6 plants. Certainly not enough to eat!

[galina]

Lentil pods, with a couple of greenfly for scale. ;)

There seems to be 2 lentils per pod, with about 5-6 pods on this plant. I think I have maybe 6 plants. Certainly not enough to eat!

They are tiny.  Makes you wonder how the lentil as a species managed to not only survive but get popular when there is so little to harvest.  You need a lot of space with such low yield.  And the handling isn't easy or quick either.  It must be their fast cooking qualities, compared to soaking for dried beans and peas?

Very interesting.  Thank you for showing us. 

[Silverleaf]

I reckon you could cram a whole lot of plants in a small space like you do with peas - I planted these out at 6"', but they aren't filling the space up so I think they'd be fine at double the density or even closer.

If I have space next year I'll set aside a few squares (I'm a square foot gardener) and try different densities and see which provides the best yield.

It's also worth noting that these are the tiny little posh French lentils. The bigger ones of course would provide more food, but I don't know if the plants are bigger too though.

[Silverleaf]

It's interesting to note that the lentils don't seem to be affected at all by mildew like their pea neighbours. I guess they're much more drought tolerant.

[galina]

And here is one for you all to guess - again a tiny, tiny pea type flower.

[Silverleaf]

Interesting!

[galina]

Interesting!

It is also an edible legume and if I get enough for everybody I will add it to the seed circle.  The foliage must taste fabulous, according to the pigeon damage here 

[Silverleaf]

The leaves look like chickpeas. I grew a handful of them a few years ago, but I don't remember what the flowers looked like.

[Jayb]

I love the colour