I have a lot of plants this year producing exserted stigmas on their flowers, which is not something I saw at all last year. The same plants will also produce normal flowers. It is only within the roveja population. None of the other peas I have are doing this. If there were more flowers doing this and pollinators out, it seems like a good way to allow for promiscuity, but unfortunately few insects visit them this time of year when more attractive flowers are blooming.
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That’s a pity that the pollinators aren’t doing much yet, but it’s neat that they’re doing it!
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That’s really interesting and exciting!
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Does roveja cross with other types of peas?
They should be in Pisum sativum, or common pea family, and readily able to cross.
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Hi! I’ve been considering starting a project on garden peas but I’ve been a bit put off by how early the flowers develop and limited natural crossing. I was curious if roveja had the possibility of open flowers because it’s such an old variety, I’m excited to hear that it does! Did you happen to save seed from those open flowers? Were they open enough for pollinators to get to the pollen, or just for the stigma to come out? I’m curious if this is somewhat common for roveja, or if you just got the perfect batch of seeds.
I have a small population of native bees, very tiny, about the size of a sugar ant, their pollen bags are just little dots on their legs. They like to follow me around the garden as I open the flowers, they seem to love the pea pollen and will try going in before I have the keel all the open! I think they’d be great help in a project.
The open flowers seem to develop primarily on the first couple of sets of flowers of the blooming period. Later flowers on the same plant will be normal. I have never tried to separate these plants from the population, but it might be a characteristic that can be exploited.
Often, the flower is so deformed that the stigma is nowhere near the anthers and cannot self-pollinate itself. In this case, it likely requires pollination from an insect. I have tried to work on a pea plant that had extremely deformed flowers (photo below) that were much like leaves. None of these flowers set pods, which makes me wonder if the deformed flowers are able to be fertile.
That’s very cool to hear about your little bee helpers!
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