The photo is what Carol Deppe wrote about lettuce in Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties. She also says that crossing rate of domestic lettuce is 1-6% via flies, insects.
It’s likely that those with the same chromosome numbers may cross.
10 Likes
Thank you!
2022 is the first year I heard about wild lettuce. Now with all the pictures everyone is posting I’m sure there is plenty around my place. It will be fun to see what I find come spring. Im interested in sharing seeds for landrace too if it’s offered this coming season. 
3 Likes
One key sentence from the abstract: Results show that cultivar group, rather than the genetic origin (modern vs. landrace), is the major source of variation for all agronomic and quality traits. Batavia and Butterhead were highly homogeneous cultivar groups, while Cos accessions showed a much higher intra-varietal diversity. There was also a clear separation between modern and landrace varieties of Oak leaf
The interest of farmers in growing lettuce landraces is increasing, as landrace varieties prove particularly appealing to consumers striving to purchase natural, local, and high-quality produce. Although high genetic diversity exists in the landrace gene pool, this has scarcely been studied, thus hindering landrace utilization in agriculture. In this study, we analyzed the genetic diversity and the agronomic and quality traits of lettuce landraces in organic agrosystems, by characterizing 16 landraces and 16 modern varieties. We compared 29 morphological descriptors, and several traits relating to agronomic behavior (total and commercial weight, resistance to Bremia lactucae) and quality (color, chlorophyll, dry matter, and total sugars). Trials were conducted in two localities and managed following organic farming practices. Moreover, farmers and consumers participated in the phenotyping of accessions by scoring yield, resistance to B. lactucae, appearance, and taste acceptance. Results show that cultivar group, rather than the genetic origin (modern vs. landrace), is the major source of variation for all agronomic and quality traits. Batavia and Butterhead were highly homogeneous cultivar groups, while Cos accessions showed a much higher intra-varietal diversity. There was also a clear separation between modern and landrace varieties of Oak leaf. Fifteen out of the 16 evaluated landraces presented a high susceptibility to the particular B. lactucae race isolated from the experimental field - a new race not reported before. Breeding programs intended to introgress genetic resistance to this pathogen are a major priority to recover the cultivation of lettuce landraces. Principal component analysis (PCA), conducted on all quantitative data, showed a clear differentiation between modern varieties and landraces, mostly related to their commercial weight and susceptibility to B. lactucae. These seem the most important traits influencing farmer and consumer evaluations. Farmers showed a high capacity for characterizing the samples and agreed with consumers when scoring for the external appearance. It is proposed that farmers and consumers should be included in the phenotyping platforms in future research projects aiming for recovery of landraces.
It’s really a shame the wild lettuce that crosses freely with our domesticated lettuce is the nasty bitter thorny one. That implies that’s the species humans domesticated.
On the other hand, that also implies the other species are just waiting to be domesticated, and they may very well have more potential to be pleasant and tasty, so this may represent an opportunity!
1 Like
Now I see lettuce everywhere I go! On our farm I have seen little or no Lactuca sativa however I have been visiting the ditches in down the holler and bringing back possible L. sativa transplants.
Today I also discovered that celtuce is also Lactuca sativa which is good to know because I was already planning to put some out in area where I also have some cultivated lettuce varieties. I don’t think I will be intentionally crossing anything, but now that I am more tuned in to lettuce I will keep an eye out for spontaneous hybrids. Very enjoyable!
Edit: I have never grown celtuce before. The reason I purchased seeds is because of claims like this: “What makes Celtuce so unique is that, unlike the other lettuces we covered previously, it can be consumed after it has bolted with no effect on flavor. Plus, it doesn’t look like your typical lettuces, but instead more like a cross between lettuce and celery.” Source: Celtuce or Stem Lettuce - The Permaculture Research Institute
2 Likes
My experience is that those claims about about celtuce are not true, but it might be to do with my climate. I only have summer season and once lettuce starts to bolt it happens so fast. Celtuce is not the fastest to bolt and maybe doesn’t go bad right at bolting, but season is done there. Also stem hasn’t been edible here. Again might be to do with just having summer to grow, that stem never gets thick. Still maybe one of the better type of lettuce and maybe it works differently places that have long mild spring/autumn.
