Court Estate Gold x Shiraz

[Galina]

Cross made in 2013. Aim is a large mangetout with red in the pod.

2014
2 seeds from one pod grown in 2014. Two plants. One with darker semi-purple pods, the other with lighter (more green) semi purple pods. Medium pods, wide. Plants are deteriorating now, but still alive. Foliage is getting quite red on both plants. Both should be identical being F1s but they are not. Really not sure what happened - however at this stage (pods very leathery) the difference is negligible. Have kept both separate and need to check for any differences in seed colour. Tall plants. The plant with the more greenish pods had 29 pods! and there might possibly be more developing.

2014 July Have taken the first F2 pod from the greenish type. 6 seeds were planted into 6 pods and as of today, 3 have germinated. Took longer to germinate than expected, but pod/seeds were not dry. Hoping for a second generation from a few plants.

[Galina]

Court Estate Gold x Shiraz - further observations

The two F1 plants appeared to have different pod colours. One type appeared to be solid purple, the other half purple. Looking closely at the photos of the first type again, there is actually a tiny little bit of green in these pods too. The second plant appeared to have much more green in the pods and I was wondering what had happened. Both F1s should of course be identical and not look different, as Jayb reminded me. However the older the pods got, the more green appeared in both. Now that the pods have been taken off (they are very leathery) for drying seeds, both batches look very nearly the same! See pictures. There is however a clear difference between early and late pods of the 'purple' type.

Partial purple seems to express itself more strongly earlier in the season, later in the season green comes more to the fore. I had the identical thing happening with the F2 growout of Elisabeth x Sugar Magnolia. Pods that appeared darker purple are now much greener and pods that had less purple to begin with are almost entirely green looking near the end of the season. If I hadn't marked them as darker purple or less purple, I could not tell the difference any more.

This still does not explain why one plant early in the season looks darker than another, after all they were growing right next to each other. So for the time being I am keeping both batches separate. However, my fear that something had gone wrong with the original cross (emasculated flower not covered after handpollination ), is lessening somewhat. At least they are BOTH different from Shiraz!

[Galina]

I think I have a definitive answer at last nearly 3 years later:
The Pur gene is inherently unstable and mutates freely to one of its forms which expresses less purple colour. Full Pur, Pur a, Pur b and pur. This just happens. Purple is an unstable colour. We need to select our purple pods for full purple, especially if we want to breed with them. I learned this on the Homegrown Goodness forum, . http://alanbishop.proboards.com/thre...rple-gene-peas
On page 3 of this thread Steve1 showed a photo he had taken of the effects of mutations to lesser purple, which resonate well with my photos of the F1s. This also neatly answers the conundrum why I had 2 different looking, rather than identical F1 plants.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a0qj9klvln...types.jpg?dl=0

[jayb]

Very interesting and good to see them together. I think these are going to be a really interesting combination and I can't wait to see how they progress. How many of the f2 plants have you started?
I also have an F1 cross (Boogie x Violet Sugar) that is producing both green and purple pods on different plants. Bit of a mystery and not sure why, wonder perhaps at stray pollen or possibility of a still segregating parent?
Elisabeth x Sugar Magnolia mostly faded here too as they age.

[Galina]

There is more to this green and purple issue than I understand, that's for sure! It was however interesting to go back to the photograph of the pea pods that seemed solid purple and to discover that there is actually a tiny little bit of green in those pods, mainly at the flower end. They are also only partially purple.

I started 6 seeds of the greener podded CEG x Shiraz type, 4 were good sized, 2 small. 3 of the bigger peas germinated and I now have 3 plants between 1 and 3 inches tall. Not long and they can go out with a bottle cloche over them. I have also sown 6 seeds of CEGxAmish Snap F2 and so far none of those have germinated. So at the moment there are 3 F2 plants for a second pea season.

Having harvested all the pods on both CEGxShiraz F1 plants, there may just be a small chance that the plant could start flowering again. But I doubt it. Doesn't matter, there are quite a few F2 seeds. Your share is put aside already.
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CEG x Shiraz F2 seeds from the plant with the darker purple pods:

Today I have opened the 3 early pods (photo above, the ones in the takeaway dish on the left side). These dark purple looking pods were harvested really early (mainly to make sure I have at least SOME seeds should a real problem occur). Not surprisingly, the seeds are a little on the small side, but they look mostly viable.

