New Landraces using existing Landraces

Hello all. This year I am selecting from some of the best F1 hybrids and the demasculating them and allowing my Lofthouse (as well as some other Landraces) to donate the male pollen. From these crosses I will be developing new lines of Landraces with the specific traits I am looking for as well as needing little inputs and watering. A good example of this is the Suyo Long Cucumber along with several of the F1 long Asian cucumber types that I will be crossing into the cucumber everything mix. Actually I will be allowing the cucumber everything mix to cross into all these Asian long types. Let me know what you all think of the idea.

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Sounds good to me. I think several others here are working with cucumbers as well.

I haven’t planted mine yet because I have omnivorous velociraptors. :slight_smile: :upside_down_face:

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Great way to go I think. Is there a chance of CMS in the F1 hybrids? That would be the only thing that would put me off.

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I love hybrids between landraces and commercial hybrids, for example Astronomy Domini sweet corn pollinated by Ambrosia. That retains the strong seed coat of Astronomy Domini, and 1/4 of the kernels in the next generation express the sugary enhanced trait. So you get the reliability and remarkable flavor of the old-fashioned sweet corn, and a little extra sweetness. However the cross doesn’t work in the other direction, because the seed coat lacks robustness.

My original grex contained Asian cucumbers, however their traits died out during localization.

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Ha ha ha ha! Dinosaurs who love to scratch up all your mulch and strew it around too, I’m sure.

Not with the varieties I use. They are carefully researched and then decided upon.

If i am understanding this correctly, you will have several separate landraces, one each which is half of an existing variety and half of the starting landrace. And you will keep each line separate and select for a trait or two uou like for each new line?

My question is what is the value of keeping all of the new lines separate? Could you combine into all one landrace and then just make sure to save seeds from each trait you like each year in order to keep those traits alive through the generations?

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Oh, yes. But for some reason they don’t want to play in the great big pile of woodchips, but only what I’ve already spread.

Maybe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery for dinosaurs as well? They want to do what they see me doing?

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That’s possible! It’s also possible that they’ve learned your presence often correlates with food. :wink:

You understood correctly to a point. They will be new landraces by being half landrace and half F1 hybrids. Those lines will of course be recombined. That way I can make my selections and others can make their own selections as well.

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Sounds awesome to me!

I’m working with cucumbers too - this is Year 2 and I’m not doing anything nearly as specific as you are. I’m just mixing lots of heirloom varieties and a couple of grexes from EFN (and seeds from what survived in Year 1) and letting it all promiscuously pollinate. Curious why you’re using only F1 hybrids. Also, why do you have the crosses going in one direction only - is this so you can be sure of not reverting to the parents of the F1s?