Blog Post #7: Selection Goals

I am aiming to plant about 400 carrots so I am going to start saving about 500 carrots from the first year of production.  Within the first month of growth, I will select for plant vigor by rouging out any smaller seedlings.  At harvest, I will have the opportunity to select for color, size, forking, cracking, smoothness, flavor, and bolt resistance.  I liked how in the webinar they had lined up a bunch of specimen from one variety to create a spectrum and remember to not select too narrowly within that spectrum.  This is the technique I will use for the length, smoothness, bluntness of the tip, and shape.  Researching this variety it looks like it is mostly categorized as and Imperator type carrot, however, some of the sites look at it also as a Nantes.  So I am going to take that into consideration when looking at the shape and look for a rounded end but not too blunt.  I won't be looking for the most slender of carrots, rather the in-between round and slender.  I'm aiming for 6-8 inches in length. I will be rouging out any plants that show any forking and lateral roots, cracking, as well as any plants that have prematurely bolted in their first season without producing a nice carrot. I would like to have deep yellow coloring and will cut into about half of them to analyze the internal coloring scheme, as well as take a taste test and rate the sweetness.  As the carrots grow in their second year I will again have the opportunity to rogue out any plants that seem to be sluggish to grow, and who do not produce as uniform seed umbels.

I will need about 200 beets to go into storage for next year's seed production.  In the first year of planting I will again be selecting for plant vigor by rouging out any late germinating beets, and any beets that do not look as healthy.  Throughout the season I will be thinning out beets based on the leaf color and size.  We want to have nice large vibrant green leaves for Golden Beets.  The leaves will be large and more heart shaped.  At harvest during the first year, I will first be taking out any beets that roots have visible scarring or cracking.  I will consider size and shape.  Using the spectrum of sizes I will aim to save back a variety of sizes with-in the middle of the spectrum.  I am looking for dark orange/yellow roots that have a kind of shine to them, and don't have a lot of scabbing.  When analyzing the shape of the root I will again set up the spectrum of roots and look for the ones that fall in the middle average.  Golden Beets tend to be In between Round and Toy Top shape, which I will keep in the back of my mind.  In the second year, I again will have a chance to weed out any plants that are slow to start re-growing and show sluggish characteristics.  As well, I will be able to choose plants that go to seed early on and have strong vigorous flowering characteristics.

Spinach will be a nice change of pace because it only takes one year to produce seed.  I can start weeding out any plants that show a delay in germinating and plant growth.  I am looking for nice large leaf growth early on with the first set of greens.  The second more savoyed set of leaves I will again be looking for large leaves and I want to select for a broad spectrum of savoyed leaf characteristics.  I will be culling any plants that want to bolt right away or show any signs of disease or distress.  I want to select for really dark lush spinach.  I will be considering seed production as well and will be looking for a uniform seed production as well as seed size.