Resurrecting the old brussels sprouts
I will
start to breed brussels sprouts next year. I will begin by growing
several open pollinated varieties together and let them cross
freely.
There
is something about brussels sprouts that not many people know.
I
was in germany and i visited Ludwig Watschong, who has sadly passed
away, and we walked through his garden.
He
showed me all kinds of amazing vegetables and he told me that in the
past the old varieties of brussels sprouts used to ripen from the
bottom up the stalk gradually.
This
trait was bred out of them because market farmers wanted to be able
to harvest all sprouts in one patch of field to be then able to clear
the field and plant something else. Having brussels sprouts over a
longer period of time was achieved by planting early, mid-season and
late-ripening varieties.
I
don't know when all this happened or much else about all this.
But
Ludwig said, and this is obvious, that it makes way more sense for
the backyard gardener or the person wanting to be self-sufficient, to
grow the old style brussels sprouts that ripen gradually along the
stem from the bottom up towards the top as the plant grows.
If
anyone knows of such or has such varieties please let me know.
Also,
for the creation of a perennial brussels sprout this trait seems to
be much better suited. However i just can't imagine a perennial
brussels sprout plant.
I
kind of doubt that such a thing would be possible.
Maybe
a type of plant that constantly grows out new branches with brussels
sprouts on,
but
i have trouble imagining a stem where you just keep on harvesting
brussel sprouts from.
Nature
has its limitations.
So
the idea behind this project is to resurrect the old style brussels
sprouts that used to give less, but over a much longer period of
time.
And
yes if such a plant would have been "trained" not to flower
or crossed with perennial kale and selected,
a
kale-type, perennial brussels sprout seems very possible.
But
that is not my objective here for now. I just want to try by creating
a landrace to make the old genes resurface so that my brussels
sprouts will ripen gradually like i explained.
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