Golden Sweet x Absolute Zero

[Hector1]

Absolutely wonderful, you must be delighted

[Silverleaf]

Definitely! It's especially pleasing because I wasn't expecting it at all.

[Hector1]

You must be looking forward to tasting

[Galina]

Bottom left pot with 3 seedlings of Goldensweet x Absolute Zero F3. One is 4 times taller than the other two. Easy to spot which will grow into a tall plant even at this stage. Thank you for the seeds. I am looking forward to the flowers and hope to return seeds to you as well, Silverleaf.

[Silverleaf]

Great to see them doing so nicely! I can't remember, were they seeds from the magenta plants?

I haven't been well and haven't even started thinking about what I'm growing until today, but I did pull out my pea stash this morning and started to plan a bit.

I have three little bags of GSxAZ F3 - one from yellow pods and one from muddy wild flowers which I'll grow out in the hope of seeing that mysterious dark yellow pod that will hopefully be hiding in there somewhere. The other is from magenta flowers, which is what I'm really interested in. With any luck that beautiful flower colour will be maintained in this generation too.

[Galina]

Sorry to hear you haven't been well. But glad you are looking forward to sowing and planting. You gave me seeds from magenta flowered plants. There is a second pot with 2 plants, both tall. All have axil colour too. Yes the dark yellow pod would be good. Fingers crossed.

[Silverleaf]

Yes they should all have axil colour, both parents do, and some of the F2s had pinkish stems too. I really should get mine started soon once I work out how to protect them from the cat! (We adopted a stray back in October.)

I really wish I knew what caused that magenta colour! I need a pea genetics expert...

[Galina]

You know how GRIN sometimes lists all the known genes. Here for Absolute Zero: Absolute Zero genotype: A arg B Bt D dp F Fs I le Pl R Phenotype: flowers muddy,bluish-wild. What is the corresponding gene list for Golden Sweet? Can't find any, but perhaps did not look at the right place. However the John Innes gene list has the following:

http://data.jic.ac.uk/cgi-bin/pgene/default.asp?ID=249

Description	Bluish-green pods and immature seeds. Darkening gp colour. Further pleiotrophic effects have been observed involving flower and seed colour. Note; dark green testa colour is inherited as a maternal character.

Further pleiotropic effects involving flower colour. Yes it is dp that probably does it, but what it is interacting with to make magenta?

[Silverleaf]

It's a bit of a mystery, but I suspect you're right that it's dp interacting with something else. All I know for sure about Golden Sweet is that it's A Dco F gp.

[Silverleaf]

I keep looking at this gene Cv http://data.jic.ac.uk/cgi-bin/pgene/default.asp?ID=225 which apparently "strengthens flower colour; modifier" It doesn't make sense because you'd expect to see a dominant trait like that in the parents so I doubt it's even possible, but it's an interesting thought.

[Galina]

I remember how different Unity can look. From almost white on some days to full crimson on others. On the same plants. Can we be absolutely sure that magenta is not simply the showiest side of muddy wild? How can it be determined for sure? Would a cross to a white flowered variety shed more light? I do hope it is a new colour. Fingers crossed.

[Silverleaf]

Hopefully we'll get some clues in the F3 when they flower. I have a decent number of seeds from the magenta plant so I'll hopefully be able to shed some light on it once I see what happens, and of course you have some growing too, so we can put some numbers together.

It could be a hidden gene or genes from the parent(s), or even a spontaneous mutation perhaps. I'll have to have a think about how to test it.

I'm also going to grow out F3s from non-magenta plants (either yellow-podded with wild flowers or green-prodded with muddy flowers). If we see any magenta plants from those then that would support the idea of a recessive trait that wasn't expressed in the parents, perhaps because it's a combination of genes that needed to be just right.

