Bijou x Shiraz

[triffid]

Made this cross in 2019. Bijou is a tall variety with delicious gigantic pods and purple flowers. Shiraz is a dwarf variety with average-sized purple pods and flowers.

What size pods would I expect to see in the F1 gen?

The hybrid vigour is very apparent. Even a few weeks behind some of my tall pea seedlings they've shot up several inches taller.

Three of the five plants have red stems, while two do not. This confuses me somewhat - I was sure I emasculated the Bijou flower at the appropriate time and did not notice any pollen shedding.

A giant purple mangetout would be grand. Also planning on crossing the F1 with Golden Sweet , hopefully starting a red-podded line in a couple of generations.

Pics soon (when I can get some decent light because my phone cam is giving up on life!)

[Galina]

This is interesting. The normal rule is that F1s are absolutely uniform. And have hybrid vigor.

I concur with hybrid vigor that I have observed often, but I have also had F1s that were not uniform. Also with Shiraz as the parent.
https://www.growingfoodsavingseeds.c...-gold-x-shiraz
The pods were different. The purple never reliably there and not in future generations either. Irrespective of which plant was the F1 origin, both offspring had these problems of not solid purple cover and no solid reds. in the F2 and following generations. But the problems were not very different in both lines. Last year finally I got a decent red podded plant. Fluke or weather? We will see this year, whether I have finally bred a red mangetout for my daughter. Like Rebsie I found it very easy to get a solid red shelling pea, but mangetouts seem harder to achieve.

In my F1 generation, the pods were essentially Shiraz type pods. Just not solid purple. Not CEG length. With purple being dominant, they should have been solid purple. But they were not solid purple in the F1 for Rebsie either when she made crosses with a purple pea. A further breeding line of crossing CEG with Magnolia Blossom and a third of crossing Charlie's Gold Snap with Magnolia Blossom, did not produce solid purple pods in the F1 either.

Whether that discrepancy extends to stem colour I cannot say as my stems were not purple. The F1 plants are definitely going to be tall, with taller and shorter F2 plants already visible at the seedling stage.

Best of luck for this line. Looking forward to photos.

[triffid]

Interesting.. thanks for the insight. Will spend this evening trying to absorb the information on your older thread. How did you find the flavour of the Shiraz progeny? I obviously used it for its colour and 'edible' pods - disease resistance is a bonus. I'm so chronically disappointed in its culinary quality that I could barely bring myself to eat it last year. So I don't really know whether its pods are completely parchment free or have partial parchment, as it is a slow developer.

Fingers crossed for your red mangetout!

[Galina]

Tastes ok but Court Estate Gold is much better so there is plenty of offspring that tastes good. I must say that I do not have the most discerning palate, but if I had my time over and knew about Sugar Magnolia, those crosses would have been made with SM. Now those SM do taste excellent to me. Shiraz is also one of those that are supposed to be MT but definitely have fibre. Whether that is a semi MT or a MT which happens to have more fibre I cannot say.

[Galina]

I am also interested in this cross because Bijou pods which are very mature are quite yellow. The green in the young pods changes colour. I could not put this observation into an explanation which genes might be at work here, but it will be interesting to see how or if at all, this translates into further generations.

[triffid]

Flowers and young pod

[Galina]

Yes, not a solid purple, is it? Will be interesting how the pod progresses. Flowers are as predicted, I would say.

[triffid]

Same pod, one day later.

[Jang]

Looking promising, though perhaps as yet not a giant pod. More Shiraz than Bijou? I hope you get enough pods to be able to tell whether the taste is more Bijou than Shiraz. Interesting!

Have the plants continued to shoot up and be quite tall and vigorous?

[triffid]

Only time will tell, but the pod is very young, much time to grow yet. As far as I know, big pods are recessive so we wouldn't see any giants in this gen.
The plants are large, quite hard to measure because of their awkward position in the courtyard - several feet off the ground growing up a jasmine and acer - but I'll give it a go tomorrow.

[triffid]

The vines are around 5ft currently.

[triffid]

One week on

[triffid]

In my first post I mentioned the observation that two of the F1 plants lacked pigment in the stems. These have gone on to produce completely green pods. Not sure what to make of it. If they develop into fully fledged Bijou pods I guess we'll know that the emasculation was somewhat botched. If not... last year I did have a Shiraz plant that was completely green - could be a recessive trait still hanging around in the variety population.

[Jang]

It will be interesting to see how the pod develops.
It raises the question as to how likely it is that emasculation might be incomplete, leading to mixed results. Is this something which happens regularly I wonder?

[triffid]

I wonder also. It's usually apparent when the flowers and anthers are beyond the stage appropriate for crosses. But it could be variable between cultivars, and all it takes is one pollen grain.

[Galina]

Emasculation can be incomplete potentially if one or two of the ten pollen bearing parts were not removed in time and had shed pollen already. It is important to work with a very young female flower, with purple flowering it has to be at the very first sign of any coloration. Flowers are still very small. Normally you can see whether pollen has been shed already, but I am sure there must be a stage where that process has started. Chances are that you did nothing wrong though.

Having said that, the offspring from my 'greener' CEG x Shiraz is no different in its purple or red behaviour than the one that had more complete purple coverage in the F1 generation. I am pretty sure that Rebsie also reported a lot of green which was unexpected, but it is only a phenotype, the genes say different. Check the funiculi in the maturing green pods for genotype assurance or otherwise. They might not be Bijou after all. Pod length should be an additional indicator of whether the cross has worked. Looking at the photos of my cross with CEG, the F1 generation had shorter pods than CEG. I forgot to measure them though.

https://www.growingfoodsavingseeds.c...-gold-x-shiraz

[triffid]

Thanks for the link, informative thread! Yes, that's the thing, I was positive the emasculation was complete and carried out at the correct stage. The anthers were not dehisced, still 'wet'. Nevertheless, interesting to witness. The green pods aren't just greener than the others - they're 100% without pigment. When the pods are larger I will check the funiculi. I'm noticing they're slow to mature, which is a trait they share with Shiraz.

[triffid]

Picked one of the green pods today (11cm long), and the funiculi were non-pigmented. So they're a product of Bijou self-pollination?

[Galina]

It would appear so. Pity.

[Jang]

Yes, disappointing. It shows how tricky the operation is. My first efforts have also convinced me of that!

Just basic setbacks in my case like labels falling off, pigeons attacking the crucial area and so on and that's on top of not knowing whether the cross was successfully done or not.

[Jang]

Thanks to both for your encouragement. I do have three or four crosses (if well executed) which have survived the various pitfalls so not all gloom and doom!

I’ve used shiny reflective tape and suspended CDs as pigeon deterrents which has worked quite well though more and more needed as they grow.

What techniques have you found to be best for pigeon protection?

[Galina]

They hate stringy things. A few loops of white cotton around the particular area where the newly crossed flower is and when it is maturing on the plant and getting fullsize a few loops of string around that particular pea pod. Also for my precious crosses, I harvest before they are fully dry and leave on the windowsill to get fully dry, before opening.

[Jang]

Thanks. String is becoming totally indispensable. Never have I got through so much!
I can see that finding a bulk supplier is going to be a good move.