1 Like
In case someone missed it.
Wikipedia says this…last sentence i found interesting.
Lettuce varieties will cross with each other, making spacing of 1.5 to 6 m (60 to 240 in) between varieties necessary to prevent contamination when saving seeds. Lettuce will also cross with Lactuca serriola (wild lettuce), with the resulting seeds often producing a plant with tough, bitter leaves. Celtuce, a lettuce variety grown primarily in Asia for its stems, crosses easily with lettuces grown for their leaves.[18] This propensity for crossing, however, has led to breeding programs using closely related species in Lactuca, such as L. serriola, L. saligna, and L. virosa, to broaden the available gene pool. Starting in the 1990s, such programs began to include more distantly related species such as L. tatarica.
1 Like
I love reading this thread. Here I thought lettuce was simple. We leave the wild prickly lettuce (not sure of species) in and around the garden because: 1) our chickens love it 2) it is home to hundreds of lady bugs every early spring before we have too many other plants thriving yet. I have noticed that there is great variation in the taste of the early leaves of these prickly lettuces. Sometimes I like them, sometimes they have no flavor, and sometimes they’re super bitter despite being young. I might just start paying more attention to these individual differences from now on…
A tasting side note: Since I’m tasting the same individual plants throughout the day with many groups of students, I’m noticing that flavors of the exact same individuals vary quite a bit both through the day and through the season. Eg. chard, kale, parsley, etc. Sometimes they’re much sweeter (chard tastes salty sometimes) – surprisingly, it’s not always correlated with cold/heat. I’m starting to wonder if my taste bud/brain processing varies – ha!
5 Likes
There is info out there that show most plants have a peak nutrition time of day. For grazing finishing animals (fattening to be butchered) it’s ideal to move them in the afternoon because that’s when brix measurements are highest in the forages.
I’d imagine something similar.
1 Like
2PIwvss6pDEM9fJ44YCfNE58.jpeg)
Last summer I trialed 5 kinds of very early maturing lettuce varieties. We had record breaking high temperatures and sunshine causing such fast growth I couldn’t keep up with my succession plantings which led me to leaving two varieties planted next to each other in the ground with the idea that I’d tru to cross them and save their seeds.
The “Bibb” lettuce was extremely beautiful as it formed its tall flower stalks. The “Tango” was kinds shabby but I loved the tiny crunchy heads it formed before going to seed. I had high hopes of naming the resulting cross “bingo”. (I didn’t realize at the time they had such low crossing rates.) All was going swell until the weather took a turn. The last half of our short season was rain, day in, day out and my pretty blooming lettuce did not make it all the way to seed.
Lettuce grows great here but has a hard time completing its lifecycle unless in a greenhouse. Many people report it self sowing in their high tunnels. I look forward to another try at growing lettuce to seed outdoors and now that I’ve learned more from Joseph and this thread there are a couple things id do different such as mixing the varieties up more so they are closer to each other while flowering.
4 Likes
Welcome Lora. Great looking lettuces! The leaves of thé lettuce in thé first photo, they are so intense green!
It looks like spinach. What is it’s name?
Hi Morvan,
thank you and those pretty ones are called “Bibb” Lettuce. They grow small butterhead type heads. I liked them, especially for their nice darker green color.
Similar to Hugo Morvan, I have a cross between Morrocan green salad and Outredgeous selections or possibly Merlot. This is F1 generation and I was surprised when several crossed plants poped up in my autumn planting. At least one of them comes from Morrocan green seeds aka mother plant, according to some photos of seedlings that I have, for others I’m not sure.
I’ve started some seedlings for spring planting from same batches of seed, we’ll see if more crosses occur, it’s still too early to tell
As far as drought resistance, Morrocan salad worked the best from all varieties that were growing last spring, including 3 already named, one mix of varieties and one traditional cultivar (but seed was grown in the continental part of my country, I’ll try to get some grown on islands or coastal part this year, it should work better).
