Golden Sweet x Absolute Zero

[Silverleaf]

So from my observations and Galina’s it looks like the magenta is a recessive trait, which is excellent news. I suspect it’s a combination of genes working together rather than a single one but I’m only guessing, and to be fair it doesn’t really matter as long as the colour keeps breeding true. Looks like there’s some variation in the colour too. Perhaps we’re also seeing a combination with whatever causes muddy, with the muddy magenta flowers. A bit of a mystery!

Either way I’ll be growing out the F4 next year (and I can spare a few for Jayb and Hector too), with seeds saved from magenta plants. I didn’t bother to separate out yellow- and green-podded seeds but I probably will when I collect seeds next year because they really should be different projects. Green-podded magenta will be Margaret, yellow-podded will be Nellie.

I have seed from non-magenta plants too to act as emergency backup in case of hideous disasters...

I think the F4 is a good time to start doing some gentle selection for taste as well. I can easily taste a pod from each plant and mark the other pods if it’s particularly good or bad.

[Galina]

Just harvesting the later pods on #1. They are bigger and have up to 6 seeds. The last plant to got strawy, development very slow overall.

[jayb]

Oooh yes please that would be awesome. I'm having another off year for peas sadly. I just couldn't get in gear to get the plot ready in time, (well I'm still working on it!) But I'm really pleased with the progress I'm making and my plan at the moment is to get everything ready by the autumn for a timely start next year. I've earmarked some space in the big poly for an early start-hopefully!

[Silverleaf]

Ooooh, I wonder if that brown is the fabled "dark yellow"?

[Silverleaf]

Thanks Galina, you have a varied selection there all right! The magenta colour seems to be a recessive trait as we've both had only magenta plants from magenta seeds. That's great news for stabilising a magenta variety!

I'm seeing similar variation in height - a few short 3' (or shorter) plants but most 5'-ish, a few about 6'.

Lots of possibilities for further breeding.

[Galina]

Considering how early these started flowering, it seems to take an age for some of the pods to develop. Finally we have my 'rogues gallery' of all 5 plants grown. The first photo shows all of them, with the green pods #1 and #2 barely ready to harvest (a long way off dry, but just mature enough to be dried off on the windowsill). The second picture concentrates on the pod colour of #5. I don't want to open the pods yet to check whether the brownish colour on some of them is due to some plant illness or is a manifestation of the dp gene. But 3 pods show this to some extent and a couple more might be developing it.

There are 3 plant heights, short, 5ft and 6ft plus. There are 3 pod types, short, Golden Sweet type pods and blunt/wide pods. only #4 has the rough, pitted surface, the others are smooth like Golden Sweet pods.

All were magenta flowered, but not the 'muddy' type that looks so striking on your photos Silverleaf.

#1 green pods, non sweet mangetout on a short plant. The pods are short, develop slowly and have few seeds. The pod in the photo has only one seed, others (still on the plant) have perhaps up to 4.

#2 green pods, also developing slowly, shelling peas, the tallest plant at 6ft plus

#3 yellow pods, 5ft plant, shelling pea

#4 yellow wide blunt ended pod with rough surface, low yield, short plant. Due to low yield I did not taste these.

#5 yellow pods, some, but not all with brown shining through on 5ft plant Shelling pea.

[Galina]

Makes you wonder whether something else is going on there. These are stunning flowers. Hope they open fully.

[Silverleaf]

Can't stop taking pictures of these as they mature - I think this is the same dark flower from the last post. I love how the purple contrasts with the yellow calyx, just gorgeous!

[Silverleaf]

I don't know. This is by far the darkest plant, most aren't that intense.

[Galina]

Mine are never quite this dark. Maybe different soil minerals play a part?

[Silverleaf]

Some of these flowers are just so intensely coloured - look how dark this one is and it's not even open.

[Silverleaf]

Yellow pod from this looks exactly the same as all the other yellow pods.

[Silverleaf]

Ordinary muddy flower fading into a kind of desaturated plum colour.

[Silverleaf]

Also an ordinary magenta because I never get tired of looking at them!

[Silverleaf]

Found a green-podded "muddy magenta" as well.