Bolters in my carrots

[Medbury Gardens]

The Canterbury province where i live is one of the largest carrot and radish seed grow areas in the world, but why do us locals have put up with only been able buy such inferior seed as whats in the photo (unless we grow our own).

I planted a 3x1 metre bed of Manchester Table from Yates seeds(Australia &NZ Ltd), whats in the photo is about 10% of what i have pulled out so far and wont be the last i would think.

The way that the home vegetable growing market is growing recently world wide,these large seed companies can`t keep selling these poor quality floor sweepings much longer.Is this a similar problem that other down under folks have experienced from such large seed companies like Yates?

[LenaBeanNZ]

Hi Richard, I had the same bad luck with Yates Manchester Table. I recently put in a row of Yates Egmont Gold, will see how they go, they are still to small to tell. Touchon always does well for me, Carnival brand.

My favourite at the moment is Purple Haze, I brought the seeds back from Germany earlier this year. I only had about 10 bolters out of a 2.5m long row, sown in april. I put a new row in last night, will let some go to flower and save some seeds eventually, when Ive used up all 3 packets.
Have you grow PH before?

Lena

[Medbury Gardens]

LenaB Ive never heard of touchon and Carnival but thats b`c i dont normaly buy carret seed as i have grown my own line of seed for the last 25 years.

i bought that packet of Manchester table last season as my own seed wasn`t ready but never planted it till this season along with a black carret (Black Spanish)mixed within the same block.Dont know if some the bolters are the B S or not as you cant tell by the white roots.

No i havn`t grown Purple haze before.
Have you grown carret seed before?

[Tomaat]

Lena,

Is purple haze an OP carrot ? I didn't try it as I thought it was an Hybrid (??).

MG, the Black spanish carrot is a winter type (main crop), it need cool to swell up. It will grow to 15 to 18cm long (2.5 to 3 cm thick). It is said to be free from carrot fly, sow them from late summer (for autumn/winter harvest) !

I have also Autumn king (orange colour), very reliable carrot !

[LenaBeanNZ]

Richard, I have grown carrots since I was a kid, but never tried to save seed before. I will be from now on though. Im learning to save seed from most of my veges.

I always thought it was OP until right now, I looked it up on DG plantfiles again, and it is actually a hybrid. Disapointment. I must have got it mixed up with another variety.

Can you recommend an OP purple variety?

[Medbury Gardens]

Sorry Nevi i planted all that Black Spanish seed within that bed of Manchester Table,bugger, a bit too early a. We have started eating that bed about two weeks ago,probably why i haven`t found any B S so far.
If you want to grow an OP LenaB try looking through the Kings seed catalogue, they have White Belgium,Scarlet Nantes.Koanga Institute have Akaroa Gold,Wanganui Giant and my carrot that i grow for them, Benhorn.
Theres a few things to take into account when growing seed,are there other seed growers in your area, (hobby growers or commecial) are there road side wild carrots within 2kms of you, (cross contamination) you need to have a minimum of 50 flowering plants long term,less maybe for a couple of generations only, any longer and the vigour starts to diminish in time.
In the winter i dig up the season crop looking for only the healthiest, good shape and size.These are then replanted back in for spring flowering
At the moment i have Akaroa Gold growing for next years seed production.

[LenaBeanNZ]

50 carrot plants for seeds, thats alot! I thought 10-20 would be plenty, but I was just guessing. Do you mean the vigour of the seeds, or the vigour of the strain in general starts to diminish?
Would bagging the blossoms work to prevent cross contamination?
I guess that means more than one carrot variety flowering in the same garden at one time would be a problem.
I know carrots are biennial, thats why autumn plantings often yield alot of bolters. I thought I might just let some of those bolters go for it. But... The reason you let the plant grow for two whole seasons, is to select the most desirable plants for seed production, am I right? Good idea.
Thanks for your input, information and hints are always welcomed by this young gardener!

[Tomaat]

Lena, The black Spanish carrot is an heirloom (OP) winter carrot, it has dark purple peel and the inside/flesh is ranging from white to dark purple, very sweet and cryspy! I strongly recommend it!
I unfortunately have only small amount of seeds left...sorry!

Richard, sorry to hear that, I don't have much seeds to share, have been giving them away/swap since september and they are the most frequently asked from my seed list...I will try to save some seeds (again) and will let you know! The seeds I save from this year were mostly molded due to not dry enough and because of moving, I forget about them until it was too late .
I am planning to save BS seeds again but don't know how yet as we got wild carrots growing nearby in the field too which means cross pollination chance is very high!
Any advice ?

About the number, 40 carrot should produce a healthy seeds populations but of course the more the better!

