Selecting biannuals: carrot, radish, rutabaga, parsnip, beetroot selection +spinach, chard and turnip in the greenhouse

[ThomasPicard]

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…

[MalcolmS (Malcolm Schluenderfritz)]

I have no experience. That being said . . . I would save seeds from any cabbages that survive the first year! That is what I am planning to do (if any come back; I am still waiting to see.) My climate is not conducive to growing cabbages, so I figure that any which first survive the late summer and then survive the winter should be kept. Next year, I can select for heading.

[anon14613632]

I’ve got 2 cabbages that are forming good heads. I hope they produce seed before the infamous cabbage moth invades. I thought I sowed at least a couple hundred cabbage seeds last year when it was really hot and dry. Only about 4 came up. I ate the 2 smaller ones and tasted delicious.

I have found a seed company that offers many different hybrid cabbage varieties at a good cost. Since I am just getting started with cabbage, I want to enter the Dark Side of the force by choosing only hybrid varieties with cabbage and see what develops over the years. I won’t be sharing my seeds unless someone specific asks for them.

To answer your question, I was confronted with a similar problem with broccoli. I decided to terminate all but the top 3 plants. Hopefully I will get some seed. But I see it now as poor seed is worse than no seed. I would rather start over with new possibilities.

[gregg_muller]

Haven’t worked with brassicas, but there are a few general principles.
It will depend on your resources, seed availability and growing area and available time, and what your objectives are.

It looks like you have got survivors of tough growing conditions - this is good, and I would want to keep those genetics. I would want these survivors to cross so i could stack their survivor genes. My thought is these are the difficult genetics to select for. Replant the F1 seed from these lines, interplanted with additional normal heading varieties . Do the F1 plants produce great food? continue and maybe pull the normal ones. Marginal food? let them cross with the normals, and take seed from your grex plants hoping they have crossed. and gained some of the good eating genes from the normals. Are they complete weaklings and rubbish food? pull them and start again with the new normals.

[ThomasPicard]

@anon14613632

I won’t be sharing my seeds unless someone specific asks for them.

That is sound. Would do that certainly.

On the other side I have a kale grex of f1s which now I am sure do well after this second generation. Selected from the best of last year (dry and cold).
This last year I harvestef all my zauerkraut cabbages (ball-head)before flowering, which were nearby, as all are the same species and as I didn’t want too wide crosses.

[ThomasPicard]

@gregg_muller

It looks like you have got survivors of tough growing conditions - this is good, and I would want to keep those genetics. I would want these survivors to cross so i could stack their survivor genes. My thought is these are the difficult genetics to select for. Replant the F1 seed from these lines, interplanted with additional normal heading varieties . Do the F1 plants produce great food? continue and maybe pull the normal ones. Marginal food? let them cross with the normals, and take seed from your grex plants hoping they have crossed. and gained some of the good eating genes from the normals. Are they complete weaklings and rubbish food? pull them and start again with the new normals.

Seems like an appropriate startegy! Thanks Gregg. I may also anticipe the culling of some, and interplant at higher densities.
This is strain of sauerkraut cabbage that did excellent last yeat https://www.sativa.bio/en/waedenswiler-prospecierara-ko84 . That is a heirloom, maintained by the great breeders at Sativa, one of the very rare european seed seller doing some serious breeding work. This cabbage needs to be sown early to form heads harvested in late october. So it is kind of different timing as I want some of my ball-head cabbages to be harvested in winter. But as they did so well I may interplant my f1s with these reliable ones actually: that could help creating a grex of ball-heat cabbages with extended harvesting season.

[RobinS (Robin)]

My approach to saving seeds from biennial root crops is to harvest everything to check for proper root formation and minimal pest damage to the root. I select for size, vigorous growth, etc. then take the best and replant them in a different bed with spacing that allows for the large second year top growth and good cross-pollination. This way I don’t have a big second year plant in my main production beds.

This has been important for carrots and parsnips since some of them get bifurcated and/or odd root growth. They still taste fine but that’s not what I want to propagate.

I also plant the long roots like parsnips laying on their side so I don’t have to dig a huge hole. The new roots come up just fine this way. So far.

