Citizen Seed Trial Update

Posted on Friday, 4 September 2020 under Citizen Seed Trial

In this year’s Citizen Seed Trial, we are comparing 3 established varieties with 3 breeding populations. We are looking at the Soleil Orange cherry tomato vs. a F3 dwarf population (original cross between a Mexico Midget X Summertime Green); Dazzling Blue kale vs. Winter Rainbow; and a Blacktail Mountain watermelon vs. a breeding population of 22x varieties. Participants are using a ranking system out of 5 stars for each evaluation criterion and are comparing the varieties of the same crop against each other. Participants are evaluating the performance of germination, vigour, earliness, winter hardiness, pest resistance, and more. This gives us and the participants an idea of what traits to select for when breeding and which varieties people prefer to grow. The Citizen Seed Trial is also (and mostly) a tool for backyard gardeners to practice growing food, saving seeds, and trying their hand at plant breeding.

This picture is from the Blacktail Mountain variety and the rest are from the 22x cross-breeding population.

This image is Dazzling Blue Kale which is a lacinato style of kale. Even though this is an established population, we are still seeing some variation in the mid rib. The plant breeder has a choice to make during the selection process. Do they want to save seed from both that will result in higher variation of the mid-rib or do they want to select for a uniform midrib colouration?

This image is Dazzling Blue Kale which is a lacinato style of kale. Even though this is an established population, we are still seeing some variation in the mid rib. The plant breeder has a choice to make during the selection process. Do they want to save seed from both that will result in higher variation of the mid-rib or do they want to select for a uniform midrib colouration?

This is the Winter Rainbow breeding population and you can clearly see a lot of difference in their appearance.

This is the Winter Rainbow breeding population and you can clearly see a lot of difference in their appearance.

This is from the Dwarf tomato population and we are seeing variation in colour even on one plant. When a breeder has selected for a particular colour, it typically takes seven generations to stabilize and this population is only in its third generation.

Here in the stabilized Soleil Orange cherry tomato, we see a lot more uniformity in the fruit.

Here we see harvest fruit from the Dwarf population, again seeing a great deal of variation in colour as well as fruit shape.