For this season I’m glad to see that my own seed (aka that F1 generation) is mostly popping up faster, you can see my little experiment below (F0 is the original seed that I bought). I will pay attention to differences in behaviour between autumn and spring sown plants for both F0 and F1 plants, and off course keep an eye on that lovely crosses. I can already tell that autumn F1 plants grew better than F0 ones through winter months.
I’m also hoping for higher quality of seeds this year. And more of it. Last year we had drought from January through end of summer and we hit 30°C mid May, it’s wonder those salads managed to produce any seed at all (also considering seed was bought and not that much adapted to brittle climate on the island and our very shallow soils).
Plan is to store seed in separate groups by varieties or characteristics of mother plant, at least until I bulk it up some more and decide do I want to mix it all together or keep some of those reds separate. I guess it also depends on how much crossing does occur in my garden
2 Likes
Hello Mare K. Those look gooooood!
My babycross Morrocan/4 seasons didn’t survive the winter.
But good to hear you also had succes crossing with thé Moroccan. Maybe they’re closer to thé wild varieties peeps on thé other side of thé Atlantic have succès with crossing. To investigate!
I got quite some seeds of it to try making crosses.
I will add some Morrocan with each sowing of my prefered salads this year. To be continued!
And i got a bag of Poot his Marrocan salad. Poot is a French seed saver who sells seeds from plants hé doesn’t water. Although he has completely differing snails then i do, and mine just devour his plants!
Very interesting! All of the prickly lettuce leaves I’ve tried to eat have been intensely, revoltingly bitter. Maybe I should try them when the plants are first sprouting in spring.
Of course, I’m still going to pull them out of my yard. Thorns aren’t welcome here. But I’ll mind them a lot less if they’re palatable (and non-poisonous) to eat after I pull them out.
Hi Hugo!
Yes, I was really happy to see we both had some crossing with that same variety. We can exchange experience and maybe even some seeds in the future
I didn’t do detailed notes on that round of lettuce, but from cca 20 plants of F1 generation, 4 of them are crosses, others look like original varieties. That’s either an unusually high cross rate or I was lucky and picked a higher number of crossed seeds for that round of sowing.
I’ll have to see what the next round of the same generation (F1 seeds) looks like and if I’ll get some more crosses this spring.
I tried to find a bit more about the Morocan green salad and it’s an old / rustical variety from Italy recently renamed Cressonnette du Maroc in France. Recommended for permaculture and agroecology, heat tolerant and cold hardy, with a great capacity to reseed itself naturally.
I’m thinking this could be more of a traditional cultivar type with some more genetic diversity, it’s reported characteristics and those crosses that both of us got are in line with the idea of a more diverse cultivar…
Re Poot and his seed - I found about him this winter and was really excited to see that he grows without watering during hot and dry summers. I finally managed to order some seeds from him last week 
(due to large postal costs to Croatia I had to wait for my sister to go to France and back).
Sorry to hear your baby cross didn’t survive, I’m sending some positive vibes to your salads for some more successfull crossing!!!
Hi Mare! Poots seeds are great, but slugs really like the seedlings! They need some help at start. Where he lives there are thousands and thousands of snails, fewer slugs.
And they need to cross after with locally adapted plants.
I was gone during last years drought spell but his courgette plants did great. I suspect his génome is really, really good at getting roots to form mycorrhizal fungi bonds.
This is what it looks like in south of France too!
I have spoken to him in my shitty French about mixing varieties and had brought Joseph’s book. He looked at me like hé saw water burning. He turned to speak to my gf to speak of bees that do pollination. It was too funny. We had driven for hours. Wwoofers there busy with seeds said he rarely stops for a little talk to form visitors.
I was really lucky to get that chance. He is legendary amongst permaculture farmers in France.
But i will go again and offer him the French version once it is ready!
Is catsear lettuce ever cultivated?
It is common in this area, although I never paid attention until I started practicing lettuce identification. I have munched a few leaves from feral catsear and have not encountered bitterness. The species I think I’m seeing here is Hypochaeris radicata, but I am new to IDing this genus and it could be I am looking at a different member of the group.
The various Hypochaeris spp. seem to be edible by quick reputation check on the web, but again I’m new to this genus, I don’t know much.
Yes, that’s probably it. That would be a neat project for the students to test with refractometer!