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Post by Tucson Grower on Aug 19, 2022 17:36:45 GMT -6
I've planted Sea Island Red, several other "red" varieties, and Heavy Hitter. If all goes well, I hope to, this season, make some F1 crosses with Heavy Hitter and any red fruited plants that might be able to start me in the direction of creating a red fruited type of Heavy Hitter. The goal being to develop a variety that has all, or most of the Heavy Hitter traits (preferably all) and very thoroughly red colored fruits. But, after creating the F1 seed, it will likely be precisely as I wish for it to be - F1 hybrids are often like that. However, for it to be an open pollinated, stable variety, I'll need, at least 10 generations of selection, selfing, cross-pollinating and self-pollinating (all within the initial populations created by those first F1 crosses), in order for that possibility to eventually come true. Meanwhile those plants will be subjected to the selection pressure of our intensely hot and dry weather here in NW Tucson, Arizona. Hopefully I will survive long enough to accomplish this.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 19, 2022 18:39:04 GMT -6
Tucson Grower, best of luck in your endeavor. As a novice okra grower, I certainly look forward to watching your okra crosses progress...
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Post by hedgeapple on Aug 19, 2022 21:41:08 GMT -6
I think working on a new highly productive red okra is a worthy endeavor. I've heard that the "truest red" out there is Aunt Hettie's Red, but I have never grown it myself - might be worth looking into. Sea Island Red surviving in Arizona! Proof of just how adaptable okra is! I've crosspollinated okra without flower emasculation, but now that I have ruined enough flowers to figure it out I do recommend it if you want to guarantee that you have a certain cross. Eight months is a long time to wait to find out if a cross took or not. Ron has certainly created a legacy in the the realm of okra. He has worked on his selections for decades and had thousands of plants to choose from. A legendary feat. No shortcuts like the labs were they irradiate okra in India, etc. Just picking the best plants and time. That's exactly how wild plants became the food crops we know today. Thousands of years of hungry people keeping a close eye out for mutations that work. I bet you can do it! Ten years should be just right. ✔
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Post by macmex on Aug 20, 2022 8:59:13 GMT -6
Best way to develop a new variety is to start with the best possible parent stock, plant plenty, cull ruthlessly and keep good records. I think by this method one could achieve almost anything they do through genetic engineering.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 20, 2022 10:24:18 GMT -6
Tucson Grower,
That sounds like a lucrative endeavor. Heavy Hitter, I have noticed over the years, has a red tinge in its veins from time to time. I think it ought to be receptive to the adaption of the red gene you are working to introduce.
Best of luck with this new project, Ron
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Post by Tucson Grower on Aug 20, 2022 12:41:08 GMT -6
I have had some exposure, in college, to micropropagation techniques. I especially like the one where pollen grains are grown into haploid (one set of chromosomes) plants, having only half of the male plants genes. Then doubling those chromosomes - with compounds like colchicine, so they become diploid (with a double set of identical genes) and are then homozygous. Like that, all genes are expressed and barring any mutations will then breed 100% true, when either self or cross-pollinated, within that same population.
I don't, however, plan on using any of those types of micro-manipulations. I just want to keep it simple and reproducible for almost anyone. I expect it will be challenging, but fun. Since I got such a late start, this season, due to various family crises, so I may need to begin again, next year, at an earlier date in the season. I had earlier accumulated the materials I'll need to plant 2 - 50 foot rows in an attempt to imitate the manner, heavyhittrokra uses to grow his marvelous namesake variety, but did not do that, this season, because I got such a late start.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2022 15:27:27 GMT -6
Thats sounds like a really great project Tucson Grower. Hope it works out!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 22, 2022 16:41:40 GMT -6
My okra is finally beginning to act like it ought to, but everything this year is just about exactly one month behind. 2022 has been a very tough season. In a regular year, my plants would be playing out just a few days after Labor Day Weekend. This year, they will be just beginning to reach their apex. It's really hard to say what to expect. I've never had a crop delayed this many weeks, due to replanting several times over, heavy grasshopper pressure, and extreme heat/drought. I've yet to make a single trip to the Farmers Market and have lost approximately 5/8 of my crop to a combination of unfortunate circumstances.
Hopefully, next year will be better, but that's what I said last year. This year, it was like all the forces of nature combined to run against our gardens.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Mar 21, 2023 7:37:19 GMT -6
Well, I've taken some of the Okra 'Heavy Hitter' seed, I received from heavyhitterokra, back in late 2021. Originally I had planned to begin this project in 2022, but things happened and I am just now, in March of 2023, where I'd hoped to be back in 2022.
I began with the largest allocation of seed (which I'd pre-portioned, for various reasons), 56. I then soaked them overnight in purified water with a little garden inoculant added, then poured, seed and all into a wad of paper towels, folded them and placed them in a ziploc bag, then set them on the table next to me.
