Sweeter Chard Breeding Project

[bower]

A few years ago, my farmer friend grew sugar beets, and discovered that the greens were really good eatin, mild and tender. She gave me some thinnings and I potted them up and had greens all winter which were very nice. I didn't manage to get seed from the plants the following year as they were slow to bolt, so I bought a packet of OP sugar beet from Pinetree. These were just as tender as the last. I also had seeds of a big yellow chard that was especially mild and tasty, which came from Bright Lights at the farm - I dug it up at the end of season and kept it over winter in the greenhouse to set seeds. And I had "Rhubarb chard", a smaller plant with dark red stems, which I got from Linda (thanks, @Labradors )!! So why not grow all three and see if they would cross, I may get some sweeter chard. So that's what I did. I kept all three over winter, and then put them outdoors together in spring 2020 hoping pollinators would do the job.

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[bower]

I found out the color is dominant in the beet family, so in order to see if any crosses came through, I grew the seed from the sugar beet in 2021. I started lots of seedlings hoping to find a couple of red and yellow, and in fact there were a lot of yellow, a couple of red, and quite a few with a pink splash at the base. I wasn't sure if there would be variation in the F1 themselves to select for taste, so I planted them all out fairly crowded, planning to do some taste testing to choose which ones I should overwinter for F2 seeds.
Well before I got around to making the selection, along came Rosebud with her new twins.
They took a great interest in the little chards and (for once) just nibbled the tops that they liked, without actually tearing them out. I was surprised to see that they were quite picky. There were plants untouched, and then there were happily munched ones.
Since moose have a fantastic sense of taste and smell, I decided to keep the ones they liked.
I potted up some good examples of the colors, red yellow and pink splash, and kept them over winter for the F2 seeds.

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[bower]

Here they are going to seed in May 2022.

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[bower]

I started F2 seeds this winter under the lights, with the plan to taste select while they are small.
I have done the colors now - tasting them raw. And it is pretty amazing, the range of tastes in these. I don't like astringent and I'm not looking for bitter, so any hint of that got a reject. One or two were really mouth puckering - I learned to spit them out at the first hint of astringency. But now I have a nice group of plants which I think have a really interesting range of tastes, which are in 4 inch pots and will grow bigger and continue to check out the taste as they get bigger.
And @Julianna is going to grow them and get her boys to help with taste testing as well! So we should really have some fun with this.

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[Whwoz]

@Bower Now just need to see if Rosebud likes them

[Julianna]

This is going to be fun! I already have high hopes.

[Danny]

Good luck and wishing you great results on your experimental chards . Should get some tasty greens there, most sugar beet greens are very good, even the sugar beets themselves are good for the table when young. Ny grandmother used to pickle sugar beets cut into cubes or french fry slabs sized pieces, both as a B&B and as a dill type. Sometimes in the dill ones, she would mix celeriac roots and sugar beets, all cubed.

Seems like Rosebud and kids are gourmets !

[Cranraspberry]

Those pictures are amazing! And what a fun project.
I was recently listening to a Margaret Roach podcast about Italian plant varieties and they mentioned Verde da Taglio chard - it is smaller, flat leaf with thin stems and supposedly sweeter than the typical chard we are used to here in the US. I just ordered some seeds to try.

[DriftlessRoots]

This is a great undertaking! It makes me think of the Badger Flame beets bred here in WI that don’t have the earthy beet flavor.

[PlainJane]

This is so exciting @Bower!

[bower]

@DriftlessRoots that's very interesting. I was really surprised to find that 'beety' taste doesn't depend on color.
The majority of the F2 plants are 'half yellow' or 'half red', based on the shades of stalks (the roots all look darkly colored when they first sprout). So I wondered if that helped to strip away in many of them, the strong 'beety' or 'chardy' tastes, and made it possible to taste all the variation in the greens and stalks. It's just not as easy to disentangle complex tastes which are quite strong.
I am struggling with vocabulary to describe all the tastes, and I'm sure Julianna will help with that!
In the characteristic taste profile, I'm thinking that 'earthy' is a base taste; 'beety' is earthy + fruity; 'chardy' is earthy + fruity + strong greens.
But there was so much variation in the greens taste, which came through when those stronger tastes were absent or light. And I really don't have much in the way of words to describe, so just making it up for the most part.
@Cranraspberry one of my F2's is like the Verde di Taglio with thin green stalks and a very mild taste - probably closest to the Sugar Beet parent.
And thank you @Danny for the voice of experience! I didn't know Sugar Beet was also good for the table... Cool!

[bower]

I started with a full 1020 tray about 72 seeds, some failed to germinate or got culled, but then some also produced multiple seedlings. The cell packs were too shallow for them to get big enough to taste, so I potted the survivors up deeper. The most vigorous got tasted first and at first I didn't know how I would keep track of who had been tasted, until I found this little pack of swizzles in the party drawer. I scribbled my notes and drank lots of water in between, and I got through ~ 32 plants in two rounds of tasting, digging out the keepers and put into 4 inch pots so I can harden them off before they get bigger digs. Then I went through the last 26 colored stems on a third day and got a few more keepers. I typed up my taste notes for the first 32, so you can see how I tried to describe in the moment. I ended up with 18 selected plants out of 58 to grow bigger and taste at leisure, will have to see if my first impressions hold up. You can see there are some real spitters as well as delicious ones, so that should give you some idea, Julianna, of how many to sow to pick as many good ones as you want to grow up. About one in three turned out to be good to keep.

