02 November 2012

Purple podded pea - first F2 line

November 2011 - crossed the first snows and purple poddeds.
Seeds in December 2012. Some sown green on 3rd December - straight out of the mature pod - for a summer shade growout.
One line PP(LSC)XPFM produced about 20 F2 seeds from three greenseed plants harvested on 4 March. These were then sown  - can't remeber if it was green or if I dried them first, but they were planted as seedlings on 25 March.

The original F1 seeds from the first crossed were sown on the 16 February. and planted out on 28 February.

These February sowings were producing fertilised pods in late April, but the early March sowings didn't produce pods until late winter. What a difference a couple of weeks makes.

The later sowings were badly affected by powdery mildew, and by the time they were flowering, many of the plants were so infected that they only produced a few viable pods, some of which were then stripped of their seed by rats or mice.

But I did get one snow pea with colour - a half purple snow. A quick chew on one end of a pod showed it to be sweet and tasty - a bonus. However at seed harvest I only managed to get around 10 seeds. I took the risk, and sowed 3 of them straight away, and have got three F3 plants growing out as tiny seedlings in a tray.
These should be stable for snow pea characteristics - those traits are recessive - but the purpleness is another matter. There is a 2/3 chance the original plant shown above was heterozygous for purple, and 1/3 chance it will be homozygous and stable.

If it was homozygous, I would expect all 3 of the new seedlings to be purple snows - if it is heterozygous, then there is a 3/4 chance that any one of these will be purple.
Oh, the anticipation!




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