This year was my first season of land racing. I had big plans in the winter, and followed through on some of it. I started with moschata squash, sweet corn, hot peppers, and musk melons. My challenges here are a very long, hot, humid summer with a great richness of sap sucking insects. I expect to be selecting for pest tolerance and flavor. My growing season is long, so I only care about time-to-maturity as it relates to pest resistance.
I planted about 10 heirloom varieties plus one grex/landrace from elsewhere of each of these. My squash was very successful --- I got a year's worth of fruit in a diversity of shapes. I will save seeds from those that taste good and keep well. I hope next summer will be better, but this year was already good. The number of squash bugs in my garden now is extraordinary. I think this will test my plants earlier next season than they were tested this year.
My sweet corn was a bust in that we got very little to eat. But I did get enough seed to plant next year, so I am hopeful. When the corn was young, we got some big thunderstorms. All of the plants I saved seed from were able to stand back up after being knocked over three times. This is not something I planned to select for, but with hindsight, it will be a valuable trait here.
The musk melons were similar to the corn. They just didn't grow that much, and the rats usually beat me to the fruit. I saved seeds from two fruits that had ok flavor, and one that had outstanding flavor. Hopefully next year is better.
Hot peppers were successful. I got excellent productivity out of them and saved seeds mostly from larger fruited shapes with milder heat. I hope to select for peppers that can handle our summers and continue producing through the season. So far, they go pretty dormant in late July through August.
In the coming seasons, I hope to try landracing dent corn, cowpeas, tomatoes, tomatillos, bitter gourds, cucumbers, and possibly some wheat, oats, or barley.