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[Labradors]

What a FUN project Bower! I love that it's moose-approved!

I had completely forgotten about Verde de Taglio until I discovered an unopened packet which I had bought from Seeds of Italy. Then I remembered that I had compared it to Perpetual Spinach as they were both very similar (and milder than chard). Guessing that V. de T. won out, I will be planting some this season..... BTW I think that both these varieties can be eaten raw in salads.


Linda

[Julianna]

I have the green italian chard and i love it! I will probably sow a couple of bins of chard and cull early as well.

[bower]

There are two types of bitter in chard, by the way.
The one I call "astringent" is I believe the oxalate content. Really not nice, and it's noticeable the sugar beet parent had been selected not to have it!
The other bitter is apparently caused by saponins. Not all saponins are bad tasting bitters - the triterpene saponins can be a pleasant bitter, but some may be 'soapy' tasting as well and, well, nobody wants to eat soap. Not even moose!
I can hardly wait for my tasty ones to get big enough to munch on.

[rxkeith]

i will be watching with interest.

great uncle steve used to grow chard in his garden. my dad couldn't eat it on account of the strong flavor.
it might have been thick stemmed like fordhook. that seemed to be the only one available way back when
before rhubarb chard, bright lights, and some thin stem varieties became available. i think i recall hot weather
will increase the oxalate content making the chard more bitter. so, maybe do temperature comparisons on flavor
too if you want to add another line of info. or not.



keith

[Tormato]

A great project, Bower.

And, having Julianna's children, who will give the MOST honest opinion, is clearly the way to go.

My own project can't get off the ground. I have Verde de Taglio seeds collecting dust for a year, while I try to find MacGregor's Favorite to make a cross with.

If there is ever any spare F1, F2 , seed, etc... from your project, you know how to find me.

And, where am I going to sow the 1,000+ seeds of Diverse/Perennial/Multiplier shallots? I'd better do a test germination, first, to see what I've gotten into.

[Julianna]

A great project, Bower.

And, having Julianna's children, who will give the MOST honest opinion, is clearly the way to go.

My own project can't get off the ground. I have Verde de Taglio seeds collecting dust for a year, while I try to find MacGregor's Favorite to make a cross with.

If there is ever any spare F1, F2 , seed, etc... from your project, you know how to find me.

And, where am I going to sow the 1,000+ seeds of Diverse/Perennial/Multiplier shallots? I'd better do a test germination, first, to see what I've gotten into.

I made little frittata bites yesterday and Zain loved them and Adam the older one said it was gross. Then later on that day he asked me what would.it taste like if you mixed milk and diet pepsi. I said "gross" to which he replied "oh like your frittata?" So he can be the ultimate judge.

[bower]

I agree 100% @Tormato that children's sense of taste is a big plus. We always get them involved in the tomato tasting here too.
WRT the DPM shallots, if your germination is good and still have lots left after sowing, I think you can freezer store them for future reference. Not that you'll need them if your first sowing does what it should, as they sure produce seed in the second year. The diversity I got with iirc around 70 surviving seedlings was enough! If anything goes awry and you don't see the range you were hoping for, I can always save you a few LABELED unmixed up seeds of each type instead.
WRT the F2 SugarBeetxChard, you know, I do happen to have a good bit left over. Even if I keep some back to sow next winter (because the selected plants won't produce seed until next summer) there are still plenty to share. More the merrier, I say. I was planning to give these directly to friend's farm but since I've done the first screening I realize it would be useless for farm production, when 2/3 (roughly) are taste rejects (by my standards anyway). This is the generation where you have to be willing to taste a few spitters to get to the goal. I can parcel post you enough to share with other adventurers on your side of the border, in case anyone else in this thread is up for the challenge? And I'll still have some to letter mail to any Canadians or other volunteers. You know the postal drill. A word of warning to participants, you have to find a way to overwinter your selected plant(s) to get next generation seeds. They are plenty hardy for my unheated greenhouse but YMMV for overwintering outdoors, depending on location. For some, a houseplant would do it.

[bower]

@rxkeith yes you're right, hot weather tends to make them bitter, and it probably is the oxalate. So maybe this will be the ultimate challenge, can any of the selections make it through hot weather without doing that? It would be great if we could have some truly oxalate free. But if not, as little as possible. I have read that you can cut off the bitter stems from the hot weather, and they will produce non-bitter ones in the cooler weather. But I have also read that the oxalate content tends to increase with the age of the plant. This means that, once you get to overwintering stage for seed, they are not actually producing any palatable food, which is a drawback. I'm guessing or hoping it will vary but pretty well resigned that the second year plants are only good for seeds.
Bolt resistance is another heat related issue. Julianna has lots of bolting in her climate so that will be a good test opportunity.
My winter sowing, in a cool damp basement, was a chance to select for seedling vigor in typical northern spring conditions. And I had a few go down with damping off, so that got selected against too.
The rhubarb chard is a short plant, so I think we may get some differences in stature as well. The ones I suspect will be shorter, I've set aside for my Mom's garden and lesser appetite, while the biggest most vigorous plants are future farm material.
There is another thing in my mind, which could be selectable in a future generation, and that is root size shape and sugar content. It would be the ultimate homestead vegetable, if you had a chard that produced all summer and you could then harvest the roots to make sugar. IDK how likely I will ever make sugar, but you never know when that might be just the asset you wanted. Why not, if it's possible.
So, yeah, there are quite a few interesting possibilities to think about for selection. You in?