PERMABREED

Sorbopyrus. My two grafted sorbopyrus trees survived and grew quite well for now this year. The varieties are Shipova and Tatarka. My idea is to cross the two and to breed new varieties from seed. I grafted them on to quince C dwarfing rootstock and planted both young trees together in a 100 liter container in order to constrict the roots. Both these measures are said to be helpful to induce quicker flowering. Since they are fairly big now i decided to give them a larger protection, because we have no dogs and a lot of deer. Sorbopyrus is known to take a long time to flower. Sometimes 15 to 20 years on vigorous rootstock. Hopefully these plants will flower more quickly.

 Brussel sprouts. My brussel sprouts project is starting to take shape. I sowed seeds of 7 different brussel sprout varieties. Darkmar, Hild's Ideal, Balbriggan Sprouts, Dublin Cropper, Irish Glacier, Groninger and Rubine. The aim is to create a landrace and to select for plants that give sprouts over a long period of time gradually ripening from the bottom upwards. Luckily i planted quite a few plants of all the seven varieties because i had to replace a lot of them that were eaten. My goal is to have at least one of each of the seven varieties to set seed to create a genetically diverse landrace.

 Outdoor tomatoes. I planted 6 tomato plants from the seeds i saved from the crimson crush F2 last year. I had bad germination so only 6 plants grew and i sowed more seeds later. The six plants are looking well for now. They are flowering and there is no sign of mildew for now. My first six outdoor tomato plants this year. The second batch of seeds i sowed germinated much better and i have many more baby plants to plant out soon. These plants were sown from seeds of 3 different resistant plants of the crimson crush F2.

 Christophs Apfel. My little tree lost all its fruit. So i won't be able to grow seeds from it next year. I don't know why it dropped all its fruit. Did i water it too much? It's a bit frustrating but otherwise it's growing well so i will have a lot of grafting material to multiply it next year.

 Mauka (mirabilis expansa) I received 3 mauka varieties recently. I already grew the mauka blanca variety a few years ago, but i lost it. This time i really want to try and grow them with more success. My idea eventually is to get them to make seeds and to try and grow them from seed. If i can manage to get 2 varieties to flower and set seed at the same time there might be a chance of cross-pollination. From what i read mauka grows true to type, meaning seeds of the white mauka will always make identical white plants. The only way of creating new varieties therefore is to try and cross them. Mauka blanca cuttings Mauka roja cuttings Mauka cipotato. This variety was grown from seed by Frank van Keirsbilck from Belgium. The cutting is not looking so great. I hope it will pull through and grow.