[ThomasPicard]

Thanks Robin. I will surely do as you say in later years.
As I am rotating cover crop and vegetable crops in my garden and as I have really lot of room, I will be cultivating in other beds this spring + sow a summer cover crop within this big flowering patch of root vegetable in June (buckwheat, sunflower and co). I will select on foliage vigor and root formation next year.
I note there was a correlation between foliage and root size… But obviously that said nothing about bifurcation! I will have to dig up those of next year for selecting for the unbifurcated trait.

[Nancy (Nancy Reading)]

This will be my third year growing crop for saving, so am still at a very early stage (first year almost nothing grew to maturity ) . I did get carrot seed last year and since I had such a poor year, just let them all grow and cross. Hopefully the ones that survive will have good genes to pass on. Just getting a successful plant is enough for now!
Last year I grew swede (rutabaga) successfully (unfortunately they did so well they swamped out my other root crops so no more carrots!). What I wish I had done is plant the different swede sources separately, so that I could let some of each variety go to seed next year and get the widest cross possible. As it is I can only select plants at random to grow on. I will also sow more new swede this year in such a way that I can tell them apart, and leave more room for the other roots.
As regards transplanting. I was thinking of planting the selected roots quite close together just on the edges of my growing area - I should get easier cross pollination and they will take up less room.

[gregg_muller]

Nancy, I plant my second year roots quite close together. ~ 10-15 cm spacing. This saves room, and applies additional selection pressure -the more robust plants flower more vigorously.

[anon14613632]

I think I will be eating cabbage this weekend!

I have wondered the same thing about my carrots, but it hasn’t yet occurred to me about cabbage and Brussels sprouts. Those are the two ones I am most interested in, those and turnip greens.

I know my radish have started the beginnings of the reproductive phase, so I guess there’s some hope.

If I manage to have success, I’ll need to collaborate with someone who gets a proper winter to test bolting quality and select for cold tolerance for me in exchange for getting all that seed.

Or maybe I will throw in a bonus and grow out their seed to select for heat tolerance and tastes in hotter conditions!

[MalcolmS (Malcolm Schluenderfritz)]

I don’t have a philosophical problem with keeping pollen-sterile plants from hybrids, but in response to Austin’s post above, I did want to point out that any genetics contained in a pollen-sterile plant (other than the pollen-sterility itself) will not persist in a landrace. Instead, their offspring will become pollen-sterile versions of any pollen-fertile varieties that are included. This is because in each generation, they receive pollen from the other varieties, while contributing none, and the resulting seeds contain half of their genetics and half from the pollen donor. In the first year, half of their genetics are lost; in the second year, another half, and so on. So there is no real benefit to including any pollen-sterile hybrids (which is most commercial hybrids for brassicas, carrots, etc.). (Also, if they are ALL pollen sterile, no seeds will be produced.)

[anon14613632]

Thanks for the warning. For Brussells sprouts and cabbage, I will do exclusive hybrid varieties. It will be no open pollinated or heirloom varieties to cross with.

I want to see how true all of those facts are.

I have a feeling some hybrid varieties are not sterile. If I was a seed company, I would try to piggy back off all the fear about cms and create an open pollenated variety and label it as hybrid so I can significantly reduce my cost yet gain the protection the word “hybrid” affords.

Either way, I don’t get focused on what may happen according to the book. There are so many things involved, I would rather just plant the seeds, do what I can to encourage cross pollination, and see what happens.

[ThomasPicard]

@anon14613632

I have a feeling some hybrid varieties are not sterile

I have a feeling that some hybrid varieties are not hybrid at all. Here in Europe I saw some catalogues with many f1s, or said to be so. I believe some are not. Actually a market gardener friend reproduced some so called “f1” seeds, which in later generations were exactly the same as the so called f1 generations. So they were not.
I believe some sellers try to prevent gardeners from trying to reproduce their seeds by using that naming. I think about squash seed sellers notably.
These are not the majority of course.

[anon14613632]

Right, so the idea is to soak up all that hybrid goodness first. Then let a few years pass by getting rid of all the kinks. Then move into heirlooms afterwards.

If I already had a good supply of heirlooms, I probably wouldn’t do this. Starting from scratch, this is my plan.

[MalcolmS (Malcolm Schluenderfritz)]

If you do this, it would be great if you kept the rows separate initially, and let us know which ones produced pollen! That would be very useful information, since we would then know which hybrids are not pollen sterile (or not hybrids, which comes to the same thing for our purposes.)

