Andrew Barney

I garden in Loveland along the front range, so I'm only at 5,000 ft. But I'm planning on designing a cold frame for winter after hearing a podcast of a guy in Austria / Germany. Winter Vegetable Gardening with Wolfgang Palme on the Food Garden Life podcast. I also have Niki Jabbour's Year-Round Vegetable Gardener book. Basically I came to the conclusion that if they can push the boundaries for spring and fall gardening so far to include winter where they live, then I certainly can do it here. A few thousand feet might make it harder, but I think you could at least extend your season to be the same as the front range if nothing else.

The one thing we have going here in Colorado which is both good and difficult is the thin atmosphere and bright light. Sometimes the extra UV burns plants that are not adapted, which is why regional bred varieties or those that are tested for our climate are critical. No standard big box store seeds for me I'm afraid. Our dry moisture wicking winds (mostly in the winter) are also fairly detrimental to many trees and shrubs. I've heard white latex paint can help for trees.

For the cold frame i personally think it is critical to maximize efficiency for solar collection. That means getting the correct angle of the clear top. For here in Colorado that is about a 30 degree angle from the ground and makes for a pretty steep angled cold frame. I've honesty never seen one online that steep, but I'm planning on designing one and building one soon. Mine will be able to be placed on top of a raised bed i think. I am also planning on using one of those automatic vent devices. You are right, our temp swings are extreme and a cold frame would heat up rapidly and will need to be vented. Wolfgang in his podcast interview says that the most critical thing to winter growing is preventing moisture and having good air circulation. Apparently more crops can handle the bitter cold than you would think, but not excess moisture when it freezes.

I'm planning on breeding a new variety of cold frame pea. I have many really nice edible peas that are quite tasty and I hope to breed one with Lynx an extra cold hardy winter pea, and tom thumb and extra dwarf pea for really short stature.

Looks like a great book with real science! Thanks for posting!

Joseph,  did you lose all your runner bean hybrids? Or did you plant half?

My runner hybrids seems to be growing well,  but they got lost in the bean patch. I did see scarlett flowers which were different shade of red from the other red and white flowers from the common beans. Actually I think I would have described it as a light scarlet. But regardless it was a good sign!

Greg Martin wrote:I haven't looked, but if their are tetraploid versions of both species available that may improve the probability of fertility in any offspring.  

I believe there are some tetraloid Pisum sativum in the ars grin accession database. No idea about any others though.

As for the toxins,  I don't really think it will be a problem. Most toxins are easily bitter on the tongue. It will be easy to start doing taste tests on the F2 and beyond to eliminate it.

I've been collaborating and following Joseph's work for years and he helped to fully establish my interest in wide genetic and interspecies crosses. My feeling on the subject is that most plants will cross even if very far apart genetically.

And I've actually wanted to cross good smelling sweet peas with domestic snow or snap peas. I think it will work even if there are minor difficulties. I would like to collaborate on this project if you are serious about it.

The three wild species that seem interesting to me are:
Lathyrus odoratus
Lathyrus latifolius
lathyrus tuberosus (which have edible roots)

Here is an interesting read on wide genetic crosses that you may not have thought were possible.

https://keen101.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/wide_hybridization_in_plants_tsitsin1.pdf

As a side note I am still working on Joseph's red-podded peas that he showed above. I actually just crossed them to a good tasting purple snow pea this week. Pea crossing is actually quite fun once you get the techniques down. In a couple seasons i may finally have a red-podded snow pea that actually tastes good!

i modified joseph's great drawing to include the potential partial one way crossing ability between pennellii and peruvianum

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:This summer was amazing in the wild tomato patch... So many pollinators of so many species!

Bumblebees were very common, up to 5 species at the same time.

How's this for a promiscuous tomato flower?

So easy to swap pollen and microbes!

(source)

Comparing an interspecies tomato flower from my breeding project (huge!) with a typical flower from a domestic variety. If I were a bee, I know which flower I'd find most attractive.

Species unknown:

A huge bumblebee:

A tiny bumblebee?

This tomato has been very popular. It doesn't meet the breeding goals of the project, but it has captured people's imaginations.

Siblings to the previous plant:

Another sibling:

So much diversity to work with among the wild species:

These are both the same species (Solanum habrochaites):

...If you plant them, they will come... haha. :)

I'm leaning towards wanting the various hybrids and populations to be at least somewhat compatible with each other. Basically hoping that the species barriers break down and we achieve something closer to what they were originally long ago before they differentiated into different species. Not sure if that is possible or even fully possible, but i think it would be good for gene flow. In my mind it would be good if the lines became so blurred that it was hard to tell which species was which because they all melted into the same homegeneous but genetically diverse population. But that's just me. i like population genetics and messing with those kinds of things. I'm kinda a mad scientist when it comes to things like that.

The main accessions from TGRC are F5.
Mating System: Autogamous-SC
Sporophytic Chromosome Number: 24
Comments: Resistant to PLRV, TYTV, BCTV, and big bud disease. F5 S. lycopersicum x S. peruvianum derivative.
Categories: Disease resistant; Interspecific hybrid

The ones from GRIN range from no known information other than species cross info to some interesting comments such as these:

Pedigree: L. esculentum (Michigan State Forcing) X L. peruvianum (PI 128657)
Improvement status: Breeding material

Pedigree: L. esculentum x L. peruvianum
Improvement status: Uncertain improvement status
Some degenerate plants occur among BC1 and F2 of L.esculentum X L.minutum due to two or more lethal or semi-lethal genetic factors.

Pedigree: L. esculentum x L. peruvianum
Improvement status: Uncertain improvement status
Some degenerate plants occur among BC1 and F2 of L.esculentum X L.minutum due to two or more lethal or semi-lethal genetic factors. Self, seeds not hairy.

Pedigree: L. esculentum x L. peruvianum
Improvement status: Breeding material
Lines that segregate for the mosaic resistance carried by the male parent.

I've requested officially seed from TGRC and GRIN for what are supposed to be Solanum peruvianum hybrids. They will probably have lots of sterility issues and will most likely need a healthy bee population that can cross with compatible S alleles from other wild tomato populations (or by hand). If i get plenty of seed i am planning on splitting it three ways. Some for William and some for Joseph. Hopefully like the pennellii germplasm, we can get peruvianum into this project fully and benefit from those genetics.

I'm thinking of dropping my watermelon breeding and most of my pea breeding next year to devote entirely to wild / domestic tomatoes.

For this year in terms of wilds i think i planted joseph's best wilds and fairy hollow together. I also planted joseph's improved peruvianum, S. galapagense and S. cheesmaniae interplanted, and my suspected pimpinellifolium x habrochiates cross. We will see what grows best and shakes out this year.