It's now 3 days later, almost the 4th day later; 100% of the seed are germinating (great job Ron). I transferred 12-each to 2 seed-starting 12-pacs. Another strategy to help reduce any stress from loss of seedlings. Sometime tomorrow I plan to plant the remainder, outdoors, in an area I've pre-prepared to receive them. I will be planting them in a somewhat sheltered area, just behind my apiary, but on the south side. I will plant them in 3 rows, with each row consisting of a heavy hitter plant adjacent to a sea island red plant, and vice-versa, with each of the two varieties surrounded by plants of the opposite variety. It should be easier to track each plant this way, and determine which plant were which parent. Each plant will be in a particular row and a particular number in the row. Of course this first batch of hybrid seed, will be used to produce the initial F1 generation. If genetics is correct, then I expect to see, that if the F1 plants are grown from HHxSIR or SIRxHH, it should make little difference and most all plants of this F1 generation, should have the characteristics I'm looking for and be nearly identical. Of course, if I were making a hybrid variety, like Jambalaya; I would be finished. But I'll need to make lots of seed, backcrossing the F1 plants with themselves and each other, then grow out lots of the F2 plants, and this is where many of those will likely die, young. I'll also need to continue crossing the new, "strain in development", selecting for parents that have the target traits, saving seed only from them - eliminating those that don't. Saving those seed, then repeating the process, through the F3, F4, F5, F6 . . . Basically, until I'm satisfied that most anytime I self-pollinate or cross-pollinate one of my new strain, with itself (sibling cross) - all progeny will have a very strong resemblance to each other.
And, just-in-case I'll try to store/bank some seed, along the way; just so heavyhitterokra's signature quote of Ronald Reagan doesn't come too close to home.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 21, 2023 14:28:59 GMT -6
Tucson,
That sounds like a lot of fun!
I'm not sure why the National minimum seed germination rate for okra is only 50%. I've never experienced a rate less than 90% here. My seeds this year tested out to 96% germination rate. If ever you need more seeds just holler. I've got lots more of them here.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Mar 22, 2023 22:41:34 GMT -6
I was being cautious, last year, those HH I started late were from a packet I purchased from Baker Creek, so I wouldn't need to waste any that I received directly from you. I tried growing them and a few AfricanX, plus 2 Sea Island Red, trying to see if I might get the ball rolling - even late in the season. The javalena put a stop to that.
So, besides, these 56 sprouts, I still have 4 - 50 seed pkts as backup/reserve. Today I finished preparing and planting my initial breeding site. In my front yard is a garden area between my apiary and my small area of nearly undisturbed nature. Eighteen inches apart, on a staggered row, I dug 28, 18 inches deep holes, with a post-hole-digger (clamshell), 28 holes. Of course I had to thoroughly moisten them, as I went, then I mixed some of the soil, with compost and backfilled the holes with the mixture, mixing some organic fertilizer blend into the top 4-5 inches. I premoistened everything, then placed 2 pre-sprouted HH seedlings near the center of each planting hole, covered then with 1/2 inch of the original sandy-loam and watered everything again, thoroughly. I had pre-labeled each planting hole which is to contain an HH plant, every other hole will contain SIR plants, as crosses between these two varieties will be my source material, going forward.
In the next generation (the F1), an initial screening step will be to only grow presumably F1 plants, so any seedlings without red pigment, will be a cull. They are either only of HH origins or a chance mutation, since we know that red pigment is a dominant trait.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Mar 23, 2023 7:04:35 GMT -6
In this process, if I can grow enough of the F1 to find any abberations, I'll be looking for any plants that are darker red than their sibblings - I'll be choosing them. I'll also be working to keep as many HH basic traits, as I can. I'll probably include my other acre (used to be my mother's - now occupied by my brother and his sons), 18 miles farther north, to grow out more F1 and later generations. Help to locate any advantageous (darker red) variations, meanwhile I can offer him any surplus to sell at his local farmer's market, as incentive to tend them.
Of course I have a few different environmental factors to contend with, here in Tucson, Arizona than exist over there in Oklahoma. Hopefully, that will be a good thing - we will see. First, I will need to grow them successfully, and I've had some pretty good success growing various okra vareties, in pots, at my present location and, in the ground at an earlier location - where I actually grew Clemson Spineless. Those CS plants, grew and produced well, but they never branched, and production was, though good for a typical okra, nothing like HH production.
Today, for my local plantings, I plan to create a dedicated drip irrigation circuit, with adjustable emitters for each plant. The SIR seed were soaking last night, today I will put them on paper towels in a ziploc. Just-in-case I sowed many more than I need, and today a backup supply of SIR seed is to be delivered. Wouldn't be very good if I only manage to grow a crop of one parent and not the other. All the possible vagaries sure make that Ronald Reagan quote all the more poignant.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Mar 23, 2023 7:26:05 GMT -6
I just had a curious thought; I wonder what advantage the red pigment has when it comes to natural selection. Could it make the plants less obvious to grasshopper's?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 23, 2023 19:14:00 GMT -6
Last year, I found out by accident that grasshoppers don't like okra much. Their mouth parts get mucked up in the slime and they move on. Last year we had enough grasshoppers to completely strip our apple trees and our grass, but they avoided the okra unless there was nothing else left to eat.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Mar 25, 2023 22:25:15 GMT -6
Of course my entire project, won't even get a proper start, until I can produce that F1 seed. I'm leaning strongly, towards using SIR, 80% or more, the male parent, and the HH, 20% or less, the male parent. In other words; have my HH plants carry most of the seed, which will comprise the F1 generation in 2024. I'm thinking it might be easier for the HH plants, as the female parents, to pass their HH genes to the F1. I'm going to do some, the other way, just-in-case. After all, it is possible that if SIR were the female parent, they could magnify the HH (paternal genes), making the F1 even more like HH than crosses with HH as the maternal parent.
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