Telephone x NightMist

[Silverleaf]

Another cross for the Rainbow Pea Project, made in 2014.

I've already talked about Telephone in other threads, but to recap it's one of those old-fashioned 6ft+ white-flowered shelling peas that tastes really good.

NightMist is my nickname for an accession I got from JIC which has, believe it or not, GREEN flowers! Not just a bit of green in the centre like you sometimes see with white flowers, but a soft lime green distributed evenly throughout all the petals. The flowers don't stand out much from the foliage and they are quite small which doesn't help, but it's so unusual and strange-looking I just had to include it as part of the project.

The green flower colour (and the reduced flower size) is due to the gf gene which adds chlorophyll pigment to the petal. No anthocyanins are involved at all so unlike all my other crosses I actually want the a gene that makes Telephone white.

The F1 plants surprised me at first because they were all white-flowered, but then I realised that of course NightMist must have a as well. This means that I'm only concerned about the gf gene in this cross.

Here's what I expect to see:
3/4 aa Gf_ White flowers
1/4 aa gfgf Green flowers

I'm growing the F2 this year and I have 56 seeds which should be plenty.

[Galina]

I can't get over the beautiful light lime green flowers. The photo on the JIC gene list is obviously wrong, not sure what's going on there. These are gorgeous. And as you say, once you have selected the quarter F2s with the recessive flower colour, that should be it. Breeding job done in a very short time. Or am I forgetting something else?

[Silverleaf]

It does look very different to the JIC photo doesn't it? Their photo looks quite like to an ordinary white to me.

Absolutely, stabilising the green colour should be easy, but I'll still need to do some selection for height, productivity, taste, stuff like that.

I can treat this cross differently to the others if I want to as well, because I'm working only with recessive genes. I might use a technique called "recurrent backcrossing" where I'll pick a nice green-flowered plant from the F2 and cross it back to Telephone. I'll grow out the progeny for another couple of generations until green shows up again, and repeat a few more times. Eventually I'll end up with a plant that has mostly Telephone genes but with green flowers...

[Silverleaf]

It's just struck me that this flower would look absolutely amazing with the yellow sepals you get with yellow pods.

Adding another cross to this year's list...! I'll have some white-flowered yellow-podded F3 plants from Golden Sweet x Sugar Ann growing which would be perfect to cross with a green-flowered Telephone x NightMist F2. Codename Sprite, because lemon and lime.

[Silverleaf]

So far I have nothing but white flowers in the F2. Might just be bad luck, maybe, but I'll keep my fingers crossed there are some more left to reveal themselves.

I was worried at first that perhaps the cross hadn't worked and I had selfed Telephone seeds, but one of the plants is showing some fasciation so that must have come from NightMist.

[Galina]

I haven't photographed Nightmist - well I tried but the flowers are very small and I didn't get any decent ones. But I have lovely tight flower tufts which are fasciated and green. Must get some crosses done. Pity you haven't got bigger green flowers in the F2. Yes there is always the F3.

[Silverleaf]

I think green flowers are always small, unfortunately.

[Galina]

why is that please?

[Silverleaf]

Because the gf gene makes flowers small and green. I assume you can't have one without the other.

[Silverleaf]

These Telephone x NightMist F2 flowers seem to have chlorophyll. It's very subtle but they aren't bright Persil-white like the others and look pretty much like the pic on the JIC site.

Shame they aren't lime green like NightMist is, but I like them anyway.

[Silverleaf]

Okay, got a proper green-flowered plant so I can try the "Sprite" cross.

[Galina]

So you got both real green and a full sized flower with a hint of green, interesting. Sprite cross?

[Silverleaf]

I want to combine yellow pods with green flowers. Nickname "Sprite" because lemon and lime.

[Silverleaf]

Medium-sized flower with some green, but not full green. Seems there's a lot of variation !

[Silverleaf]

I didn’t end up doing the “Sprite” cross as the timing wasn’t exactly right for pollination, always a problem when you only have a few plants to choose from. I can try again next year!

I have some F3 seeds from green flowers and some from white ones and I’m planning to grow out both next year.