There was a surprise though! The first of the 3 early pods has mostly purple seeds, the second has one purple seed and the rest are sand with purple speckles, the third pods contains all sand and purple speckled seeds and no purple seed. There were also a few underdeveloped half green, half purple seeds, which are probably not viable.

I have opened some of the later pods too (the greener looking pods on the 'purple' podded plant) and they so far have all speckled, not solid purple seeds. That seeds arising from a CEG cross can be differently coloured does not surprise me, after all that is what CEG does too, which has solid brown, heavily and lightly purple speckled seeds. However the later (paler) pods from the 'purple' CEG x Shiraz F1 are so far all 'green' seeded (the green turns to sand coloured with purple speckles as the seeds dry). I haven't opened them all, but so far NO solid purple seeds in the later pods.

Sorting by seed colour and growing 3 batches of CEG separately in the past has produced all seed colours in every batch. It follows that it is quite likely that growing the solid purple seed will produce plants with differing seed colours too. Seed coat is maternal tissue, so both the purple seeds and the sand and purple speckled seeds must have the same genes, only the germ inside the seed coat is segregating F2 material. There may be little virtue in growing the purple seeds separately, but I am inclined to do it anyway! There seems to be a lot more to this than I understand (but I think I am repeating myself )!

You wrote: I also have an F1 cross (Boogie x Violet Sugar) that is producing both green and purple pods on different plants. Bit of a mystery and not sure why, wonder perhaps at stray pollen or possibility of a still segregating parent? eoq

After my experience with the early purple pods that nevertheless did have a miniscule amount of green in them, I hope you don't mind that I ask whether your green pods are fully green and your purple pods are solid purple. Not because I think you observed too casually, but because I now know that partially purple can look solid purple (unless observed more closely than I did initially) and partially green can turn fully green (with any remaining purple practically invisible unless you are really looking for it). Of course your other explanations are very valid points too.

[jayb]

Some do look completely green, others have just the slightest mark of colour. If it weren't for the height, flower colour and coloured axils I might have assumed that some plants were not a cross. I think an unplanned cross is unlikely as I grow virtually no other dwarf peas. I did grow a dwarf Russian variety in another part of the garden although a fair bit later in the year. I don't believe it would have given purple flowers though. I am not sure which is dominant, green or purple pods as it is not clear by these results. Perhaps part dominance?

One did look to have a full purple pod although this fades a little as it ages. I've added a few more pictures to the link below

[Galina]

Not sure which is dominant either? From Silverleaf comes the information that purple is caused by 2 genes in addition to the Anthocyanin A, these are the recessive pu and pur genes. Often there is only one of them causing partially purple pods.

[Silverleaf]

Actually purple is dominant. For purple pods you need A, Pu, and Pur. pu pur pods are "not purple"!

[Galina]

Glad you corrected that A, Pu and Pur are dominant. Thank you, Silverleaf and Welcome !

[Silverleaf]

Thanks Galina, it's nice to be here!

[Galina]

Nice surprise this morning in the batch of the greener CEG x Shiraz F2 pods. There are some purple seeds here too.

[Galina]

.......... and a close-up

[jayb]

Not sure which is dominant either? From Silverleaf comes the information that purple is caused by 2 genes in addition to the Anthocyanin A, these are the recessive pu and pur genes. Often there is only one of them causing partially purple pods.

Nice one, I think my winter reading list is getting longer

[jayb]

Wow, some great looking pea - pod combinations, a sample of the next round

[Galina]

Well it gets stranger still. I have now shelled all of the CEG x Shiraz F2 seeds. Not only are there green with purple speckles and purple, there are actually 4 different types of seed. There are several half purple/half green seeds, one pod had brown seeds, then the purples and greens mentioned above earlier.

[Galina]

Comparison between seeds of both F1 plants of CEG x Shiraz: There are far fewer purple, no semi purple and no brown seeds in the batch of the 'darker' podded F1s. However the remainder of seed types (which are the majority of seeds in both batches) look identical for both plants. See photo

[Silverleaf]

Those green ones with purple speckles look a lot like Golden Sweet in colour. I bet that's where it's from.

[Galina]

Except that they are larger than Golden Sweet seeds. Schweizer Riesen and Court Estate Gold have more than one seed colour (including green with purple speckles) and Shiraz also has larger seeds.

[Silverleaf]

A real mixture then!