The only hybrid brassica I’ve grown out is Belstar broccoli, and it doesn’t produce pollen.

[anon14613632]

My wife bought me 3 heirloom cabbage varieties today, so it’s going to not be just hybrids.

I agree. It would be worth it to keep the grow-out labeled like you say so other people can take advantage of the information learned.

I will keep the heirlooms as far away from hybrids as I can, only to keep pollen share limited from heirloom to hybrid.

[anon14613632]

@MarkReed

You might be able to harvest the head but keep the root alive to sprout back and flower next year.

Looking b-e-a-utiful! We are having cabbage today and leaving the root in the ground.

[Hugo (Hugo Morvan)]

I like you have a strategy, i get confused along the way mostly, i try to aim for maximum diversity. The most vigorous growers normally will have the most seeds. So next year seedlings will mostly be of those. Or i dry them apart and make sure…

Spinach. You’ve selected the biggest ones a month ago. What if they’re all from one variety that has a good year? You’ll miss out on all the other genetics if you eat all the others. Maybe for instance super cold resistant ones that stayed smaller this year, because it was a warm winter.
I rip out smaller ones that don’t stand competition. And ones that get deformed leaves, do you get that at all?
The ones that look less vibrant green, i’ll eat. I eat all the rubbish basicly. And then when i’m happy with what’s there i start taking leaves one here, one there, one there. It takes some time, but it works fine for me, i get to check all of them that way, if i see a caterpillar i get it out.

Beetroot is very dramatic here as well, all the big ones that survived minus 12 degrees C(53F) just lose their leafs and rot, because of four month of rain, rain, rain. And not a lot of sunhours at all. Some smaller ones survive but don’t know if i’ll add much of them in the grex. Happy to see you do landrace those!

My chards i’ve let go. Their seeds fell, left, right and center already in autumn, some grew already then, some came now. I can’t say which grows more vigorous, i usually safe the Biggest One seperately and if seeding, next season half of it will be that one. I don’t do colors much. Let it all cross freely for some seasons.

My parsnip mix, consists of two varieties only, i’ve spread them through all the beds to see if they will grow a bit more wildly. The varieties you’ve given me, i’ve put in the hoophouse for seedmultiplying, so i’ll have lots in spring to mix into a controlled grex.

I don’t even eat much of the damned things, they can rot away in the soil whatever awful shape they hide under ground. I ain’t digging them out unless i eat them. My plan is to have them a bit everywhere to repair the soil.

Carrots i gave up on saving their seeds. Too many wild ones around. I suck at growing radishes and the rutabaga seems to be doing fine for the first time.

I don’t even start round brassicas. I’ve heard it doesn’t want to form cabbages on acidy poor granite soils. Even the Brussel’s sprouts didn’t work. I had beautiful crosses, but no round sprouts. Just ate a few leaves. I’m moving towards Perennial Kales, ordered a grex from Denmark. I had ordered 4 packages. They’re fuller then expected. If your’re interested i could send to you.

[ThomasPicard]

@Hugo

Spinach. You’ve selected the biggest ones a month ago. What if they’re all from one variety that has a good year? You’ll miss out on all the other genetics if you eat all the others. Maybe for instance super cold resistant ones that stayed smaller this year, because it was a warm winter.
I rip out smaller ones that don’t stand competition. And ones that get deformed leaves, do you get that at all?
The ones that look less vibrant green, i’ll eat. I eat all the rubbish basicly. And then when i’m happy with what’s there i start taking leaves one here, one there, one there. It takes some time, but it works fine for me, i get to check all of them that way, if i see a caterpillar i get it out.

What you wrote will influence my selection! Thanks!
I realised that when I marked spinaches it was also to prevent my neighbours from taking the biggest one, as it is a shared greenhouse. Also yes all the marked ones could come from a single variety. And it is a first year grex, with about 10 varieties. So no cross already happened. And then most of plants (about 100 or so) are doing fine. So for this year I’ll crush the few ill ones, if there is any… then harvest half of them to reduce density: just harvesting one out two or 2 out of free on each line, and then uproot those harvested plants., and eventually let what’s left cross.
So intentionnal selection will happen next year.

On the turnip side I am considering cuting the first flowers of the most early-flowering varieties to maximise crosses’ chances.