Beacon pea - JIC accession JI 1860

[Silverleaf]

This pea was sowed much later than the others, after my experimental pea Legacy failed to produce the cerise flowers I was looking for. Luckily I had a backup accession ready to go.

I sowed the seeds on the 23rd of June and the first flower opened today, so 50 days from sowing to flowering. It's about a week behind Unity, which is in the pot next to it. The plant is definitely climbing rather than dwarf but it isn't terribly tall - that's probably related to it growing in relatively poor conditions - I'd estimate it might get to 150cm.

I don't have much other information about it as there are no pods yet, but I'll update this later.




More photos later too.

Beacon is expressing ce, cerise/appleblossom flowers. I'm planning to make the cross Beacon x Unity as soon as the two plants flower in synch, which will hopefully produce a ce cr plant with pale rose purple flowers. And next year I'll do Telephone x Beacon, to incorporate cerise into my Rainbow Pea project.

[Galina]

Glad the first flower has opened - it seems to be somewhat tricky to tell the difference between b and ce. They look similar to me. Is the base of the wing really sort of yellow or is that a trick of the light? Hope you can make the cross soon. Even if you have to store pollen in the fridge for a day, it is still worth trying.

Was this the last one to flower? Nice to have a taller plant to play with, much easier.

[Silverleaf]

The b colour is more yellow, I think. I'll have to have another look tomorrow to confirm the yellow, but it's perhaps the reflection of the green foliage. And yeah, this is the last one now this year.

[jayb]

Lucky you, another beautiful looking pea and lovely pictures. Good luck with crossing

[Silverleaf]

The flowers get more purplish as they get older, which is also lovely, and very different to the b colour now. Here the greenish base to the standard petal is very clear - it's definitely not a reflection or sunlight or anything.

[jayb]

Yes, they look quite 'purplish' now, a lovely contrast to the newly opened flower.

[Silverleaf]

They still do look similar to apple blossom in the wings though I think. Interesting colour.

[Galina]

I think there is a colour gradation in the wings from pink to yellowish, both on the young and on the old flowers. The colour change in the standard is striking too.

[Galina]

Beacon has opened its first flower today. The standards are at the moment very pale pink, almost white and the keel is a very bright dark orangey pink. Two photos

[Silverleaf]

Wow, that's not what I was expecting! They look totally different to how my Beacon flowers did - lacking that "watercolour" effect that mine did and the colour is a bit different.

I wonder if I've mixed the seeds up? That looks to me very much like Scholar, which I grew in the same pot as Beacon, so a mix-up is completely possible.

I'd be very happy if it is, because I lost all my Scholar plants the second year, they just didn't thrive at all and never set seed. I'll add some photos of the two so you can compare.

[Galina]

This week it is getting quite obvious that Scholar is a much weaker plant than Beacon. The three Beacons are still not flowering, but the Scholar plant now has 3 flowers, however the leaves on the plant are yellowing. With all the rain the real Beacons have just shot up making the contrast with the 'wrong Beacon' even more obvious. It confirms that what I have flowering is Scholar and I must prioritise this one for crosses. Unfortunately my Telephone plants are a long way off flowering. But Amish Snap are coming along and hopefully I can make that cross soon. I hope to grow as many seeds as possible for you Anna, but sadly have to confirm that Scholar is not a robust variety.

[Silverleaf]

Don't worry at all if "wrong Beacon" doesn't produce much. I do have another accession growing this year that's supposed to have rub "brick/rose red" flowers and it's looking good so far.

[Silverleaf]

The differences are quite subtle. These are young flowers so quite light in colour, but you see how Beacon's wings are kind of shaded from a pale colour with a greenish-yellow tint in the middle to pink at the edges?

I dunno. It's so hard to tell from pictures!

[Silverleaf]

Another even younger Beacon flower, more clearly showing the shaded watercolour effect.

[Galina]

I fully understand what you say about the colour graduation on the wings and yes, my beacon is different. I have 4 plants (still a few seeds left for 'insurance'). One of the plants is slightly different looking and this was the one with the early flower. The others are not quite ready to flower. Could well be1 Scholar and 3 genuine Beacons. If at all possible seeds will go back your way, Silverleaf. The foliage colour of the early flowering plant is a little lighter green too. But that batch is growing under the shade of the autumn olive. Maybe not ideal but peas can put up with a bit of shade and I have just so many this year. I was wondering whether the lighter leaf colour was due to shading, although they are all more or less affected the same. We'll know more in a week or so when the others start flowering.

The base of the standard looks different too. 'My Beacon' looks as if the standard leaf has been cut straight with scissors, no rounding at the bottom.

[Galina]

Well the 'Wrong Beacon' = Scholar has produced 3 pods and is still alive albeit with yellowing leaves.

But we have the real Beacon - strong plants with flowers identical to the ones you showed us Silverleaf. A couple of photos.

[Silverleaf]

Excellent! They are looking good. I do really like that colour.

[Galina]

4 pods developed on Scholar, but 2 of them perished in the heat and the plant is now gone too. 2 pods harvested with 3 and 4 seeds respectively, with black hilum.

Beacon has many more pods (although overall the yield is not high) and should give much more seed. Pods are not ready to be harvested/opened yet.

[Silverleaf]

I have maybe 5 Telephone x Beacon F3 plants showing cerise colour (surprisingly only one wild type and 2 or so whites I think) which are tall and gorgeous, so hopefully we'll get a better more productive cerise line from those.

[Galina]

I may have to revise my statement regarding low yield. Beacon does actually have double pods. But they are planted in the shade of the autumn olive, so maybe not in the best place for productiveness. I should perhaps not have been so definite on the low yield, Certainly lots of seeds to share. .

[Silverleaf]

That's good to hear!

[Galina]

My beacons were uniform looking (once the odd one out was correctly identified). But harvesting seeds, most are with black hilum and some are not. Odd. Maybe we are looking at a cross generation unknown. However the plants are very similar to each other. Strange. Have to harvest the remaining pods separately from each plants and see whether we have one plant that has the non-black hilums.