[Silverleaf]

Comparing magenta to Unity's crimson, I definitely saw a lot more variety in Unity (and Telephone x Unity in the F2). Like you say the colour intensity can be very different even on the same plant, and it definitely changes a lot as the flowers age and even as the plant itself ages sometimes. Clearly it's influenced by other factors than just cr alone.

I didn't have many magenta plants but the flowers were much more uniform in colour saturation. Of course the hue shifted to a bluer darker colour over the life of the individual flower just as a wild type flower does, but the colour was always strong and intense rather than seeming to "fade" like Unity can.

[Galina]

Ok good to know, apart from the normal aging that magenta stays quite different from wild or muddy wild and stays different, or at least it did last year. Fingers crossed.

[Galina]

Silverleaf, you wrote: Hopefully we'll get some clues in the F3 when they flower. I have a decent number of seeds from the magenta plant so I'll hopefully be able to shed some light on it once I see what happens, and of course you have some growing too, so we can put some numbers together.

It could be a hidden gene or genes from the parent(s), or even a spontaneous mutation perhaps. I'll have to have a think about how to test it. eoq

If it was recessive, it would stay in future generation. That would be easy. Not quite sure what you mean about getting numbers together - Mendellian ratios? Or simply a number of plants to gain experience from. Both a so far unknown gene combination and/or a new mutation would be exciting. Would you consider running this one past Mike Ambrose of JIC?

[Silverleaf]

Ok good to know, apart from the normal aging that magenta stays quite different from wild or muddy wild and stays different, or at least it did last year. Fingers crossed.

Yes, the was easy to tell at all flower stages that the magenta flowers weren't just the ordinary wild or even the muddy wild. There was a real contrast as soon as you could see the colour developing in the buds.

I still can't quite get over such intense colours in a pea, it was just so unexpected, especially the blue stage where it produced that peacock blue. Amazing!

[Silverleaf]

Silverleaf, you wrote: Hopefully we'll get some clues in the F3 when they flower. I have a decent number of seeds from the magenta plant so I'll hopefully be able to shed some light on it once I see what happens, and of course you have some growing too, so we can put some numbers together.

It could be a hidden gene or genes from the parent(s), or even a spontaneous mutation perhaps. I'll have to have a think about how to test it. eoq

If it was recessive, it would stay in future generation. That would be easy. Not quite sure what you mean about getting numbers together - Mendellian ratios? Or simply a number of plants to gain experience from. Both a so far unknown gene combination and/or a new mutation would be exciting. Would you consider running this one past Mike Ambrose of JIC?

Yes, I just meant the Mendelian ratios. The more plants we have to give us data the clearer the results will be. I have 60 magenta seeds and I'll probably sow most of them and leave a few in reserve in case of a disaster. There might be a few more magenta plants in my non-magenta F3s as well, I guess.

A recessive gene or a combination of several recessive genes would be the ideal scenario because then the line is already stable in terms of that trait. I guess we'll know in a couple of months!

Consulting Mike Ambrose is a good idea. I think I'll wait until we see what the F3 looks like though, when I know a bit more myself.

[Galina]

Golden Sweet x Absolute Zero - we have flowers and one yellow pod, but not dark yellow. They are not as striking as your flowers were Silverleaf, but I would say definitely magenta. All these were from your magenta seeds. There are differences in plant height, these are medium tall plants. But I haven't measured them yet. Tallest probably 4ft.

[Silverleaf]

Just realised you have a yellow-podded magenta with fully-open flowers, very nice! I like the contrast of yellow and magenta.

[Galina]

About that. I had noticed, but forgot to take photo, a few fully opening and upright Goldensweet flowers.. They tend to be 'nodding' or hanging their flowers (with few exceptions), but some open fully too. Here it is not universal that GS does not open flowers and always points downwards.

[Silverleaf]

Mine have always been the "nodding" closed type.

[Galina]

Two of the largest plants are 4ft, one with yellow in the stems and the other with green. The magenta flowers are the same colour. Green one in front and the yellow stemmed flower behind.

[Silverleaf]

Very nice indeed!