A couple cross attempts, etc

On June 21 I tried a FL x IR cross in the backyard using pollen from IR flowers that I brought from comm garden and kept alive with the cut truss in a cup of water.  That worked well, and after a couple of days sitting there the IR pollen came off very nicely.   At the comm garden I also tried a GX x CP cross.

So I left the F2#55 seeds too long in the water glass - about 8 days - and they had started to germinate.   Whoops.  So I chucked 'em.  Need to soak no longer than 3-5 days I think.

By June 24 I am noticing the second HC plant in backyard may be have some leaf death, perhaps the wilt is on this one too.  It sort of stalled out at 5 ft tall and usually HC grows like crazy.

Flamme coming in nicely.

Backyard wilting...

Well, now 3 plants in backyard are defitnitely wilting:  of course Basinga, but a HC and a FL.  Fortunately I planted 2 each of the latter 2 and their sister plant is healthy in each case. ??  These are probably fungal wilts.

Tiger stripes on a CP

Randomly noticed.

Phenotypes

Some F2s

Hey this one had nipples. ??  

So far a few F2s have quite evident purpling but too early to tell if any match up to IR.  Several have very light color.  I am glad I regrew parents and the F1. Ir:

This image nicely shows 3 stages of IR fruit and how it takes time for color to develop.  The red spot is reflection from my phone camera red-eye flash, I think!

Here is the F1.  Notice how hard it is to see any anthocyanin yet.  The green blush is about as much as one can appreciate.

6/16/16

Community garden looking good.  I spent  30 min just "stuffing" branches into twine, then put up more twine , recorded some phenotype and took pics.  And I picked the first F2s from 55 and 50.  Deer munched the #55!!  But it was mostly ok and we ate the rest - very good taste.  The purple was not super strong but it has at least a bit more color than CP. I think.  Kept seeds from this #55. The smaller one next to it, with decent purple and just barely ripe, is a #50.

First of the season

A delicious BC!

First color

On HC of course.   June 7!

Basinga : June 1 vs June 10; wilt damage

I pruned a few low branches between these pics.

Aack - wilt.

The Basinga plant is badly wilting.   A few days ago I pruned some yellowing branches mainly from the HC plants but also BA.  However the BA has more rapidly wilting and yellowing today and the wiliting leaves - prior to yellowing in otherwise normal looking branches and now higher up the plant - is a sign (I think) of a fungus in the plant vascular system.  The plant has also slowed growth and has topped out at 4 ft while the others around it are all taller.    The cause is not early blight because it does not have bullseye spots, and the wilting is preceding some slight spotting and yellowing - so this might be verticillium wilt.   If so it's bad, because there's not much to do.  Note the photo in the last post which shows the BA fruit (still looking good today) which are close to the ground, and the leaves around them are healthy green.   Today, the leaves are yellow and wilty.

However the BC next to it looks unaffected and is huge - 6.5 ft tall, setting fruit and growing.

Backyard pics 6/6/16

Nice fruit on Ananas Noire, Flamme, Basinga.   View of from left: HC-HC-BC-BA.   BC > 6 ft.

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June 5

Did a bunch more twining today, weeding, and some petal counting.   Petal # = surrogate for carpel # phenotype; based on initial counts, IR has ~ 6 petals/flower, CP has ~8 and the F1 is close to CP, and the F2s express a range.  I definitely noticed some megablooms on some F2s, and these are generally the first bloom on a truss, as has been reported by various folks on the interwebs.  So I am going to discard these outliers from any averages.  These tend to have >10 petals, e.g. 13 or 14+.     I also smushed about a dozen potato beetle larvae.   At home, I have a plant that is already 6 ft high.  In the home garden I had some branches at the bottom of HC plants turning yellow and dying; this is either something like septoria spot, or, a semi-determinate normal dying off of the lowest branches.  To be safe I cut all these branches and threw them away.    It has been rainy lately and I've had the sprinklers going and that may contribute to it.  Seems like a minimal problem tho.

June 2

F2 #40 (I think) = strong purple like IR. Maybe has gf phenotype.  #55 only modest purplish,  but a nice looking beefsteak.