[Medbury Gardens]

LenaB i think its ok for you if you where to grow up to three generations but no more though, some will call it genetic bottle necking,You could mix in some out sourced seed to maintain your seed lines diversity.
Its very important that you find out if there are any wild carrots growing in your area,otherwise you will end up having the same bolting problems that i have had with the Manchester Table seed.Who ever grew that seed for Yates had wild carrots in his or her area and thats the part i think is poor is that a large company like Yates didn`t insure that there seed growers where growing in a wild carrot free area.
I will post this now as i need to go, back later.

[Medbury Gardens]

Tomaat,if you are looking to grow your own carrot seed and you have wild carrot in close proximity you are going to need pollen nets,how they are managed im a bit unsure, hopefully others here may have some info.

I`m quite fortunate to live in a near wild carrot free area,all i have is one roadside patch about 2kms away that every summer i spray out,this patch should be eradicated in the next year or so, i hope,and is probably far enough away that contamination is highly unlikely but if it were to be eradicated, the nearest is about 16 kms from here

[orflo]

This Spanish black carrot has a bit of a reputation for early bolting, some even say it's a 'one-year seed-to-seed carrot', but I have my doubts about that. Yours look definitely as crosses with the wild carrot.
Now, how much carrots do you need to get a good genetic base? I've seen numbers from 30 to 200 and more. The broader the base, the better, so 30 is an absolute minimum, better 50 or even 100 (more is really lots of seeds, they're quite prolific seed-producers anyway). Do select on the form you really want , for instance you want straight and very long, so select only straight and very long carrots for seed-production. Isolation from other flowering carrots, including the wild one (this one is easily recognized, it has a little black spot in the middle of the white flowers) is indeed essential and hard to do, carrots are easily crossed. Depending on the type of pollinators, you need a distance between two varieties of 200 metres to 2 kms!!! You can cover up the carrots you want completely with insect screens, as you mentioned, Richard, and you can introduce pollinators inside the nets. Bees are said to be bad pollinators, but other insects work fine (sorry, don't know the English name for these: 'zweefvliegen' Nevi, help!!!). Another option is to use a fine (paint) brush and pollinate things yourself, just make sure no other insects enter the 'net house', or you could have crossings. And yet, another option could be (I've never tried it) to stimulate the selected carrots for a very early growth (in the greenhouse, or cover them with some plastic), thus making sure they flower early , way ahead of other surrounding carrots. But it seems wild carrots always flower over here, except in the middle of the winter...I only use the first (and sometimes second, if I need lots of seeds) flowering stalks, I prune the rest.

[Tomaat]

Errr Frank...I can't help you with zweefvliegen as it means gliding to me... could it mean any insect that fly around (such as fly ?). This year, the fly has been pollinating my black spanish carrot too (and also small wasp).

To prevent bolting on Black Spanish carrot, you have to grow them from late summer (sow from end of july to august), this work best for me!
I sow some small amount from 10 August this year and only now they start to swell and the colour turn darker by the day. No nooooo I haven't pull mine but since they are in a pot, I did have a peep (by removing small omount of soil under the stem).
Last year, I only start harvesting them around december to January. They stayed in the raised bed until needed, no need to worry about storage.

I will try to collect seeds again by netting and hand pollinating but even 30 carrot plants sounds a lot for me, I might just cut away all smaller flower heads again so that they produce bigger seeds.

Frank Have you try "Lobberichter" winter yellow carrot ?
I am thinking of trying it BUT in NL this yellow one is advertise as an animal feed carrot, does it mean something wrong with the taste ?

[Medbury Gardens]

I`m starting to think now are those bolters Mancheaster Table or the B S? ,if it were the B S i should have the colour in the roots surely,unless your seed source Nevi had been contaminated with the wild carrot ??
If you do grow a few for seed dig them up and make sure that the colour is right before replanting for seed.
One idea I had yesterday was that maybe i could grow a large block of the B S seed every so often and send some back,im also certain that the bolting tendency could be reduced through selective breeding of which i`m currently working on with some other heirloom vegtables varieties.
I plant these as early as i can to expose the bolters and sometimes by the end of the season i may end up with 1-2% of the original plantings left. Planting large numbers is the key to this selecting process.

[Tomaat]

The Black spanish start their colour (on the tuber) with pale purple and as it grow bigger the colour intense turning close to purple-black.

I have not seen any bolster in BS so far, it is my second year growing them but I always sowed them late summer for winter harvest!
The seeds I sent you are from a reputed vendor, I didn't sent you mine as it was not dry yet at that stage.
The BS carrot I grow now are also from the same vendor's seed (same batch as I sent you). So far, they all come true to purple-dark colour.
I will take a picture when we harvest some of it.

[Tomaat]

Richard,

You said planting large number to select but how many plant is large number ? sorry to be thick by asking.

I usually grow things in small scales just for 2 of us to eat, if it need a lot (say a 200 plant) for selection, I might back off readily and get back to my comfort zone of buying the ready seeds.