What do you find is the landracing crop that requires the most work from you? What’s the least? Or, alternatively, what do you put the most and least work into?
Squash and favas, with their ability to easily cross, are taking very little of my garden planning time. They also take very little of my gardening time in summer: maybe give them a little water, then come back and harvest in fall. I don’t spend a lot of time hunting down new squashes or favas for some trait I really want but can’t find. I have lists of the original contributions to my grexes but I don’t spend a lot of thought on them.
Corn and peppers are in the middle ground: I spend a lot of time playing with my corn seeds, sorting and whatnot, but it was relatively easy to set up my projects and decide on forks, and after handling row covers and again some watering I can come back at the end of the year and harvest, though I may also do some hand pollen spreading.
Tomatoes ( obviously ) take the most of my time and effort. From starting indoors, to wanting a much more demanding range of flavours and less common plant shapes, to manual crosses because of the much lower outcrossing rate, to data collection on flower types and plant shapes and earliness, to even harvesting throughout the year, this is where the most of my energy goes. Don’t get me wrong: I could probably make a bunch of choices to reduce my level of work but I don’t, since I find it fun and I want to achieve some pretty ambitious goals and timelines.
What landrace has been the least work for you? What’s been the most work for you?
What have you put a ton of not-strictly-necessary work into because it was fun? What clever ways have you avoided work on a landrace because you didn’t enjoy that work?
I think this is going to depend alot on climate and personality. I’m in Ohio and comparatively it’s way easier for me to grow lots of things than many others and where they live.
I also think it depends on how particular you are about the end result. Like Joseph, as long as it’s a Maxima and it ripens and tastes good. If he wanted to split it out into certain skin colors or shapes it could easily be five years of selection for those traits on top of the work he’s already done.
I’m keeping my landraces pretty open ended for now. As I get a few years in I think I’ll end up with nature doing alot of selection removing whatever doesn’t like my soil and way I do things.
For squash I think alot of selection is already done because of the varieties I’m choosing to start with. I should have minimal traits I know I don’t want. I’ll probably select out buttercup squash because I don’t really care for the shape or the button bottom that can cause it to not store as long.
I did get the the maxima and moschata seed from ‘going to seed’ and plan to find somewhere away from the garden to plant them to see what comes out. That way I don’t have to later root out unwanted types. I’d rather grow them apart and bring it in to the main landrace later if wanted. This is more work and management initially but much less work over time.
I’ll be doing alot of management with tomatoes because I have lots of seed and I want to trial them alongside each other. I’ll be deciding what I’m not going to bother breeding with… what looks the best to breed with… how early… how productive… what has open flowers or exsertion… doing some manual pollinations…
Alot of things are going to be more letting nature work it out, selection and cross pollinating. I’m trying lots of things that I’ve never grown or know will be challenging. Like carrots and clay soil.
And choosing some things to try overwintering right in the garden with no extra protection. And some to try putting junk bales around and a window over for a simple cold frame protection. And some dug into a pit cellar. And some in the basement to see if the conditions are close enough for storing veg. And as multiple experiments and back ups for the biennial crops.
The natural outbreeders will always be less work. Just selecting the traits you like over time - brassicas, broad beans, cucurbits and corn to name a few. The work here is mostly tracking down varieties to add in.
Tomatoes are a little harder. We want Solanum habrochaites genetics in the mix so hand pollination, at least in the early years, is a must. Once the habro genes are spread around we’ll likely select for flowers that allow easy natural crossing.
We don’t intend spending any time on common beans or peas, indeed, most legumes. We’ll grow what we like. If a cross happens and is noticed, fine. If not, also fine. The one exception is runner beans. We really want to improve their perenniality so we will be selecting for that by preferentially sowing beans that grow on perennial plants.
Lettuce as for most legumes though we will encourage wild lettuce (in our case Lactuca serriola) so that a cross is possible but that’s as far as it goes for this crop.
Potatoes might be a bit of work. Not sure how that will pan out. A direct sowing of true seed yielding decent tubers would be ideal but may be a pipe dream. More likely I suspect is a direct sowing of true seed to harvest small tubers that are then planted the following season.
Ray I am curious why the habrochaites genes in Joseph’s lines are not sufficient for you - are you trying to make a separate landrace from those, without using them? Or, you are using them but want more habrochaites genes in them?
Myself as a beginner, I’m thinking I want to try both routes, use Joseph’s and makes crosses with them too; and also try new combinations of wilds and some domestics that are specifically suited to my area. So I am curious to hear your reasoning and experience on this topic.
I think he means in general, you want to have habro crossed into domestic tomatoes to make them more open flowered and exserted. To make them more open pollinating friendly instead of having only a very small percentage naturally cross pollinate.
We cannot import tomato seeds (nor much else these days) into Australia except at great expense, beyond the home grower I’m afraid. Joseph’s seeds are out of reach for us.
A friend imported Solanum habrochaites many years ago, when it was still called Lycopersicon hirsutum, before restrictions were in place so I have access to those wild genetics. I’m happy to do the work necessary to bring some of these genetics into my tomato landrace.