Peas
The page
for detailed pea breeding has been moved to my new pea_breeding page.
| Welcome
to my new page about peas. I decided i needed to add more than just
about breeding peas, so i moved the other info to it's own didicated
page and created this one from scratch. I decied to add some info and
pictures about some of the interesting pea varieites i am currently
investigating. The table below and to the right is a little table i
made recently to illustrate to myself the main traits i was interested
in studying. |
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 [Photo credit goes to skrubtudsen, Denmark] |
'Biskopens' - (aka Biskopens Gråært, Biskopen II, Biskopens Ärt, Bishop's Grey, Bishops Greypea) - A rare and interesting pea, originally from Sweeden, this pea is unique for the fact that the peas, when dry, become a dark rustic red color. I grew these out for the first time in spring 2011. This pea is a very tall pea reaching a height of 6ft+, and producing pods late in the summer. From what i could tell this pea might be heat tolerant, but perhaps all long-season peas are. Might have some slight fasciation. |
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'Purple Passion'
- another rare and interesting pea, and perhaps a cousin to the
'Biskopens' pea mentioned above. This pea turns a dark purple color
when dry, and is reported to also have purple pods. I have not grown
this pea out yet, but i do look forward to it in the 2012 season. |
 [Photo credit goes to Emma Cooper, UK] |
'Parsley Pea'
- An old, yet interesting variety of pea. This is the one known as the
parsley pea because of it's similarity to parsley. The reason for it's
strange appearance lies in the fact that is is a "double recessive".
That means that it carries both the hyper-tendril trait, and the
"tendril-less" trait, which are both recessive. This might be a good
one to use in culinary dishes, but i'm not too sure about sugar
content. I believe most varities with this combination are close to
field peas, perhaps with a little breeding work one could have
something really neat. I am told that an early purple-podded prototype called 'Purple Pod Parsley' was at one time released by Alan Kapuler, but i have also heard that sometimes a parsley-type will sometimes appear from Alan's much improved variety 'Sugar Magnolia' (which is a purple-podded hyper-tendril snap pea). And considering that the tendril-less trait is recessive that is not surprising. I look forward to trialing some in 2012. |
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Hyper-Tendril - (aka. Semi-Leafless)
- This is a trait known as being hyper-tendril or semi-leafless. This
is what the parsley pea would look like without the "tl" trait.
Hyper-tendrils are a condition when many of the leaves are instructed
to instead grow into tendrils. Plants with this trait are described as
being much better at suporting themselves with or without a trellis,
and perhaps even at being less favorable to birds. I look forward to
trialing some in the 2012 season. Just like the parsley pea, it is rumored that the foliage can be a welcome additon for salads or stir-fry. |
 [Photo by Rebsie Fairholm, England] |
'Salmon-Flowered Pea'
- an interesting pea because of the striking and unique pink-and-white
coloured flowers, and also because of the fasciated growth habit. Fasciated - a latin term which roughly means "fused together". In this context, fassciation lead to the flowers are only able to emerge near the top of the plant. In olden times this was actually classified as a distinct species of pea, known as "Pisum Umbellatum". Finding peas with this trait are somewhat hard, and the term "fasciation" doesent exatly lend itself as a good nickname. The two most common ways of describing this trait seem to be "umbellatum-type" or "crown pea". |
 [Photo credit goes to liseed.org] |
Purple-podded and Yellow-podded
are pretty cool too. Especially to those who have never seen them
before. Both are much easier to spot than their green counterparts, and
they also add some much needed variety of color to the garden. Alan
Kapuler has developed a line of yellow-podded snap peas called 'Opal
Creek', and a line of purple-podded hyper-tendril snap peas called
'Sugar Magnolia'. Red-podded peas are also a recent discovery by Rebsie Fairholm (in 2008). Apparently if you breed a yellow-podded with a purple-podded you can get some red-podded peas in the F2 generation if your lucky. These are called recombinant offspring. |
 [Photo by Rebsie Fairholm, England] |
I'm also independently researching several other pea traits such as large-podded peas like Carouby De Maussane and Bijou,
but these are less exciting than the ones presented here. So yeah, in
reality i am studying more than seven pea traits. I'd also like to try
and cross most of these with each other eventually. Some of them will
need to be improved for sweetness first, but they should make for some
interesting crosses when they are. Who knows what sort of interesting
traits are waiting to be discovered. |
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