Hi, just to show what I was doing this afternoon, and the simplicity of it.
So it is kind of simple: here most roots overwinter in the ground.
Fast plan I did last year, with colour code for each species:
And here is how it looks like right now, after selection:
So I ve had direct sown or transplanted my root crops in different parallel lines during summer, which I weeded once or twice later Today I first started by weeding once again using a hoe.
Then I did my selection. It took me about 3 hour to complete it.
Carrots (one line of 3 not far from each other):
Rutabagas:
Black radishes:
Forgot to take a picture of parsnips but same story, and about the same distancing. I had also 2 lines of beetroot: most rot during our last 4 months of heavy rains. I kept all the 7-8 roots still alive to make crosses this spring. So it has been a selection on excess humidity! Not hardiness as our winter was mild.
As my main objective is crosses themselves - this is a first year grexes- and as I found that all varieties tasted fine, today I didn’t taste roots, I was just looking at keeping all the varieties I planted : so for example leaving different kinds of orange carrots, and different colors of carrots. Same story with rutabagas, parsnip, etc
These are some roots I harvested because too small or too dense on the line:
In between seed bearing lines some roots are still to be harvested : for example I kept one line of parsnips in between my radishes and my rutabagas, as can be seen on previous photos. These will be gone by a month or so. So before heading.
First time I do that!
Then in my greenhouse:
Spinach : the orange things mark the most vigourous, and there is about 12 plants marked out of 100. I will eat all the others before flowering. I put these orange things more than one month ago as it was easier to see what was most vigourous. There is quite a few varieties involved, once again.
Chard:
Same story, done one month ago, but I select also for appearent differences: colors, etc.
Turnip:
There I keep them all for seeds, as I had many varieties sown but low germination rate and eventually very few plants in the greenhouse:
Zis is ze Big One:
Then, surprise surprise! My very very shitty cabbages with nearly no heads, as they lacked water very much last summer
I crushed a few with no head at all as you see on the ground.
I believe, as the varieties implicated are from good sources, that I can hope for much better result in generations after the crosses - if I water enough and boost the soil gently: it was a first year cultivation on a very poor soil.
And you, what would you do? Anyone experienced in creating grexes/landraces from poor crops? Would you select from these ball-head-with-no-head cabbages in future years, or would you start again next year with a proper crop?
As I found very boring the time spent to sow seeds of about 10 different varieties in 10 separate breeding grounds to make sure I would have my first crosses, I don’t want to start again. I would go for “hope” this time, but curious to hear from those experienced in grexes starting on a “”“wrong”“” track…