Glossy Kale-ards

Sad looking right now, but I think they'll rebound when Spring comes. The encouraging parts are that they're showing quite a bit of variability and at least that one purplish one (at the bottom) is about as happy as the weedy mustard (bottom right). These are glossy leaf selections descended from a mixture of Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale, Green Glaze Collard Greens, and an ornamental purple/red cabbage/kale. In 2010, I interbred this population with Tuscan kale. Now with all this variability to work with, I need to do a large planting and really start to put some heavy selective pressures on them (for winter-hardiness, insect resistance, etc.) The latest insect plague has been Harlequin bugs. Seeing the damge that they've done, it sure would be nice to select for more resistance to those.

Winter Small Grains

Just a little comparison of the damage suffered after being frozen for extended periods of time without any snow cover. Keep in mind that the rye was planted very thinly and the 'Black Emmer' more thickly than the rest but even so here's how I would rank these five (best to worst cold tolerance)... rye was best as expected; Smooth Awnless Club and Black Emmer both did remarkably well; Hull-Less Barley and Kamut suffered quite a bit, as expected (since these seem to be more often grown as Spring sown crops).

Rooting rose cuttings

I've always had difficulty getting cuttings to root but look at these nicely calloused cuttings. One's already sending out roots. I followed the damp newspaper method described at the Rose Hybridizer's Forum. Thanks for sharing that tip George!
See link below for details.

http://www.rosehybridizers.org/forum/message.php?topid=31884#31884

Viola X cooperrideri F2

Here's that F2 seedling from the cross of Viola striata X Viola walteri that I posted a few weeks back. The picture isn't great, but at least you can see how well it's blooming today (Nov.19) - I'll have to move this one to a better spot and try to collect seed, so I can select for even earlier Fall bloom.

Rosa rugosa X davidii fall foliage

Rosa rugosa X davidii is ablaze in fall colors right now. Pretty good fall color for a rose!

Figs and Violets

Figs: So it would seem that figs can survive AND fruit here. I wasn't sure this lone fruit (on 2 year old 'Hardy Chicago') would ripen soon enough because it stayed green and stayed the size of a grape for what seemed like forever. But within just a few days it ballooned up and changed color. So, I can now say I've tasted a fresh fig (only "newtons" before that). It was tasty just like everyone is always saying. I hope that next year it gets a bunch more.

Violets: Down below is a second generation violet seedling from the first generation hybrid Viola X cooperrideri. The F1 hybrid was from a hand pollination of Viola striata by pollen of Viola walteri. I'm encouraged that a few of the F2 seedlings (like this one) have been blooming fairly well in the Fall too. I'm considering putting a little selective pressure on this population to try to push them toward all summer bloom. Actually all of these violets DO bloom all summer but when the day becomes a certain length, they switch over to producing small (non-showy) cleistogamous flowers. I'll just need to select for longer and longer daylength requirement (for that switch-over) and then they'll have the pretty chasmogamous ones all summer.

Covered (primitive) wheats

The Covered Wheats - More primitive wheats that do NOT thresh free of the glumes/hulls that surround the seed while on the stalk. More modern wheats are all free-threshing. Their seeds fall out completely naked of these coverings. These are four covered wheats that I've been maintaining by growing out a batch every couple of years. This year I also used the Black Emmer and the Spelt in some crosses with some free-threshing wheats. I'll be sure to blog about those next Spring when the hybrids should be heading.

The top two are diploid (2N=14) Einkorn wheats.

Bottom left is a tetraploid (2N=28) emmer wheat - the primitive relative of the durum (macaroni) wheats.

Bottom right is a hexaploid (2N=42) spelt wheat - the primitive version of the common bread wheat.